...We've been burning in an Aurender A10 at the shop & it's quite impressive as a DAC, competing neck & neck w/ a highly rated stand alone DAC at close to $5K. The A10 is $5,500, but when you consider it has a $3K A100H / 4TB in it, the $2.5K you're paying for the DAC portion is more than made up for by the quality of the DAC. It is by anyone's standard an above $2.5K DAC.
The Aurender A10 looks sharp, needing only a power amplifier. In 2016 HeadFi's server comparison, the author was surprised to find he'd prefer the best $7700 server > best entry/mid price DAC/phone amp > best entry/mid price phones vs. standard Mac Mini server > best possible DAC/phone amp > best phones. Posters were surprised to see their "any server" meme smashed.
In direct AB test a friend said the Aurender $8k N10 handily outperformed Aurender's $2500 N100. He did not want to spent the money, but had to after that test.
I thought I read the A10 was $5k SRP, but possibly the price increased since that quote. What month was the A10 released in the US?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on AB test, the A10's internal DAC vs. Resonessence's latest $2850 Veritas DAC (<8 weeks old) w/ESS' best and latest Sabre ESS9028PRO chips. Res. says Veritas about equals their $5k Invicta Mirus w/original 9018 chips (Mirus accepts 9028 chip upgrade). By large margin original Mirus was the best DAC I've heard.