Topic: Lumin Audiophile Network Player

[Audio]

I have been looking at this for quite sometime.  They didn't really demo it at their booth in the HK show but I finally get to listen to this at 2 rooms during RMAF 2013.

It sounded great, in fact, better than what I had anticipated.

I researched the dealers in Hong Kong, after all, this is a Hong Kong product and made my purchase on Sunday.

I spend 2 nights setting up Minimserver which Lumin had recommended.  The difficulty is you have to do this at the NAS end.  This is one of the time, you are glad you got Synology and QNAP NAS with you because you need compatibility with Embedded Java and the Minimserver package.

Power it up last night and instantly, I got my entire library minus the DSD ISOs up online at my iPad.



These are the advantages of the Lumin:-

(1) Audio media player and DAC, all build as one unit.  All you need is a NAS.
(2)  Volume Control included.
(3)  No Mac, PC required.
(4) No USB cable required.
(5) Analog XLR and RCA output.
(6) Audio HDMI output is available.
(7) Solid milled out cavities case construction.
(_8) Totally linear power supply.  No PC CPU multiple voltage requirements.
(9)  No need for  battery 5V isolation, no need to worry about battery operation.
(10) Just the NAS, the Lumin, headphone amp and the headphone is what you need for a very high resolution music playback system.
(11) DSD capable but up 2.8MHz only.
(12) PCM to DSD upsampling (Very important feature)

Here are the con of the Lumin,
(1) No USB output to your favorite DAC.  There is however a digital SPDIF provided.
(2)  No AES digital output.
(3) No traditional remote control.  Need iPad or iPhone to select songs.



This was reviewed last night using :-
Synology DS-1812+ NAS with Java 6 and MinimServer 0.72 (x86 version) (This is an Intel Atom NAS)
Lumin Player
Bryston Headphone Amp BHA-1
Sennheiser HD800 headphones.

The sound is neutral and very untube-like.  It is very dynamic, very good with percussion instrument.  Good representation with the vocals with all the instruments all properly and spaced out with pin point accuracy.  Very dark, you can "see spaces" in between where are are no instrument or sound across the wide sound stage.  Again, very detailed, I can find things I never heard on familiar recording...like a faint moan, a tiny triangle tingling in the background, some sub synthesizer tone that I never knew existed.



As expected, playback on DSD yields very good results.  When compared to all the native RBCD 44.1K track, the RBCD tracks sounded a little "brighter" with bite.  This is where the "PCM to DSD upsampling" comes in and it transformed these tracks into really nice sounding tracks once you convert it to DSD output.  This is a very good feature.  Yes, it display chinese very well too.




For the next few nights, I would need to extract all the DSF tracks from my SACD ISOs and connect this to the main system......




This is a good one-box solution (well, not exactly one box because you need a NAS) to go into computer music playback.  Highly recommended.

(Audio)

[Tiktokape]

How much for this high end machine in hkd?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

[Audio]

Recommended retail is HK$36K.

(Audio)

[tane0019]

What !!!  this is super high end pricing range for a media player leh ..........

But the spec & pic does look sexy 
(fully balance output stage)

[Audio]

What !!!  this is super high end pricing range for a media player leh ..........

But the spec & pic does look sexy 
(fully balance output stage)

If you look at the price without thinking....yes.

My Caps Zuma is already US$1.8K.  My ordinary Mytek is about SGD $2K+.  My Acoustic Revive USB cable is already $700.

This Lumin is way, way better and all contained; all 3 of the above units in one box and OUTPERFORM them....so, it is a cheaper solution.  It is also more cost effective than a Aurander.....which is more expensive and need you to buy a DAC to support it....

(Audio)

[tane0019]

If you look at the price without thinking....yes.

My Caps Zuma is already US$1.8K.  My ordinary Mytek is about SGD $2K+.  My Acoustic Revive USB cable is already $700.

This Lumin is way, way better and all contained; all 3 of the above units in one box and OUTPERFORM them....so, it is a cheaper solution.  It is also more cost effective than a Aurander.....which is more expensive and need you to buy a DAC to support it....

(Audio)

If you put it that way ......................... comparing to Aurander & plus plus, this one box solution is definitely better & sexier 

[mars73]

Hi bro,

Very nice. I was looking at network streamers myself.

One quick question: what file formats were you playing? Did you play any aiff by any chance? Reason why I asked is because it seems from my reading that most DLNA servers don't support aiff. Wav and FLAC seem to be universally accepted by streamers though. My problem is all my CD rips are in aiff.

Thanks!

[tane0019]

http://www.luminmusic.com/specification.html

Specification

Streaming Protocol:
UPnP AV protocol with audio streaming extension
Gapless Playback
On-device Playlist

Supported Audio File Formats:
DSD Lossless:
DSF (DSD), DIFF (DSD), DoP (DSD)

PCM Lossless:
FLAC, Apple Lossless (ALAC), WAV, AIFF

Compressed (lossy) Audio:
MP3, AAC (in M4A container)

Supported Audio Sample Rates, Bit Depths, Number of Channels:
PCM, 44.1khz-384kHz, 16-32bit, Stereo
DSD, 2.8MHz, 1bit, Stereo

Supported Control Devices:
All models of Apple iPad (iPad 2 or later recommended). iOS 5.0 or later required

Input:
Ethernet Network 100Base-T

Outputs:
Analog Audio:
XLR balanced, 4Vrms, pin 2 Hot
RCA unblanced, 2Vrms

Digital Audio:
BNC SPDIF:
PCM 44.1khz-192kHz, 16-24bit

HDMI:
PCM 44.1khz-192kHz, 16-24bit
DSD 2.8MHz, 1bit

Analog Output Stage:
Wolfson WM8741 DAC chips, 1 per channel
Fully balanced layout with discrete components
Output connectors coupled with LUNDAHL LL7401 output transformer

Pysical:
Lumin (solid aluminum chassis): 350mm (W), 345mm (D), 60mm (H), 8kg
Dual-toroidal PSU: 100mm (W), 295mm (D), 55mm (H), 2kg

Power Consumption:
Operation: 20W
Standby: 15W

Others:
Firmware Upgradable for further features and enhancements

[mars73]

Thanks for the specs. I'm aware that the network player can play aiff. Problem is more on the DLNA server side (in Audio's case, the minimserver). It is the latter that seems to have problem reading aiff properly, not the media player itself. Hence, it seems like even linn and naim users used to have problems getting aiff streaming to work. Was just wondering if Audio ran into similar issues.

[Audio]

Maybe I run one AIFF file tonight to test.  Frankly I don't think it is an issue.

More internel pictures that prompt me to buy :-



No fans.....



All linear power supplies inside power supply unit whch is separated and isolated from the player.



(Audio)

[naimster]

Nice player. The casing looks like a monocoque body like Mac Mini?

[Audio]

Nice player. The casing looks like a monocoque body like Mac Mini?

....yes....milled from a single block of aluminium just like my Ayre KX-R and the MX-R....

This gives a lot of isolation that achieved the very dark characteristic of the sound....

(Audio)

[naimster]

Very nice. Separate box for power supply makes it another plus point. I am beginning to see more and more serious purposeful built computer music systems not using PC/Mac and that's a good sign, at least for me to seriously consider going to CM in the near future.

[DJQ]

If you look at the price without thinking....yes.

My Caps Zuma is already US$1.8K.  My ordinary Mytek is about SGD $2K+.  My Acoustic Revive USB cable is already $700.

This Lumin is way, way better and all contained; all 3 of the above units in one box and OUTPERFORM them....so, it is a cheaper solution.  It is also more cost effective than a Aurander.....which is more expensive and need you to buy a DAC to support it....

(Audio)

And you lead us by showing we can save more $$$$ by spending more yourself. Thumbs up. Good product.

[Audio]

One quick question: what file formats were you playing? Did you play any aiff by any chance? Reason why I asked is because it seems from my reading that most DLNA servers don't support aiff. Wav and FLAC seem to be universally accepted by streamers though. My problem is all my CD rips are in aiff.

Thanks!

Most of my RBCD files are Apple Lossless.  I did a playback with a 192K AIFF....no issue.



(Audio)