@mrcorky I'd definitely go hardwired on ethernet insteat of wifi.
Lumin D2 Dac/Streamer Vs 2021 Node/Denafrips Ares ii or Chord Qutest
Hello Gang! So I'm picking up my first actual system tomorrow, and the final piece of the puzzle besides cabling is a Dac and Streamer. I've seen a lot of positive write-ups regarding the Lumin D2 dac/streamer so I would love to hear from some actual owners about its positive or negative performance. I listen to a lot of obscure heavier music, industrial etc. The production quality can occasionally be poor, not to mention that a lot of the source material is of low quality. (Wish I still had my cd's but will be revisiting that down the road) So I would want a forgiving DAC, polished, not too revealing, and with an overall energetic to make the most of these kinds of recordings. I also listen to a lot of 80's rock, such as Talk Talk, Genesis, and Mr.Mister, which I imagine would would best be suited by an R2R DAC like the Ares(just making an educated guess here, I could be wrong). Vocal emphasis is significant to me too. I've heard mixed things about the actual functionality of the Lumin APP, but I intend on bypassing any proprietary app for the streamer and just use Tidal Connect,Spotify Connect and Airplay for my personal music library.
I'm an IOS and apple guy, so maybe the Lumin app would gets along better with the mac stuff. I've also heard excellent things about the Denafrips Ares ii. It seems like many characteristics of this DAC would align nicely with the music I listen to. I am on the fence w/ the Chord qutest since it's often described as being overly revealing with poor recordings and picky with gear pairing. If I went Ares/Chord I would pick up the Bluesound node and call it a day.
Max Budget for streamer/Dac right now is 2600. I would greatly appreciate any observations, suggestions, or firsthand experience with the above-mentioned gear! Also, I just wanted to add that Auditioning Dacs/streamers isn't really in the cards right now. I just want to get something up and running that would best compliment my system and musical tastes!
Thanks in advance!
Amp: Luxman 507 Mark II
Speakers: Dynaudio Evoke 20's
Cabling: Not sure yet. Will probably get everything I need from Blue Jeans so I can get up and running.
Turntable: Technics 1500 with stock Ortofon Red.
- ...
- 17 posts total
+1 hardwired ethernet @mrcorky a whole separate conversation, but when you get to consideration of pbuying a transport and a bunch of CDs, you might want to research 2 alternatives: 1) the obvious one, is CD quality available to stream via Qobuz etc. 2) if you can get digital files of this music by purchasing download or "other means" ;-) consider a NAS that would connect to the network and feed the files to the Lumin. Much has been written on this topic and many(myself included) have found advantage in NAS playback vs. both local drives attached to the streamer and to spinning CD/SACD. Cheers, Spencer |
I definitly miss playing actual CD's and I don't plan on rebuying my entire music library again. Just stuff that isn't available in higher quality streaming formats elsewhere. With the prices of CD'S so low it would be cheaper for me to rebuy what I wanted instead of downloading. I haven't really explored the "other means" of finding high quality Flac files. I've been using soulseek for a long time and FLAC formats are slim pickings for what I listen to. |
- 17 posts total