AURALiC ARIES G1 Streamer / Music Server (OPEN)

“The Aries G1 is a beautifully realised streaming platform that delivers the Auralic experience to a variety of DACs at an attractive price. If you have a DAC, this is the most transparent way to add network music streaming to your system and leads the way in this field”

— ED SELLEY, HI-FI CHOICE

“While performance is dependent on the DAC it’s partnered with, there’s genuine sense of the Aries G1 enabling the music to express itself, presenting a gloriously transparent sound regardless of file format or style of recording.”

— AV TECH MEDIA AWARDS 2018/19

The brand-new ARIES G1 Wireless Streaming Transporter from AURALiC carries on the ARIES tradition of skillfully managing the connections between various sources of high-resolution digital music and the rest of your hi-fi system. ARIES G1 streams high-resolution digital music from local network locations, attached USB storage, Internet streaming sources like TIDAL, Qobuz, and Spotify, and Internet Radio — delivering all of it to your current setup over Wi-Fi.

Being based on the DNA of AURALiC’s original ARIES means that the new ARIES G1 benefits from all the features and functionality of Lightning Streaming — the infrastructure that AURALiC developed for its streaming products. On-Device Playlists, Memory Caching, Gapless Playback and Bit-Perfect Multi-Room functionality are all standard Lightning features. For user control, AURALiC’s well-regarded Lightning DS iOS app serves as the system’s primary interface, so users have plenty of browsing and playback features at their fingertips with the G1 as well. The unit is compatible with AirPlay and SongCast, and can function as a RoonReady endpoint. Setup and configuration changes are easier than ever with a recently added, universally accessible web admin.

This upgrade of the original ARIES wouldn’t be possible however, without a lot of tech borrowed from AURALiC’s premium G2 line, and that means a serious boost in performance and functionality. The new version supports streaming resolutions up to DSD512 and PCM 32bit/384K over a home Wi-Fi network for example, and the processing heart of this year’s G1 is, in fact, the same as what’s found in the top-of-the-line model ARIES G2 from last year. That means the Tesla G2 platform with its processor that’s 50% faster than the older ARIES had supported by twice the system memory (2GB) and data storage (8GB), and a giant 1GB memory cache.

Outside, things also bear a similarity to AURALiC’s premium product line, with the ARIES G1 shipping in a chassis that’s inherited its design aesthetics from the G2’s sleek Unity Chassis. The anodized black aluminum enclosure is updated with front panel buttons for easy navigation — or just use the Smart-IR function to assign control to any remote. That front panel borrows the G2’s 4.0-inch true color retina resolution display as well, and inside the G1 you’ll find dual Purer-Power linear power supplies just like in the G2, separating and isolating the processing circuit from the digital audio circuit for less noise and better sound.

Specifications

Streaming File Formats
Lossless: AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC, OGG, WAV and WV
Lossy: AAC, MP3, MQA and WMA

Sampling Rates
PCM: 44.1 kHz to 384 kHz in 32 bit*
DSD: DSD64 (2.8224 MHz), DSD128 (5.6448 MHz), DSD256 (11.2896 MHz), DSD512 (22.57892 MHz)**

Control Software
AURALiC Lightning DS for iOS
AURALiC Lightning DS for web browser (device settings only)
OpenHome compatible control software (BubbleUPnP, Kazoo)
Roon (Roon Core required separately)

Streaming Inputs: Network shared folder, USB Drive, UPnP/DLNA Media Server, native TIDAL and Qobuz Sublime+ streaming, Internet Radio, AirPlay, Bluetooth, Songcast, RoonReady

Audio Outputs
Digital Outputs: AES/EBU, Coaxial, Toslink
USB Output: USB Host to compatible DAC ***

Network
Wired: Gigabit Ethernet
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n/ac Tri-Band WiFi

Power Consumption
Sleep: <10 W
Playback: 50 W at max.

Dimensions – W x D x H: 13.4 x 12.6 x 3.2 in. (34 cm x 32 cm x 8 cm)

Weight: 15.9 lb (7.2 kg)

Finish: Anodized aluminum case in matte black