Lumin S1 vs. the world

Hi steinkrieg. Welcome to the forum.

At the time I was in the market for a DAC (9/17) I too had considered Lumin. Any model. At face value, their offerings seemed a bit "pricey" with respect to alternatives. I realize you are looking at a music server. Nevertheless, similar to what you’re doing now, I tried investigating Lumin based on Internet searches and so forth. I even called a local audio dealer (Audio Breakthroughs, who doesn’t carry their line of products, but who have been in business over 30 years) seeking their opinions. They told me they never heard of them. I wound up getting a Schiit Yggdrasil, which - all things considered - I’m happy and content with. Wish I could offer you some more information. Best of luck!

I own a Lumin S1 and the Lumin L1 4TB NAS. Wonderful sounding. The best streamer I have heard. The fact that they added a great DAC made the combination a major upgrade from my Directstream DAC. Sadly I can’t afford to keep it due to some recent financial challenges. I will keep my PS Audio Directstream DAC w/ Bridge, so I still have a DAC. But, I would gladly sell the Directstream gladly and keep the S1, however the S1 will bring a higher price.

When I got the S1 a few weeks ago, I directly compared it to the Directstream by connecting the S1 to my integrated amp via unbalanced inputs and the Directstream is balanced inputs. I started the same song playing on both devices at the same time and switched back and forth between both units. The S1 sounded much better. I love the S1. It is far and away the best piece of audio equipment I have owned.

I use Roon and it works with the S1 as expected.  The S1 also sees the Minimserver on my Synology NAS and the Lightning server running on my Auralic Aires.

Gdhal,

Time to find another dealer, any dealer who has their heads in the sand and don't know Lumin, probably doesn't  read any of the magazine, or on line blogs, when Lumin for years has received rave reviews and whose products were considered breakthroughs  when they first came out.

The Lumin product line still sounds amazing, and are modular, if you open up their case they are designed as digital board, analog board, and power supply, which allow for future upgrades.

The only issue we can raise with the S1 is for a the price today could you do better with a really good server like the Inuous Zenith a $3,500 server plus a $5-7k dac such as the excellent Aqua Hifi servers? 

We are a Lumin dealer and the S1 is a wonderful piece so the A1 and the  T1. One of the best bang for the bucks products we have ever heard is the starter D2 at $2,200.00 killed the Cambridge Audio 851N which is a well rated $1,800 streamer. 

Gdal you should come over for a visit we have one of the largest collections of state of the art digital in the NYC area with: Aqua Hifi, Cary Audio, Mytek, Aurender, Lumin, Baetis, Innous, Light Harmonic, T+A, NAD, Naim Anthem, and a few others. 

Check out our video, showroom 2 has 54 components in this one room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NPIn3pEmI4

This video is about 2 years old, so we have gotten a lot of new components since that time.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Hi @audiotroy

I appreciate your candid reply. I understand what you’re saying about the dealer. Keep in mind though I did mention the dealer in my post, and given that you too are a dealer, I imagine you’ve heard of them at some point, given that they are a successful family owned and run audio shop (i.e. in business over 30 years, employ 30 some odd folks, do installation, etc.). Nevertheless, I remain open minded to other dealers and other brands of equipment that they do not carry.  And there are plenty that they don't.

There are hundreds if not thousands of manufacturer and model combinations of gear (all things, speakers, amps, dacs, etc.) so undoubtedly no dealer can carry "everything". I would suspect that profit margin is a big factor in dictating what they do or do not carry.

Then there are manufacturers - such as Schiit - who intentionally sell direct and omit the dealer network. I asked my dealer to contact Schiit, with the idea of buying a number of pieces, and Schiit didn’t even return their call or email.

I appreciate your offer of having me come out to your shop. At this time, I’m not in the market for any gear at all, let alone a 10K music server/dac.

Further, I have little doubt the Lumin gear is outstanding quality/sounding. At the time I was looking and had them under consideration, I can’t recall reading anything negative.

I'm using a Lumin S-1, Lumin app is great, very user friendly, just love it. Sometime I will use my Lumin S-1 to play music file through my Esoteric K-03X's DAC. 

Lumin X-1 just comes out and Lumin S-1 2nd hand price drop a lot now (Around US$3850 ~ US$ 4000 in Hong Kong's 2nd hand market). 

Hello folks As I say to my house officers : never look at the menu of the restaurant , otherwise , you'll finish Inside for a meal I have been using the U1 for some time now , and it really is a great product However , I'm just asking myself the question about the Lumin S1 or the A1 Since I cannot test the products , I'm looking for your input Plex Lucky Patcher Kodi

Hi!

following up on this discussion, how would you rate Lumin S1 against PS Audio Directstream DAC? (Btw, is PS perhaps soon launching and upgrade to this famous DAC? its a few years old now and i just saw a dealer having special deals on it).