AURALIC North America Inc. and its parent company, AURALIC LIMITED, is introducing the new ALTAIR Streaming DAC. The ALTAIR can act as an easy-to-use Home Music Center with more than 15 input sources including: Streaming Inputs: Network Shared Folder (NAS), USB drive, Internal music storage (optional), uPnP/DLNA media server, TIDAL and Qobuz streaming, Internet Radio, AirPlay, Bluetooth, Songcast and RoonReady; Digital Inputs: AES/EBU, Coaxial, Toslink, USB device to computer, 2 USB host for storage and DAC, RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11b/g/n/ac Tri-Band WiFi.
Xuanqian Wang, AURALiC’s president & CEO, said: “The new ALTAIR is both a high quality streamer and DAC, and was designed based on feedback from dealers for an exceptional yet convenient-to-operate Digital Source unit at an $1,800 - $2,000 price point.
“Some may consider this as a combination of VEGA and ARIES or the upgrade version of ARIES MINI with digital input. However, the ALTAIR is definitely a Line Extension, and not replacing the ARIES MINI, or AURALiC’s award-winning VEGA DAC or ARIES Streamers which represent the very highest level of sound quality.”
The ALTAIR Streaming DAC utilizes AURALiC’s award-winning Lightning technology. Launched in 2014, Lightning is the audio industry’s first streaming technology that supports DXD and Quad-Rate DSD playback through a WiFi network. It also offers several new and advanced features such as Gapless Playback, On-Device Playlist and Multiple-Room functions, as part of AURALiC’s ongoing program of offering regular upgrades that download in the background.
Memory Playback, the latest feature added to to the Lightning streaming technology, allows the ALTAIR to fetch and cache the entire track in its memory or system storage in advance to improve the sound quality, and also play locally without the need of network data transfer.
Using Lightning DS, you can also stream TIDAL, Qobuz and listen to Internet Radio at any time. ALTAIR’s AirPlay, Songcast and Bluetooth functions provide alternative ways to stream your favorite music from Apple Music, Spotify and other service providers through your smartphone or computer.
ALTAIR’s streaming function, operated by AURALiC’s Lightning DS control App, is available on iOS platforms right now, with Mac and Windows versions in development. It is also compatible with other 3rd party OpenHome or UPnP control software for playback.
ALTAIR also works as a RoonReady endpoint to use with Roon software, bringing you a new way to discover and listen to music. The unit’s other inputs include AES/EBU, Coaxial and Toslink, and a USB connection to a computer working as a standalone USB DAC.
When purchasing an ALTAIR from a dealer or AURALiC, you can add an optional 2.5-inch HDD or SSD for internal music storage, turning the ALTAIR into a full function Music Server. Or, you can always buy an ALTAIR and install the storage yourself.
Cosmetically, the new Altair shares the same size enclosure as the VEGA DAC, including a 512×64 pixels OLED Display (although the content is different from the VEGA). A headphone jack is located on the front panel.
The ALTAIR, with all its top quality features and performance, has a MSRP of $1,899. Shipment will commence in June, following the Munich HIGHEND Show.
AURALiC Tesla Platform
ALTAIR is powered by AURALiC’s proprietary Tesla hardware platform that includes a Quad-Core Coretex-A9 processor running at 1GHz, 1GB DDR3 onboard memory and 4GB system storage. The Tesla platform has a calculation ability of 25,000 MIPS, more than enough to decode a vast spectrum of audio formats, including AAC, AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WV and WMA.
AURALiC has chosen this platform for its flexibility and long term support consideration. Future features planned include DSD Upsampling, Room Acoustic Treatment and MQA support. All these features can be delivered through automatic online updates without user’s attention.
Femto Master Clock
The dual-frequency Femto Master Clock inside the ALTAIR is specially designed and optimized for its ESS Sabre DAC chip: with one frequency for playing music with a sampling rate which is the multiple of 44.1K, and a second for 48K, making it possible for the ALTAIR to be able to lock on with highest clock precision (equal to the VEGA’s “EXACT” mode) at all time without dropouts. The Femto Master Clock, which is powered by a 9uV extremely low noise dedicated power supply, has a very low phase noise performance. It not only has dramatically low phase noise, which is only at -151dBc/Hz level, but also an excellent 100Hz offset noise level which is only -115dBc/Hz. Driven by such a high performance clock, the ALTAIR can bring you vivid music with natural detail and a solid sound image.
Linear Power Supply
With more and more DACs at this price range starting to use switching power supplies, AURALiC insists on using high performance but costly Purer-Power™ linear power supply technology on the ALTAIR. With this technology, the dirty AC power firstly goes into a power purification module, and the DC current and noise from both within and outside audio frequencies can be reduced by as much as 90dB. The purified AC power is then feed to a high quality transformer, with a specialty iron core made to AURALiC’s specifications, and unique wiring to ensure zero vibration and very low noise to avoid impacting the sensitive audio electrical circuit.
Compared to the conventional switching power supply which generates wide-band noise that is hard to eliminate, AURALiC’s discrete component- based power supply feeds the DAC chip’s analog circuit with an astonishing low noise that is below 1uV (1uV = 0.000001V) within the entire audio band, making ALTAIR a perfect tool to re-discover your music with more details in the “last bit” that you may never noticed before.
Flexible Filter Mode
ALTAIR has four built-in filter modes which allows its user to customize sound best befitting their personal preference. Those filter modes were developed from AURALiC’s well known Flexible Filter Mode in the VEGA Digital Audio Processor, with each containing several digital filters optimized for a corresponding sampling rate. Flexible Filter Mode was developed under AURALiC’s subjective auditory sense and objective testing data relationship models, to optimize the listening experience for different music and format. The “Precise” mode exhibits perfect in-band ripple and out-band attenuation performance, while the “Smooth” mode is better for overall enjoyment as it has no ‘pre-ringing’ effect. The other two modes, named “Dynamic” and “Balance” are optimized for different music formats as well.
Technical Specifications
Frequency Response: 20 - 20KHz, +/- 0.1dB*
THD+N: <0.001%, 20Hz-20KHz at 0dBFS
Dynamic Range: 121dB, 20Hz-20KHz, A-weighted
Streaming Inputs
Network shared folder
USB drive
Internal music storage**
uPnP/DLNA media server
TIDAL and Qobuz streaming
Internet Radio
AirPlay
Bluetooth
Songcast
RoonReady
Digital Inputs
1*AES/EBU
1*Coaxial
1*Toslink
1*USB device to computer
2*USB host for storage and DAC
1*RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet
1*802.11b/g/n/ac Dual-Band WiFi
Analog Outputs
1*Balanced XLR (output impedance 10ohm)
1*Single-ended RCA (output impedance 50ohm)
1*6.35mm Headphone jack
Supported File Types
AAC, AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WV and WMA
Supported Digital Formats
All PCM from 44.1KS/s to 384KS/s in 32Bit***
DSD64, DSD128, DSD256***
Output Voltage
2Vrms at Max. with dynamic-loss-free digital volume
Control Software
AURALiC Lightning DS for iOS
AURALiC RC-1 remote control
OpenHome compatible software
uPnP AV compatible software
Device Display: 512x64 pixels OLED Display
Power Consumption: Sleep: <10W; Playback: 35W at max.
Dimensions: 11''W x 9''D x 2.6''H (33cm x 23cm x 6.5cm)
Weight: 7.0 pounds (3.2kg)
* Tested under filter mode ‘Precise’ for all sampling rates
** With optional 2.5-inch HDD or SSD installed
*** 352.8KS/s, 384KS/s and DSD through streaming and USB only
*** 32bit through streaming and USB only
Source: Press Release
