Ayon S5 VS Aurender W20

Aurender W20 is an excellent source and it's sound quality completely depends on the DAC quality. But if your DAC has internal clock and has no clock input, then there is no sense in using W20, S10 will sound equal to W20 in this case.

Linn Klimax DS is the best digital streamer I have heard so far. I think the situation will change as soon as MSB release their Network Renderer which will turn their DAC IV plus into digital streamer. It would be very interesting to compare Klimax DS with fully loaded Platinum DAC IV plus.

By the way, Lumin use the same "cheap" and "old" parts in all their models as well, because their streamers in general are copies of Linn's. But Linn streamers have high quality firmware, which Lumin streamers lack of.
Yes, it is logical to compare Klimax DS with Lumin S1. But the difference between Klimax DS and and Lumin A1 is more significant than between Klimax and Akurate DS, so S1 should sound much much better than A1 to compete with Klimax.

"By the way, Lumin use the same "cheap" and
"old" parts in all their models as well, because
their streamers in general are copies of Linn's."

If you are saying these things you are F. blind.

Lumin S1:

http://www.luminmusic.com/lumin-s1.html

http://www.vassagohifi.dk/cms/typo3temp/pics/e7e74c5148.jpg

Linn Klimax DS:

http://av.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/20071005/ina1_04.jpg

Audio is always about facts and not about nonsense what a F.
idiot is saying.

The S1 owns a superior powersuppy and dac compared to the
cheaper powersupply and dac of the Linn.

The Linn Klimax DS is using the Wolfson WM8741 dac and works
till 192 khz and cannot play DSD128.

The S1 is using 4 ESS SABRE32 Reference DAC chips to deliver a
total of 16 DACs per channel. This dac is far superior to the
Wolfson dac above.

Lumin bought the Linn Klimax DS a few years ago to create a
superior streamer. They achieved this with the S1.

There is nothing special about Lumin power supply. If they wanted to create high-quality power supply they would make something like MSB top Power Bases.

Linn could easily create such type of power supply. It is not more expensive that their own SMPS.

"The Linn Klimax DS is using the Wolfson WM8741 dac and works
till 192 khz and cannot play DSD128."
Anyway, the ability to play DSD does not influence the soundquality of Lumin.

"This dac is far superior to the Wolfson dac above."
I see no reason to claim that. Some people say that Wolfson is more musical DAC with more analog-like sound, while Sabre is more "digital". I am sure that is the main reason, why Linn use Wolfson in their players.

Lumin wanted to attract some attention to their top player (S1), that is why they replaced Wolfson with Sabre. If you just change the DAC model it is not an upgrade - you need to change and tune a lot of other things in audio device to make it sound better. I doubt Lumin did it.

P.S. There are a lot of fake Chinese Iphones, but the original one is still superior...
Adn Linn just let Lumin make the copy (if Linn did not want it, Lumin would never be able to do it). This means that they are sure that Lumin can not compete with their players.

Many people who compared Lumin with Linn, prefer the Lumin.

It is not only a different dac, there are more parts they changed.

I am in this business for almost 17 years of time. At shows and demos I found Linn a very average or even poor quality product.

I did run a audio shop were Linn was sold before I came there. i did visit a few clients with Linn. One had for over 240.000 euro Linn stuff in his house.

I remember when I visit him that I became very irritated to my boss. I said: what a low quality shit, I will never sell this to my clients.

This is a great topic and thread. Thank you for starting it.

Keep opinions coming. Many of us are watching and waiting for streamers/music servers to come that are truly worth the investment.