

Take your Tidal or Obouz data stream to DSD 512 on the T2 and boy are you in for a treat, you have the option of running the uncoversion in the Lumin or at Roon’s DSP setting. We love the pairing of the Lumin T2 with the Innous Zen or Zenith feeding an ultra low noise repacketed data stream via its ethernet port to the Lumin T2.Īs the Lumin T2 works woderfully well with Roon as the device is a certified Roon endpoint. I can't comment from experience (yet) but the Lumin is definitely at the "musical" end of the spectrum, while giving up nothing in detail and other "hi fi" attributes. The DCS sound is reported to be more analytical, and less "musical". I would have loved to have heard the DCS Bartok at the same time, but from comments on various forums I suspect I have made the right choice. I also found that the fiber optic input is significantly better than the ethernet input.

So if you do get to demo the X1, make sure it has been fully run in. At the end of the first week I was ready to return it - it sounded thin, monochrome and two dimensional, and took quite a while before it started to sound good. I should mention also that the X1 took the better part of a month to burn in. The Lumin presents cymbal sounds with depth in a realistic three dimensional space, but they also sound tonally correct and fast. Listing to cymbals, for example, the Chord sounded papery and flat. Chord makes a big deal about the reproduction of transients, but to me the Lumin presents transients more realistically and more dynamically. It is warm, rich, tonally dense but also dynamic and very fast. The Lumin X1 is at the other end of the spectrum to the Chord. I was looking for something more satisfying than the Chord DAVE/M Scaler, which over the long term I found rather fatiguing: thin sounding and - with the M Scaler - a little bright and tonally bleached. The Lumin is easily the best DAC I have owned.

I have owned the Chord DAVE/Blu 2 (and M Scaler), Mytek Manhattan II and Ayre QX5 Twenty, amongst others.
Lumin audio full#
If you are looking for the best sound for the money, rock solid reliability, a fantastic feature set, Tidal, Qbouz, Spotify, Apple Airplay to play Youtube or Soundcloud, OTA upgrades, Roon endpoint, full Mqua, DSD and High data rate upsampling, upconversion and playability, solid build quality, built in volume control, the Lumin products are hard to beat. We sell some of the worlds best dacs, including T+A, Light Harmonic, Aqua Hif, Naim, Mytek, Bricasti, and with the X1 you have to spend $30-50k to better the X1, it is nice to see that other people are agreeing with exactly what we have been saying all along. Summation the best sound the reviewer ever accheived was with the X1. Sums up Lumins history and even offers a comparison of the X1 vs the Total Dac, and DCS and the Aqua Formula, we actually have tested the upgraded Formula V2 with the Statement and it does sound even bettter. We sought to be a Lumin dealer after the A1 came out and pretty much got rave reviews as being the best sounding streamer out there, each successive product was better the new T2 is amazing at its price point and challenges $7k streamer/dacs/ For many years we have been touting the Lumin products as being one of the best sounding and best implimented paths to creating a fantastic sound in your system.
