Hi,
Lately the Lumin app on both my iPhone and iPad stopped displaying sample rate and bit rate and also stopped displaying album cover when streaming from Roon to my U2. Sometimes it flashes the sample and bit rate for a tenth of a second. I attach a screenshot I managed to get of the short flash and a screenshot of how it normally looks like. Furthermore, in the Tidal album view on the iPhone, the top left icon (now showing the AirPlay icon) that previously worked as a fast link to the album cover view with controls is now inactive (same in iPad). I am on iOS 26.1 and iPadOS 26.1.
This problem does not occur when streaming from Audirvana. Both album cover and file resolution are displayed permanently during streaming and tapping the album icon top left in the Tidal album view works.
I have done what you suggest. It does not matter if Airplay is on or of. The Lumin App intermittently show (correctly) sample rate and bit rate when streaming Roon. Seems completely random, it shows up and then disappears. In any case, I need to have AirPlay enabled since it is a very convenient (and only) way of getting the TV sound into the U2 from my Apple TV 4K (and also with perfect lip sync).
I use the Lumin App since the volume control in the app is easier to maneuver than the Roon app. On my iPhone the Roon volume slider is to small and also only change volume in integer dB steps. The Lumin App is more granular (especially since I have Max volume at 80%).
As I wrote in my previous post, I find it very fiddly to adjust volume on my small iPhone 13 mini when using the Roon App. The volume controls are much bigger in the Lumin App. Furthermore I can do more granulate adjustments in the Lumin App, i.e. smaller than 1 dB increments.
With respect, what you are doing is using “work arounds” to overcome deficiencies in your setup & satisfy personal preferences. As Peter mentioned, the Lumin App doesn’t have a metadata feed from Roon so that immediately presents potential problems.
I have had a similar situation trying to get audio from TV to Lumin and eventually had to compromise & find alternative methods of resolving the problem.
Hopefully you can do something similar to achieve your aim.
No, it is definitely not a “work around”, it is the simplest setup possible. My active speakers (Dutch & Dutch 8C) accept only ethernet or AES/EBU for digital signals (I can also send analog XLR to the same input as AES/EBU). The simplest and best sounding signal path is AES/EBU directly from my U2 to the 8C’s.
Previously I had a MiniDSP SHD Studio as a digital volume control and digital format converter between the U2 and the 8C (the SHD has all types of digital in and out except HDMI) and I connected the U2 over AES/EBU, and TV over Toslink, to the SHD and from there to the 8C over AES/EBU. That was a working solution and it sounded good, but skipping the SHD and go directly from the U2 to the 8C sounds marginally better. And when I realized that my Apple TV sends TV sound over Airplay to the Lumin without any lipsync problems at all, I simply removed the SHD to get the best sounding and simplest signal path.
By doing it this way I avoid several sample rate and bite rate conversions. The SHD converts everything to 32/96 and the 8C’s converts everything to 24/48. And this extra step + extra cables (and the difference in technology in the SHD and the U2) is actually audible.
