Starting a thread for Lumin streaming products. I have a few impressions of my U1 mini ill be jotting down over the next little while.
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Looking forward to it! The U1 Mini seems combine a lot of desirable traits- small footprint, good provenance, nice feature set…
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I think the U1 Mini is probably the best bang for the buck in the Lumin line. It strips out the DAC saving you quite a bit of money and give you their next tier clocking implementation. With a quality LPS, what’s not to love for the $1500 to $1800 dollar used price they’re usually found for in the wild.
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Their signature, it can sometimes be polarizing and not really match well in a system, so you have to be careful there, but from a value perspective they are a real solid value if they do end up working well in a system
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That brings up a question. So if a component such as this has a signature, and you stick another component between it and a DAC, say a high quality DDC. Is the outcome then a mixture of the two, a moving of the signature to the DDC or some other outcome I’m not even thinking about?
Giving the fact that you can then have the USB, SPDIF/BNC and potentially AES all have their own flavors, one can potentially be looking at A LOT of variables?
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Probably depends why they have a signature, I’ll guarantee they have no effect on the measured frequency response.
And FWIW IME yes streamers sound different, and it can as impactful as a DAC change.
But no outside of speculation about clocks and the power supply I don’t have a good answer as to why.
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It’s going to depend, generally I’d find some mix of the two most of the time, perhaps greater emphasis on what’s directly going into the dac, also depends on how much or how little processing that ddc is doing, also depends on cabling as well
Yep
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Early thoughts:
Its nice not having the previous computer’s zips and pops going on in the background. When music is paused it is silent to the point of hitting the ambient noise wall of the birds and cars outside. It feels like the headphones are unplugged, which is good praise since the dac and bhc can be prone to picking up noise at all times.
Playing music enforces once again a pretty darn quiet sound floor. The tape tracking fuzz on most recordings brings the floor up but that is of course unavoidable.
The app is serviceable and ill probably make a post just for that. Right now the music source is a usb that is plugged into the back. But i can confirm Qobuz works well on the app as I “accidentally” hit some tunes when logging out of Cooper’s account. Fat fingers I guess ::the face::
Currently i feel there is some sharpness in the upper registers, like the tinge you get from a bell ringing. It is a little concerning since this was on a BHC → HD6xx which is usually not offensive but a bit more time is needed to figure this out. When i did have some generic cables it was very sharp. It could also be mediocre recordings, or i can see what a usb cable swap will do since i am just using a generic there too.
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Repicking this up with a quick outline of the U1 Mini and what it is and is not.
The U1 Mini is a straight forward, minimal nonsense, source streamer. No wifi, no included server storage, no dac, no amp, no remote, app control only source streamer. Lumin has other offerings with more to them but this is thier entry level streamer below the U1 not-mini.
For those curious, there are two differences between the U1 and the U1 mini.
- Chassis. I believe the U1 is a bigger solid milled aluminum block. The mini is stamped brushed aluminum. The mini is still extremely solid and weighty. It may be a cheaper way to build a chassis but little expense was spared.
- Power supply. The U1 has an external unit, the mini has it’s power internal. My mini was modded to have an LPS connect of the main unit. This was done prior to me having the unit so I cannot offer any comparisons.
Two wants that the U1 is missing, Chromecast support and a display screen. There is tons of content that i would use chromecast for. There is apple airplay but i do not have any iOS products and i avoid apple. A display screen would look awesome for album art and track info and make it feel more accessible to guests. The U1s info screen is very sharp looking though imho. To be honest, my ideal streamer would be a Naim Uniti Atom but without the dac and amp. Naim does make streamers that do digital out but not in the Uniti line and they all have dacs in them while starting at $3k, units with a screen go immediately to $7k. I looked at a few other brands but which one only does usb out, which do iOS only, etc etc. And for the price of the used U1 mini, i feel like i have a steal.
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App Time…
There is only 1 real way to control the Lumin U1 mini and that is through an app. (Well, there is a remote but its only for some volume control and going forward and back in a playlist.) There are a few options of apps though, Lumin’s, Spotify/Qobuz/Tidal direct, and Roon. While most would go with Roon, and I dont blame them, I am going to overview the Lumin app itself for a few reasons. Its the no extra cost solution, its already integrated in, and it is needed for software updates.
The Lumin app can be described as a very adequate 2014 era app. The design slaps you first. It looks like a dev student’s class project. Real rigid, generic 2014 icons, and all color themes are based off boring corporate utility websites.
Lots of grey. Lots and lots of grey.
No matter the source, the presentation is the same. 3 wide squares, text that doesnt wrap on long names despite plenty of space. Album art is shown, but I am not sure which album’s art it decides to show. For some artists it will show the generic folder icon despite plenty of art to choose from. IE: Lupe Fiasco has like 7 albums all with artwork but its showing generic.
Scrolling is usually quickish. You can scroll down an X amount of lines before it needs to load more. Here there is anywhere between a one half to four second halt before you can continue scrolling. If this happened once per app open i would be ok. But everytime you go in and out of an artist it does this. Even worse, about half the time you exit an artist folder it starts you back at top of the entire list. It becomes a real PIA at times. Currently my library is on a usb drive attached directly to the back usb port on the Lumin. I am going to try the usb in my router to see if its quicker, and eventually i need to finally build a NAS. I do not know if these other solutions avoid the hitches.
Most of your navigation and playlist building is done with the app’s custom icons. There is little documentation so enjoy playing the guessing game for a little. Having Cowon DAPs has prepared me for this. Yes, a click on the song will play it right there but the icons need to be navigated to build a playlist. Play now, play next, and add to end of playlist are the more obvious icons and work on single songs and album folders. The last one makes it seem that it just removes that song from the playlist but nope, it literally clears the entire current playlist.
It actually took a while for me to find the playlist. There is no button for it but you swipe right instead. This is not apparent as there is no UI indicating a swipe does anything, and if you do accidentally swipe sideways you most likely land on the fullscreen album art page. Once you do get to the playlist you can select any song and play it from there. Also not too apparent is the in song seeking as you need to hit the time circle up top to pop up the seek bar and this could have just been under the now playing song section. Same issue here as I have not found a way to delete one song off the playlist without clearing the whole playlist. There is also a playlist save function but I have not tried that yet as i usually shoot from the hip.
The settings menu doesnt offer too much. Mostly auto off, how many clicks to play or add a song, color theme, default sort style etc. There are options for volume control via both native and Leedh processing. I havent tested this but many people seem excited about the Leedh processing. Ill leave this here for more Leedh info ( LUMIN - Leedh Processing )
I only used my OnePlus 7pro phone to test this on. I dont want to grab a tablet for this just yet as of right now its only for my personal bedroom setup, and I honestly dont know any good current android tablets. I have seen pics of it on tablet but it’s mostly the same and I did read the iOS app is less buggy. Currently I only had 1 bug. While i was scrolling it just wouldnt load more, I could scroll back on what was already loaded but couldnt change or select anything. A force close fixed this and there was no interruption to the playback.
While the app is the definition of “adequate” it does make me want to look into Roon or the direct apps more. If I was already a Roon user I would probably never touch the lumin app outside of software updates. It is a shame as they do update the app decently often, they just need to polish it, just a bit.
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Pretty much nailed it with just this comment.
Here’s your 30 day free Roon trial link. Referral - Roon Labs
I get 30 days free as well if you sing up to try it. lol
Anyway, a nice to have with products that are Roon Ready like the Lumin U1 Mini is that they’re literally plug and play and Roon will see them on the network and auto configure based on manufacturer best practice. You can still get in there and edit though.
Question I have for you though is whether that WiFi range extender thinggie worked out well enough for you. I know you said you got it working but has it been steady reliable for you? I know in my old house, mine would conk out whenever the microwave went on.
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Before i answer your question, ill pose one to you.
Do you know if Roon will pick up my library if its just on the lumin USB port? I may need to see if it work in the router’s usb input or get a real NAS built.
The extender has been pretty good. I used it for a while to connect my chromecast and it was fine. I did eventually take it off since it didnt give any benefit and at that point I rather connect to the main router, all things the same. But when internet drops it comes back at almost the same time without needing any real intervention besides an occasional reset button press.
I will also not i havent dove into any of the music streaming services yet, as i am being cheap AF right now.
Actually I can’t answer that because I’ve never tried it but I think… I’m pretty certain that Roon can ONLY work with a shared volume drive and the Lumin I don’t think “shared” the USB connected drive files on the network.
To be 100% though wait for someone else to answer but I’m 90% sure as is.
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I should add this to the app part but ill put it here.
The app does not have any notification bar control. Unlike youtube, twitch, anything else it doesnt put a back play/pause forward bar in the notification drop down of the phone. Which imho is a real convenient control spot. Easy for controlling things while using other apps or just really in general. Instead you NEED to go into the app fully to do anything.
It’s almost as if they’re removing that convenience so it makes one want to buy their remote control.
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Honestly if that is the strategy its a failure. For the $250 theyre asking its a sleek looking remote but you then need an infrared hub sticking out somewhere and the function is minimal. Used ive seen them for $80 and thats still a lot.
Its cheaper and better to get a tablet dedicated to it. It will more function and appeal all around.
Nu USB out but good ol’ coax and optical
i took two identicle thumb drives and did one exfat and the other ntfs figuring there would be literally no perceived difference. NTFS 100% loads faster on the lumin when browsing. I figured exfat would win since its made more for thumb drives and low power processors but nope.
There also seems to be an auto stop system, where if i turn my dac off the lumin auto pauses the music. This is over usb, i dont know or think it will work on other outputs.
So I spent a few hours killing myself trying to figure out the album art issue i was seeing. It seemed a few albums just would not update their art despite me confirming on multiple PCs and seeing it correctly on my DAP.
A ton of wear was put on the USB port for this one. I tried…
- Deleting all album art and re-adding the good art. still showed old art.
- Deleting the containing folders and reading to a fresh folder with the same name, still showed old art
- Formatting my usb drive and adding everything from scratch, still showed old art.
- Using the in app factory reset on the lumin, still showed old art
- Using the in app power off and on, this made two instances for the drive an A and a B. The B showed the new good art but powering the unit off and on again would only have the A instance and back to the bad art.
- Changed the folder name (added a 3 to the end), this now shows the new art. But returning it to the right name reverted to the old art.
- Added the art as folder.jpg, new art showed but reverted once this file was deleted. (The lumin shows all files so it gets in the way and blocks playlists)
- Staring into the empty void, still old art.
One thing I thought was happening was the unit was caching info but I noticed for the factory reset some settings wouldnt revert to default. So the next thought was the hail mary of just delete and redownload the app, maybe itll help? Well i kind of did that and it kind of worked. I killed the app cache and stored data and that was it.
The lumin seems to split it’s duty across the unit and the app. The unit will store logins and see if there are new or altered files, the app stores other settings and i guess dumb caches and displays things. Since the name of the files abd folders were the same I think it just reached into the app memory for the art.
I will even admit i tried using the manual for this but the most it had was “Q: I dont see album art, A: add album art to your tags.”
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