Is something like the Lumin U1 Mini REALLY a sound quality upgrade over say an Allo DigiOne?

mmmm, it’s probably time I took up stamp collecting then :roll_eyes:

Can you imagine an audiophile stamp collector :rofl:

That is wishful thinking. Of course there is a solution for this. Take a device that can do everything and can do everything as well as possible. After I had several DACs (all of which were unsatisfactory in their own way), I resorted to the final solution for me. The subject of “streamer” and “DAC” has been solved (for me).

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…and not only that, but, it’s so damn sexy!! :grin: Sometimes, if you can, it pays off in the long term to stop faffing around and stump up the cash (within your budget of course) to get the great feeling that comes with it…not just the technical capabilities, or even the sound, but how it feels to ‘own’ that thing and to love using it every day, over and over again!

I’ve just pulled the trigger on a Lumin U1 Mini and I just know the feeling I get listening whilst noticing the silver sheen, the blue display, the sheer elegance of the thing - well thats going to make my system sound a million dollars! :sunglasses:

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Good decision. I wish you much joy with the million dollar sound.

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@Tim_Woodward, “One might ask, then why keep both in your rack”? I keep a few delivery paths in my rack to play around and keep my gear neurosis in check. From time to time I’ll spend the effort to match playback levels to the best of my ability with REW and an omni mic and then do some swapping between signal paths.

It fascinates me how there are times when I think that one path is obviously better than the other only to find out that it wasn’t the path I thought was in play. My emotional preference is my Chord Qutest to McIntosh 402 with digital from fanless Roon Core over a Matrix audio USB card. That said I’ve had my HiFiBerry DAC 2 HD in the signal path and thought that had to be the Qutest path because the audio was just so glassy smooth. Same goes for feeding the Qutest from SPDIF, Coax, USB (from Pi, or Squeezebox Touch). There are times I think that my Hypex NC400 monoblocks are superior to the MC402 but each have different levels of gain and the difference evaporates to me with level matching.

For me I find that my emotional state of mind is a much bigger influence in how I perceive the quality of audio playback from my equipment. If I’ve worked a hard day, have reached some achievement, or just took care of everything I had to do in the day then I perceive the system playing at top quality. I allow myself to enjoy it. Lot’s of times I think that, “oh hey, that must be my Qutest doing it’s thing”, only to realize it’s the DAC2 HD.

I don’t reduce to my emotional preference to remind myself how the front end choices I have are more than adequate and to show my friends what can be achieved with so little spend with a raspi. It’s a hobby to me and I like to play. If I was rolling this from scratch I’d go Hypex NC400 DIY kit, great measuring low cost DAC, pi streamer, and a great pair of speakers. Emotionally, that MC402 has been with me for well over a decade and those blue meters glow pleasantly to me at the end of a day. I also like the glow from the Qutest and since I have the raspi to give me a display I may as well toss a HAT on from time to time for fun.

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Excellent and wonderful description @Douglas_Gardner, insightful and fascinating :blush: It’s funny, but I often wonder why I have to confine myself to one of everything, the favourite, the ‘one of the moment’ but in truth I do it with all ‘things’. Perhaps if I ever get that big house I have already designed, maybe, just maybe I can have a few different systems for different rooms - that would be fun! :blush:

(Oh and the Allo SigiOne is being kept for other uses maybe, at the moment my headphone rig DAC can’t tell the difference between plain vanilla PI 4 USB and the Allo HAT on top… but I’m sure as I play with that system along will come a DAC that just loves the SPDif output and it will come into it’s own again.)