Lumin Thread

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I tried a cheap amazon sfp cable, so not sure if good one would be make day and night difference. with cheap cable it did not make much difference.



We just had a switch shoot out (led by the network switch proponent and man himself @drkrack ) with SOTM, L2 and etherregen with various combinations of LPS, clocks and DC cables in the mix. Insane how small changes made a difference. So i am sure pure network isolation with fiber optic from switch all the way to streamer should be the best

I really doubt if there will be any differences with a better cable. Corning cable comes well recommended, in case we can find on amazon.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

I am inclined to buy from the US exactly the products recommended on the Lumin website. Doesn't break the bank and can't go wrong

 

[muralimmreddy]

I am inclined to buy from the US exactly the products recommended on the Lumin website. Doesn't break the bank and can't go wrong

Recommended specific by brand etc? Can you please point where they have recommended products?

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Recommended specific by brand etc? Can you please point where they have recommended products?

Hi Murali

This is the recommended link from Lumin's site

LUMIN - Fibre Networking

www.luminmusic.com

 

[Fiftyfifty]

Recommended specific by brand etc? Can you please point where they have recommended products?

From the Lumin site:​

Gigabit Switch with SFP slot​

e.g. Trendnet TEG-S51SFP v1.1 (Amazon link)

SFP LC Modules​

A pair of the same brand and type of single-mode 1310nm SFP modules​

e.g.
StarTech SFPGLCLHSMST
or
10Gtek ASF13-24-10

Note:
1. SFP module needs to be compatible with the chosen SFP switch (e.g. If a Cisco switch is used, the SFP module must be Cisco compatible).
2. LUMIN does not support SFP+

Fibre optic cable​

LC-LC single-mode 9/125um Corning duplex fiber​

e.g. Corning ClearCurve or FS.COM

They say the list was last updated may 2022. Could be dated but i think still good to go. I noticed that Trendnet also has SFP modules which should match well with their switch.
And not that they don't support SFP+

 

[drkrack]

I tried a cheap amazon sfp cable, so not sure if good one would be make day and night difference. with cheap cable it did not make much difference.



We just had a switch shoot out (led by the network switch proponent and man himself @drkrack ) with SOTM, L2 and etherregen with various combinations of LPS, clocks and DC cables in the mix. Insane how small changes made a difference. So i am sure pure network isolation with fiber optic from switch all the way to streamer should be the best

Thanks, I'm just a curious one trying to improve my audio playback with constant experimentation.

Anyways coming to the comparison itself, An Audiophile Switch definitely makes a huge difference for a streaming setup and one should always consider one. Difference between Clocks was very minute but its difficult to go back once you are used to clocks.
Lumin L2 benefits Lumin Streamer Ecosystem so it wasn't great with Aurender N200 probably. Afterdark was better than LHY Clock but not by a huge margin. In fact it was more of nitpicking but an enjoyable comparison.

 

[Eight1zero]

Hi
I have been following this thread for a while. so what i have gathered and drkrack also confirmed that a audiophile switch makes a huge difference . so any suggestions on what audiophile switch to buy ? sorry taking this away from lumin as this is lumin thread

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Hi
I have been following this thread for a while. so what i have gathered and drkrack also confirmed that a audiophile switch makes a huge difference . so any suggestions on what audiophile switch to buy ? sorry taking this away from lumin as this is lumin thread

There are tons of options when it comes to audiophile network switches. Below are some options in ascending order of price.

Ether regen
English electric switch
Bonn N8
LHY SW8 or SW10 ( SW10 is with clock input )
SOTM SNH-10G ( model with clock input is almost twice the price as the non clock one )
Ediscreation Fiber switch
HNE MagicNet D1 supreme
Melco S100/2
Nordost Qnet
Aardvark audio network switch
Ansuz ( X2, A2, C2, D2, DTC, DTC Supreme....all the way to crazy prices )

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

From the Lumin site:​

Gigabit Switch with SFP slot​

e.g. Trendnet TEG-S51SFP v1.1 (Amazon link)

SFP LC Modules​

A pair of the same brand and type of single-mode 1310nm SFP modules​

e.g.
StarTech SFPGLCLHSMST
or
10Gtek ASF13-24-10

Note:
1. SFP module needs to be compatible with the chosen SFP switch (e.g. If a Cisco switch is used, the SFP module must be Cisco compatible).
2. LUMIN does not support SFP+

Fibre optic cable​

LC-LC single-mode 9/125um Corning duplex fiber​

e.g. Corning ClearCurve or FS.COM

They say the list was last updated may 2022. Could be dated but i think still good to go. I noticed that Trendnet also has SFP modules which should match well with their switch.
And not that they don't support SFP+

Someone....Iam not saying who.....seems to have bought a Lumin L2 + Lumin U2 streaming combo

 

[Fiftyfifty]

Someone....Iam not saying who.....seems to have bought a Lumin L2 + Lumin U2 streaming combo

Indeed . But after a run in of around 30 hours, its a bunt rather than a hit out of the park,

Over the years I've moved from Macbook playing Audirvana to Intel NUC to Allo USBridge to Bluesound Vault to Silent Angel and now the Lumin combo. I'm not looking for great resolution or soundstage, just good tonality. I've tried streaming as well as playing files from the SSD. Both are disappointing.

But these are early days. The recommended burn in period is 300 hours. And I'm using ethernet connections, not fibre. Fibre components are in the pipeline (Trendnet switch and SFP modules, Corning ClearCurve cables).
Moreover, I use a Google wifi mesh router and the U2 is connected to one of the mesh nodes over wifi. Both the router and the node to which the U2 is connected are powered by proprietary Google wall wart power supplies. I am in the process of changing these to LPS.

Let me see what happens after the above changes. But I will not praise my components just because they have cost me a pile!

PS: My source - Qobuz for streaming HDtracks for downloaded music files

 

[IndianEars]

IMO, Tonality is not one of Lumin's virtues.... At least based on my listen to the X-1

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Indeed . But after a run in of around 30 hours, its a bunt rather than a hit out of the park,

Over the years I've moved from Macbook playing Audirvana to Intel NUC to Allo USBridge to Bluesound Vault to Silent Angel and now the Lumin combo. I'm not looking for great resolution or soundstage, just good tonality. I've tried streaming as well as playing files from the SSD. Both are disappointing.

But these are early days. The recommended burn in period is 300 hours. And I'm using ethernet connections, not fibre. Fibre components are in the pipeline (Trendnet switch and SFP modules, Corning ClearCurve cables).
Moreover, I use a Google wifi mesh router and the U2 is connected to one of the mesh nodes over wifi. Both the router and the node to which the U2 is connected are powered by proprietary Google wall wart power supplies. I am in the process of changing these to LPS.

Let me see what happens after the above changes. But I will not praise my components just because they have cost me a pile!

PS: My source - Qobuz for streaming HDtracks for downloaded music files

Haha..okay...thanks for sharing your honest findings. Burn in is very real. When I first plugged in my Lumin U1 + X1 power supply, the sound was very under whelming. I remember telling one friend that I preferred the AurisBlume HD to the Lumin. I dont know at what point the break-in happened. I removed the Lumin completely and kept it streaming into the dac of the Cambridge audio azur 851N non stop for almost 10 days, with nothing else connected to the Azur, but only the Azur was left on. When I brought it back, there were definite improvements to be had. There was more detail and resolution. And then I left it in the system, and I think it took almost two months to really open up and start sounding organic with great tone and timbre. This, coupled with some network and power improvements have put my Dac upgrade on hold. The entire uplift was so big, compared to the coax output of the Azur 851N. So there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel...please keep burning it in

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

IMO, Tonality is not one of Lumin's virtues.... At least based on my listen to the X-1

Then what would you say is it's (sonic) virtue, out of curiousity?

 

[sidvee]

Indeed . But after a run in of around 30 hours, its a bunt rather than a hit out of the park,

Over the years I've moved from Macbook playing Audirvana to Intel NUC to Allo USBridge to Bluesound Vault to Silent Angel and now the Lumin combo. I'm not looking for great resolution or soundstage, just good tonality. I've tried streaming as well as playing files from the SSD. Both are disappointing.

But these are early days. The recommended burn in period is 300 hours. And I'm using ethernet connections, not fibre. Fibre components are in the pipeline (Trendnet switch and SFP modules, Corning ClearCurve cables).
Moreover, I use a Google wifi mesh router and the U2 is connected to one of the mesh nodes over wifi. Both the router and the node to which the U2 is connected are powered by proprietary Google wall wart power supplies. I am in the process of changing these to LPS.

Let me see what happens after the above changes. But I will not praise my components just because they have cost me a pile!

PS: My source - Qobuz for streaming HDtracks for downloaded music files

IMO all the changes will give you some improvement but you are not going to notice any night and day difference. There are a lot of threads/posts in various forums saying that adding fibre this or adding filter that or adding such and such lpsu etc. etc. will make a huge night and day difference, but ime they are only marginal incremental improvements - unless there is some gross issues with your power or there is some major issues with internet speeds (specifically for streaming from Qobuz etc). Also recently I had to chance to listen to an Aurender N20 vs an Aurender n200(which I own). One costs $12,000 (I think in India excess of 10 lac) and the other is half of that. TBH I could not hear that much of a difference to justify the higher pricing.
Regardless congratulation on your new acquisitions.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[Fiftyfifty]

IMO all the changes will give you some improvement but you are not going to notice any night and day difference. There are a lot of threads/posts in various forums saying that adding fibre this or adding filter that or adding such and such lpsu etc. etc. will make a huge night and day difference, but ime they are only marginal incremental improvements - unless there is some gross issues with your power or there is some major issues with internet speeds (specifically for streaming from Qobuz etc). Also recently I had to chance to listen to an Aurender N20 vs an Aurender n200(which I own). One costs $12,000 (I think in India excess of 10 lac) and the other is half of that. TBH I could not hear that much of a difference to justify the higher pricing.
Regardless congratulation on your new acquisitions.
Cheers,
Sid

I quite agree because, in my own experience, the streamer upgrades have not resulted in improvements of the same order as, say, a DAC upgrade, amp upgrade or speaker upgrade, despite larger outlays.

Costing nothing beyond an Audirvana subscription and FM Joshua's DIY USB cable, the Macbook Air served me well. Now after close to Rs. 10 lacs down the tube, I ask, like the guy in the Royal Stag commercial 'Have I made it large?'

 

[sidvee]

I quite agree because, in my own experience, the streamer upgrades have not resulted in improvements of the same order as, say, a DAC upgrade, amp upgrade or speaker upgrade, despite larger outlays.

Yes - to me, beyond a certain point, better to invest in downstream components. I found significant improvements with changing/upgrading DAC's etc. vs just streamers/ancillaries to the streamer.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I've recently posted somewhere here, that we are always limited by the bottle necks in our chain. And we are only listening to the bottle neck at all times. The more upstream in the chain the bottle neck is, the more limiting it is on down stream component changes. If a streamer upgrade is not showing the same improvements I've had, then I would suspect that maybe something is amiss upstream of the streamer.

In my case, adding an Audioquest Niagra 1200 to clean up the dirty power in my apartment complex, and adding a SOTM DCBL Cat-7 cable to filter out the ethernet noise coming over my network ( Iam forced to use ethernet over power adapters for my room ), probably helped address the two main bottle necks in my system. This coupled to the Lumin has been probably the biggest sonic upgrade for me in the last 4 years. The system sounds so tonally colorful and timbrally rich, with superb separation and resolution, with an ultra black background. And all with the same cabling and the rest....I could go on and on....


What I mentioned above about the bottle neck in the chain, is loosely based on the Nordost and Ansuz foundation theory. And from my own results, Iam a convert now.

 

[heliumflight]

I would you compare Cyrus Lyric 09 Vs Lumin at 1.20 lacs

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I would you compare Cyrus Lyric 09 Vs Lumin at 1.20 lacs

Sorry your query is not very clear. Which exact model of Lumin are you considering.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

I've recently posted somewhere here, that we are always limited by the bottle necks in our chain. And we are only listening to the bottle neck at all times. The more upstream in the chain the bottle neck is, the more limiting it is on down stream component changes. If a streamer upgrade is not showing the same improvements I've had, then I would suspect that maybe something is amiss upstream of the streamer.

In my case, adding an Audioquest Niagra 1200 to clean up the dirty power in my apartment complex, and adding a SOTM DCBL Cat-7 cable to filter out the ethernet noise coming over my network ( Iam forced to use ethernet over power adapters for my room ), probably helped address the two main bottle necks in my system. This coupled to the Lumin has been probably the biggest sonic upgrade for me in the last 4 years. The system sounds so tonally colorful and timbrally rich, with superb separation and resolution, with an ultra black background. And all with the same cabling and the rest....I could go on and on....


What I mentioned above about the bottle neck in the chain, is loosely based on the Nordost and Ansuz foundation theory. And from my own results, Iam a convert now.

What you say is very true @Yelamanchili manohar . In my setup, I am quite confident about my downstream components as there are other sources connected to them that sound good to me. My power conditioning and ethernet cabling is also pretty sound. That means the improvements in the sq of the streamer need to come from or around the streamer itself, most likely from adequate burn in.
It's also true that improvements from going fibre and LPS may be marginal, as I don't believe that Lumin would make a product that would not sound good unless these additional components are installed, or make a U2 that would not sound good without the L2.

So, it's either burn-in or burn-out!