Aurender, whose name is a combination of the words “Audio” and “Renderer” (“transmitter”), is the next brainchild of engineer-entrepreneur Harry Lee. It originates from a hugely successful company created to market a video player under the TVIX brand, sold primarily in Asia. Harry’s idea of creating a new enterprise was prompted by the simple fact that, in his opinion, there was not a single decent digital audio playback device on the market. And in 2010, Aurender was formed to develop and sell premium audio servers with uncompromising performance and ease of use.
The Korean company Aurender specializes in devices for playing digital content, primarily files. At first glance, there is nothing unusual here, but this is only at first glance. Because in the entire model range there are no DACs in their usual sense at all. And the model range itself may not seem entirely clear at first glance. It’s just that this type of device has not yet fully formed into a separate recognizable class.
The company did not follow the standard path of trying to create an audio server from ready-made computer components. The design of all boards (including power supplies) is developed by Aurender specialists, and the boards themselves are manufactured by trusted partners of the company in Korea, after which they undergo many test cycles. Thus, the consumer receives a single, complete device in which every detail (including power supplies and outputs) has been designed and selected to provide maximum sound quality.
Aurender’s interests lie in the creation of high-quality components for highly specialized markets. Our goal is to produce unique products that are timeless and challenge the market approach, i.e. mass release of fly-by-night products and change for the sake of change itself. As a clever solution to the problem of finding and playing file-based music without the aid of a computer or laptop, Aurender – by simplifying and generalizing the functions of a complex computer-based approach to listening to audio files – has created a combination device in the image of a traditional audio component.
To make using such a device as simple as possible, it was decided to make the software and hardware “invisible” for reasons of stability, reliability and ergonomics. Most audio servers are created with third-party software in mind. Aurender specialists chose a different path – more thorny in terms of time and money, as well as the required knowledge. This approach can be implemented only by starting work from scratch. Avoiding the “IT” method of building audio systems from individual computer components, Aurender focused on developing a complete device – one that would include a dedicated computer and audiophile power supply, low-noise SPDIF and USB audio outputs, an HDD drive and solid-state system memory for file caching. before playback, but would be controlled by a single application that works with settings, preferences, modes and the actual audio files.
The main means of communication with Aurender devices is the Aurender Conductor application. Designed for iPad, it sets a new standard for managing a large music library. Using it, the owner of Aurender will forget about freezes and delays when choosing an album, track or playlist – the application works at lightning speed, has an intuitive, reliable and stable interface. And this is very important when you consider the number of tracks that can be stored on Aurender. Even the model with the smallest hard drive capacity (N100H-2TB) can record more than 3,000 CDs in lossless format!
Built-in support for streaming services such as Tidal, Qobuz, Bugs and Melon (availability depends on the country where the server user lives) is organized so that their content is literally part of your music library – thanks to the ability to create a single database of all files, regardless of whether they are stored on the server’s HDD or received in streaming mode from the World Wide Web. Internet radio is also supported along with AirPlay, which allows you to play any track accessible from your iPad through the Aurender server.
The above considerations formed the ideology on the basis of which the company’s first-born, the S10 audio server, was created. It debuted in July 2011 in San Francisco at the California Audio Show and was quickly recognized by audiophile visitors and professional experts as something completely extraordinary. Not only that, but Chris Connakar named it the 2011 Computer Audiophile Product of the Year on his website computeraudiophile.com.
This recognition forced the company’s engineers to roll up their sleeves, and in the next couple of years it had two new Aurender models – one, the W20, a class above the S10A and the second, the X100L, a class below. Aurender’s product line was now fully “good/better/best” and the company’s reputation began to grow rapidly in audiophile circles by attracting the world’s best distributors and retailers.
In 2015, Aurender America was formed to serve North American high-end dealers, and at the end of that year, a new entry-level model, the N100 server with USB output, was introduced to consumers. This model greatly contributed to the growth of the company’s popularity and sales volume of its equipment, because has prompted many digital audio enthusiasts to switch from their computer to an Aurender audio server. Over the next two years, additional varieties of the N100 were released – the N100H server with 2 TB or 4 TB of memory, and recently the N100C model appeared, equipped, in addition to USB, with a coaxial SPDIF output. The next addition to the company’s server family occurred at the end of 2016 with the start of production of the A10 model. This is the first Aurender audio server to feature an analogue output, a fully MQA compatible DAC and volume control, allowing the A10 to act as a preamplifier in a fully digital audio system.
