AURALiC has announced its freshly upgraded Series G2.1/ GX.1. Following the success of the incumbent Series G2, the company says that its customers value sonic performance, industrial design, and diversity of features in their purchases overall, and so got busy with improvements.

AURALiC's Series G2.1 boasts new shielded casework, a new suspension system, optimised circuitry, and an updated Lightning DS system. The great news is that these upgrades are across the board and so sees G2.1 Series ARIES Streaming Transport, VEGA Streaming DAC, and SIRIUS Upsampling Processor, as well as the LEO GX.1 Master Reference Clock.

UNITY CHASSIS

As well as slick industrial design, the new G2.1 Series casework features a double enclosure, or "chassis-within-a-chassis", as AURALiC calls it. In this instance, the outer casework is manufactured from high-grade aluminium with an internal enclosure constructed from copper. We are told that the new design enhances EMI shielding, and so provides an audible performance improvement. Additionally, the new, sculpted metal base offers a high mass foundation for the G2.1/GX.1 series, bonded to the enhanced four-foot assembly.

Furthering the performance enhancement is a new spiked suspension system where each foot features six-coiled-springs. Those springs, says AURALiC, are individually tuned to a different tension point, resulting in greater sound clarity and a more open sound field through vibration damping at separate frequencies.

HARDWARE UPGRADES

There's more under the hood, too. For the ARIES G2.1, the USB output now offers a broader level of compatibility across most manufacturers' USB inputs. The HDD port, for local hard drive connectivity, has been given a power boost to handle a wider range of USB drives requiring higher power delivery. These optimisations have extended the potential feature sets of the products, says the manufacturer.

LIGHTNING 7.0 / LIGHTNING LINK

Lightning OS is now clocked at its seventh iteration with Lighting OS 7.0 providing CD playback with optional ripping capabilities. The upshot here is that you can use a CD drive connected via USB to your AURALiC product. The new CD function will read each disk sector several times to ensure ultimate data accuracy, then save to memory cache before playback. The result is an utterly jitter-free CD playback experience, according to AURALiC. This feature will work with any of the ARIES (Not ARIES Mini), ALTAIR and POLARIS variants. Simply connect a CD drive via USB to one of the capable AURALiC products and begin to playback or rip your CDs.

Finally, AURALiC's Lightning Link protocol has been made backwards compatible so that you can connect G2/GX devices and G2.1/GX.1 together for seamless functionality in one system.

The new G2.1 and GX.1 products are all available now with the following suggested retail pricing:

• ARIES G2.1 - £4,199.00 / €4,699.00
• VEGA G2.1 - £5,999.00 / €6,699.00
• LEO GX.1 - £7,999.00 / €8,999.00
• SIRIUS G2.1 - £5,999.00 / €6,699.00

For more details, visit AURALiC.