Has anyone comapred the Lumin X1 to the DCS Bartok?

I'd be very curious about this as well. But there are very few of either out there so I doubt anyone has really done the comparison yet.

I'm also interested to hear how the X1 would compare with the Ayre QX5 Twenty, which is very similar in design, functionality and price.

The Bartok is certainly on my radar to hear sometime in the next year.

I compared the Lumin S1 to the X1 and the MSB Premier in my home system for a long weekend. The X1 had a more organic sound than the S1 without sacrificing any of the openness and transparency of the S1. The MSB Premier provided more detail and musicality over the X1. While the MSB bested both Lumins, the Lumins were not embarrassed at all. As a matter of fact, I purchased an X1 as an upgrade to my S1.

Lastly, while you asked about the DCS Bartok, I at least wanted to offer a couple of points of reference.

Do you use your Lumin X1 to stream to the MSB Primer?

Of more interest is how the MSB Premier alone
from the same NAS compared to the lumin X1.

Many would want to settle for just the Lumin X1 fir a pure streaming based system. Unfortunately, the X1 lack a digital input otherwise, any cd player or transport would allow of a simple setup to spin occasional cd's if not already ripped to a NAS.

The comparison between the three components was performed by streaming from Tidal. Did not use the digital out of the Lumins - not interested in doing that since my plan had been to keep things simple and not add more components.

The MSB renderer worked flawlessly. I used Roon to manage the music. Overall, a very attractive package that looks great, sounds terrific but was a bit more $ than I was willing to spend.

The Lumins offer tremendous flexibility (Lumin App, Roon, MQA, Tidal, Qobuz, DSD,...) and terrific sound at a more reasonable price.

Thanks!

Totally agree, i did listen to the X1, fantastic and fab streaming performance in a simple 1 box.

I just listened to it as a 1 box and did not connect it to a dac. Did not have that intention either. But just curious again now.

It was hard though to make the connections with the back hood overlapping which precluded me from testing a streamer without the in built dac.

The connections to and from would have posed to much of a problem from me as getting the interconnects in was a huge feat with the unit in a lower shelf and was struggling to position my hands and get the connection done.

It took way linger getting the connections done then forming my impression.

I would really have liked to see a masterclock input at this price level though.