As part of AURALiC’s  V7 firmware, there is an important new free update which enable customers to simply add a low cost CD /DVD drive to the USB port on their AURALiC product, and be able to play and rip CD’s to a hard drive, either internal, external or NAS.

Just as with AURALiC’s Lightning file streaming, their CD playback feature uses the same advanced, jitter-reducing Memory Playback technology.

CD Ripping

CD data is first read and compared several times for accuracy into the system cache before playing or ripping. The result is elimination of potentially induced jitter from the transport, cancelling any negative effects from the quality of your chosen CD drive, potentially improving performance beyond what’s offered from high-quality CD players. You can choose to play a CD, rip a CD while playing, or just rip.

While ripping, multiple-stage data verification technology ensures accuracy. This simply means that each data sector is read twice, compared, and then stored if the two “sector reads” match. If a read doesn’t match, the sector is read again eight more times, at a lower speed. After calculating and storing the most accurate reading, the process continues, providing you with the most faithful digital file possible.

Supported AURALiC Products

You will be able to enjoy the CD playback and ripping feature on the following products with firmware 7.0 and above installed:

• ARIES G-series
• ARIES Femto & LE
• ALTAIR G-series
• ALTAIR
• POLARIS

Supported USB Optical Drives

Any USB optical drive that is compatible with a Windows or Mac computer will work with your AURALiC streamer. The optical drive however will need to have an external power supply for proper operation. Most of USB optical drive demands for more than 1.5A/5V power, which is beyond any AURALiC product’s USB power capability. The USB optical drive’s external power supply quality will dramatically affect the playback sound quality due to the fact that noise may be injected into the streamer hardware. AURALiC suggest you buy a good quality external power supply in order to optimize best playback sound quality; an audiophile grade linear power supply unit is highly recommended. If you have a limited budge, AURALiC say you should consider spending more money on the external power supply rather than the USB optical drive itself.

AURALiC say that he following USB optical drives will give superior playback sound quality when used in conjunction with a good quality linear power supply unit:

• Melco D100
• Pioneer X12J-UHD
• ASUS BW-16D1X-U

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