Audiophilepure

https://www.hifinews.com/content/auralic-aries-g22-music-libraryserver

Upsampling low-quality source material can be tricky, but when streaming MP3 renderings of Luka Bloom’s The Platinum Collection [Rhino Records; 8122-79993-3] via Amazon Music, the Aries G2.2’s processing came to the fore. Even though I was playing lossy 192kbps-encoded files, the semi-acoustic guitar on ‘Dreams In America’ or the fiddle on ‘You Couldn’t Have Come At A Better Time’ sounded pretty close to excellent. Listening to the same tracks from local files on a NAS was more satisfying, as dynamics and very high-frequency detail sounded more authentic. Nonetheless, the Aries G2.2 offered a very good performance despite the lacklustre file quality.

Ultimately, the mission of a digital transport is twofold: ensuring you can find and play your music with as little hassle as possible, and delivering a digital feed to whatever DAC you’ve chosen in the best quality. Logically, this last requirement means an ideal digital transport is transparent and lets the rest of your music system get on with it. This is what the Aries G2.2 sets out to achieve, and succeeds – unless you wish differently.

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