My friend was set buy a T2 after hearing mine until his dealer told him the T3 was a six or so weeks away? T3? Do tell @wklie, inquiring minds want to know!
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my T2 and would certainly consider an upgrade if the power supply was a linear one like in the higher end models. Othwerwise, I’d be super curious what the differences would be. The T2 is quite hard to beat at its price point.
[shameless pandering on] And hey … if you want any early reviews….I’d be a happy Guinea pig. My system is currently a Leben CS600x with Devore O/96s, and a set of 300b SET amps with a 300b preamp as an alternate.[shameless pandering/off]
I think both the T2 and X1 are hampered by a chip shortage. I can only imagine that a T2 successor will probably be essentially the same with some circuit adjustments. Surely Lumin will not add an external LPS to keep it at the desired price point. My thoughts only.
I hope the T3 is coming. I was considering the HiFi Rose which is being heavily pushed right now (lots of advertising). However, there are too many “goodies” like video screens, apps, etc which makes me think that the audio side may be compromised to keep things at a certain price point. Where the T2/D2 are more straight forward without the add-on features built into the unit itself (although one can have pretty much the same features as the HFR thru the app.
The ‘sounds better with the display switched off’ is classic hifi folklore going back to the CD playing days. Those tests are never done double blind.
If you design an audio device that receives interference from its display then as a designer you have done a very poor job. What other corners were cut during the design process?
I owned a preamp that some regarded as the best preamp in the $2k range (which is collecting dust now as I use Lumin X1 XLR direct output to Lumin class AB power amp). At some point I started to have significant audible noise from speakers. It was traced to the preamp. Turned out that the noise came from the faulty display module. By removing the display module from the preamp, the noise is cured.
Big, fancy display screens look like “one more” thing to go wrong as the unit gets older. Let’s face it, who is going to watch a freaking video on a Dac display screen? Does one really want an “old time” radio display screen saver on their modern Dac? I’m guessing the actual Hi Rez screen, video and visual processing is adding quite a bit of cost to the unit. Thus, making me think the actual audio section is just something basic. Heck, the new HiFi Rose integrated amp looks like some department store SOUNDESIGN brand from the 70’s and 80s.
Lumin has announced on its Facebook page a “mystery product” to be announced on Aug. 5 at a show in Hong Kong. The accompanying photo shows a P1, a U2 mini, and what appears to be the T3. Guess we’ll know for sure in early August.
Pre-Order. Stock due In early August or so. Please contact us to arrange for a deposit. Thank you.
The new T3 includes the latest generation processor and offers DSD512 and 384 kHz playback. Dual ES9028PRO SABRE DACS Digital and USB audio output. Precise 32-bit internal digital volume adjustment.
It would be good to be able to see the spec sheets for both turned into a 2 column table enabling the ease of comparison. It would help those of us with the T2 decide if it’s something we might want to consider upgrading…
Would be interesting to know if the streamer for the U2 Mini is the same as the streamer for the eventual T3. (So, the only difference being the DAC in the T3.)
T3 uses the same internal SMPS power supply and the same DAC design as the T2.
I always recommend getting our streamers with internal DAC to avoid incompatibilities (as often seen in this forum, people often make the mistake of buying a DAC that does not support Linux native DSD then ask why native DSD does not work in Roon), save an interconnect cable and a power cord. That being said, for those users who have decided on R2R, we have users with both popular brands of R2R DAC so compatibility is known to be good.
T3 and U2 Mini share the same streamer processor, and possess the same DSD256 upsampling feature (for non-Roon users). Other than this T3 and T2 are largely the same in terms of features.
I agree on the Streamer w/ integrated DAC philosophy. As long as the DAC in the streamer is up to snuff. More synergy, fewer boxes, no cable angst, etc…
The DAC I have is an R2R Denafrips Pontus II, which should play well… but that’s a big part of the decision… if the Lumin T3’s DAC sounds better than the U2 Mini into the Pontus, i have no problem ditching the external DAC.
