This is my experience as well. Best sound I have experienced is Aurender N50 over dual-AES to Rossini APEX, playing the Aurender Conductor app. Pretty close is UPnP controlled by JPlay with files served by Minimserver. Behind this is Roon RAAT streaming and USB audio from a source - similar level of quality.
Thanks for the detailed info.
I havenāt tried the N50. Is the sound a great jump from the N30?
Okay, Miguel, based on your experiences, I canāt resist sharing a few thoughts of my own.
Iām the proud owner of a Vivalidi Apex DAC, and I use it with an Aurender N50.
I use two Shunyata Omega AES cables and one Omega Clock cable to connect the two devices.
The N50 can be used in many ways, but my preference is the JPlay app with Minimserver.
So Iāve enabled the UPnP option on the N50.
That already sounded great, and then I noticed that an additional option had become available for the N50: the N50 SFP Optical Module.
It replaces the N50ās standard network port.
To cut a long story short, hereās how itās connected:
Internet Service Provider Modem > Netgear Router > Adot MC-2 Media Converter > connected directly to the N50 SFP Optical Module via an Adot optical cable (10 meters).
Result: a clear improvement across the board.
Then, after upgrading the power supplies for all these products with reasonably priced Ifi Audio Elite and NeoTech power cables, the sound was truly amazing.
Actually, I thought, āThe Vivaldi Apex DAC sounds absolutely fantasticāwhy didnāt I do this sooner?ā
The DAC also makes every adjustment very audible, and I thought, āIt canāt get any better than this, can itā¦?ā
Until I installed my new Shunyata Everest-X Power Conditioner two weeks agoā¦
It was as if all the clouds in the sky had disappeared and the musicians were standing right in my roomāamazing!!
Of course, itās fine, but right now Iām really not looking forward to a firmware update for the Vivaldi DAC, haha.
FWIW, hereās my recent experience with an Aurender W20SE in direct comparison to the Vivaldi Upsampler Plus.
For years, I was very satisfied with my W20SE, connected via dual AES to a Vivaldi Apex DAC. I really doubted whether the Upsampler could offer a substantial improvement. Ultimately, my curiosity won, and I recently purchased a Vivaldi Upsampler Plus.
Iām very pleasantly surprisedāthe outcome has exceeded my expectations by a wide margin. In my system, the Upsampler outperforms the W20SE in every aspect of sound reproduction, and it does so with flying colours.
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I reviewed the N50 for Stereophile. I have not tried the N30.
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Interesting. I use an SFP connection to an Aurender NH10 switch, then ethernet to the N50.
At first, I also had a switch, and then a Shunyata Omega Ethernet cable connected to the N50. Everyone seems to want to put a switch in every link. In my experience, it doesnāt sound any better. Fun fact: the Ethernet cables from the modem to the router and from the router to the Adot are just standard Cat6a cables costing 3.50 euros per meter. Streaming from Qobuz sounds great to me now. Itās also strange that Aurender doesnāt list the modules on their own website. But here it is: https://www.moremusic.nl/aurender/aurender-N50-modules.html
It is always āinterestingā to see new comers to this forum having their very first post to promote a brand new device/software/whatever they claim to be a MUST-HAVE combined with ātheirā dCS productā¦
The Eversolo T10 is barely available since a month.
BTW. Interesting as well to see Adrian Law from Audio Excellence Canada, who sells both dCS and Eversolo, judging in a YouTube video dedicated to the T10 that the internal Streamer of the Bartok is āmuch more refinedā than the T10ā¦
My two cents.
Erwan
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What he said 
This whole thread reminds me of a recent YouTube video I watched that explains why recent big budget movies look like they were made with film again instead of digital.
Some (many?) people like distortion/grain 
In a nutshell;
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Strongly influenced by the membersā comments, I switched from USB to AES/EBU + BNC connection between the Aurender N20 and Rossini Apex.
I traded my Inakustik Silver Air Reference USB cable with an Inakustik AC-4005 Air power cable after a home demo of the AC-4005, Innuos PhoenixNET switch, and Black Stealth LAN cable for a few days. I am not a cable worshipper, and half of my cables are under $300. The AC-4005 was expanding the soundstage, especially when plugged into the N20 (I switched the bass control knob from max to min of Marten mingus quintet 2 ) Interestingly, with other components like the Rossini, the AC-4005 did not produce such an impact.
I was originally thinking about adding a network switch to usb connection, but the Phoenix switch did not make a meaningful difference. Instead, I was left with the AC-4005, which was a pleasant surprise. I will home-demo a few AES/EBU cables before the future purchase. For the time being, I bought standard Canare cables for AES/EBU and BNC connections, which cost me less than $80.
As anyone knows, when buying an expensive cable a home demo is essential. Sound is very subjective, and a home demo is the only way to avoid a meaninglessly repeated buy-sell cycle, like I just did. Clearly AI (Gemini) did not come up with the right answer for me, rather I was fooled by Gemini when blidingly buying the Inakustik Silver Air Reference USB cable.
Thanks to the members for all the informative comments!
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Started to like the nickname user WalkerUK (who vanished as well) gave me.
Changed my profile accordinglyā¦
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Rob, Your experience mirrors mine. I was using the Aurender W20SE with my Vivaldi Apex DAC and Vivaldi Clock. Swapping out the W20SE for the Vivaldi Upsampler Plus brought about a significant improvement in sound quality. Now I only use the full Vivaldi stack (minus the Transport). There was no change in cabling going from the W20SE to the Upsampler Plus (all Shunyata Omega clock and digital cables).
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