I dont think Aurender is targeting just the extreme niche corner of the market for a "statement" product.
They have and were probably the leader 5 years back with the Aurender w20, with all the excesses of a super high end streamer.
Let's face it, they are the father of the high end streamers, with ocxo clocking with master clock 10M inputs with discrete clocking , battery supply in a custom designed board with dual AES outputs.
They are still in the game are these years, but with higher resolution files, digital chips back then were not available then.
No after market modified computer board is ever going to come out with a master clock input, dual AES outputs , custom ocxo clocking and circuitry, all the input to connect to any high end dac back then.
A modification to a computer board with even an ocxo may not be comparable.
I would like further information if the usb and ethernet are slaved to this same clocking circuitry. They would be unbeatable then.
There is just no extra space for them to include more ocxo's unless they stack some small boards or mount it in any free spaces to the side of panel etc etc, unlikely though.
It was admitted that there was no space and had to even adopt a switching supply for partial electronics and HDD's etc. Any further significant progress to the W20 would require a dual chassis or a huge double din height chassis. This may not sound well with the marketing team which will probably stop such a product from coming out.
I guess some updates to some microchip to the latest is all one can expect if they ever released a successor to the W20.
I wouldnt expect anything more targeted to the super high end niche market will be wise for them after the A30.
It is mainly target for the wider high end market, which i am guess may be larger than what we may think.
We just dont see them participating in forums and may never know, their sales data would allow for such statistics for any motivation for production of a worthy replacement to the W20 costing double the price then?
