A year ago AURALiC launched their streamer ARIES - A unit that has proven to be something more than just "a pretty face." Including an ultra-precise clock with jitter in the femto-second level.

When I had a longer engaged conversation with AURALiC`s representative in Europe - Christian Rechenbach during an event at Musik-magazinet in Bergen , he answered somewhat cryptically and secretively on the issue of plans for a streamer with built-in DAC. This was something he could not provide information on, but the body language gave a warning about the news we are now seeing from Munich.

Also read: Piega and Auralic focus days at Musik-Magazinet in Bergen - Norway.

Yesterday AURALiC announced that they are launching a new scaled-down model of the sudden legendary ARIES. Although down-scaled might be somewhat misleading in the case ARIES MINI. This new model has in fact built DAC, with the chip Sabre ES9018K2M from ESS. It is also possible to equip it with a HDD or SSD for storing music.

When the price will be roughly halved compared with the basic version of ARIES LE, it is obviously something inside that is also made more affordable. And femto-clock has had to give way to a less expensive clock, and the internal memory is halved.

AURALiC claims that ARIES MINI can stream quad-DSD and DXD over WiFi. The objective of this new model has been to create a product that reaches out to a larger customer group than hardcore audiophiles. It is not very bold to assume that they will succeed in this. And support for streaming services TIDAL / WIMP and Qobus. AirPlay and Songcast are also important elements in a strategy for widespread.

With its dimensions of 13,5x13,5x2,8 cm  ARIES MINI adds somewhere between Apple TV and Mac Mini in size. The design kinship would otherwise be superfluous to mention.

Importer for AURALiC in Norway is DUET Audio .