Lumin D2... Could it be a perceivable upgrade in sound quality?

[dhusky]

Hegel amps have been my favourite sound combination to date with these speakers but all bar the Rost are too bulky (specifically too deep), I haven’t yet heard the Rost with the D2, and it has a lot of features that I don’t need (to pay for). I like the reviews of the Crayon CIA-1 but it’s a little pricey and doesn’t have balanced inputs. I’d like to listen to the Creek Evolution 100a. The Ayre EX-8 looks interesting but more than twice the budget. The Primare i35 sounds good but is too large/expensive. The Audiolab 8300A gets mixed reviews but I’d like a listen (?maybe it’s due an update). Any other reasonably compact integrateds with balanced inputs and performance to match the D2 and Amphions?

I thought I should probably feedback on where I ended up here. After a few trials I purchased the now end-of-life Hegel H360. Nobody would accuse it of being compact but it sounds fantastic. Out of curiosity I have made some brief, highly subjective comparisons between the internal DAC and the D2 (balanced). The H360 is at a double disadvantage as my room correction filters are configured for the D2 (not sure if the phasing would be different with the H360 DAC) and it is by default quieter on the input (of course I tried to match the volumes).

For MQA (Roon doing first unfold) there was no comparison - to me the D2 (which of course does the full rendering) sounded significantly better. For straight PCM the jury is still out - the D2 seems to give more detail, more soundstage, better timbre and more instrument separation but to my ears sounds a little ‘bright’ with this amp, leaving the H360 DAC sounding a little more ‘natural’, for what those terms are worth. I haven’t finalised my RC filters yet though, and it’s still pretty early days, so we’ll see how this pans out.

Edit: I’ve now had a chance to do a lot more listening with more careful volume matching. I think my conclusion is that the DAC in the H360 is very good and that both it and the D2 have strengths and weaknesses. The D2 seems unforgiving of brightly produced/mastered tracks and I find these more enjoyable through the H360 - it does a wonderful job with female vocals. On the other hand, I think the D2 gives better soundstaging, instrument separation and detail so I guess it depends on your personal preference/priorities.