Thread: Lumin U2 Mini

Using a PS3 as a source in a system such as yours? man, thats something.

Has anyone upgraded the power supply with the U2 mini?
Seemed to be a popular upgrade with the U1 mini

Originally Posted by brodricj

How so? The U2 mini plugs directly into the wall socket.

Lumin D2/ U1/U2 mini Upgrade Kit - Teddy Pardo Audio

some surgery involved.
Will probably void the warranty

Originally Posted by markush

So anyone can share their experience when comparing the U2 Mini to other streamers they listened to?

Lumin's U2 Mini has been a significant improvement over my Bryston BDP-Pi, which was a significant improvement over my Simaudio MiND 180, which was a significant improvement over a couple Bluesound products I had, which were significant improvements over the Logitech products I had (Sqeezebox)?

It's been a fun albeit expensive journey.

Now I'm considering a second U2 Mini to replace a second BDP-Pi.

For the record, I was just streaming Qobuz from my Mac Mini into my Denafrips Pontus II via USB, listening to some remastered jazz from the 1960s. The bass sounded muddy, almost terrible. I went back to the BPD-Pi and it was really good. It would sound even better on my U2, but that unit is downstairs on my other system.

Hello everyone. Longtime listener, first-time caller here. I appreciate the wealth of knowledge.

I could use some thoughts/guidance on an NAS for my U2 Mini. (I'm in the market for a second U2 Mini I like it so much.) I searched previous posts but did not find recent guidance for my questions. This post from 2017 is the most-recent I found:

Originally Posted by wklie

Although there's Lumin L1 for ease of use, power users may opt for a powerful NAS for use with Lumin.

Here's the latest recommendations for choosing NAS:

1. Must be able to install and run MinimServer
http://minimserver.com/installing.html

2. Either Synology or QNAP

3. Must use Intel CPU, not anything else

4. Comes with or upgradeable to 2GB RAM or preferably more (certain NAS models come with less AND does not have RAM sockets for user-installable upgrades - avoid those)

My questions:

Is the Intel CPU still required or strongly encouraged? That seems outdated.

Would I be crazy to get a one-bay QNAP or Synology unit that has 2GB of RAM but does not allow for adding RAM? QNAP has one that is very reasonably priced and gets strong reviews for what it is. My theory is that I would like to have an NAS dedicated to music use, and I'd have another (4-bay?) NAS with RAID capacity to backup those files as well as maintain my non-use files. I'm self-employed and want to keep my audiophile life 100% separate from my non-audiophile life. And it seems I don't need a ton of firepower to fuel the U2 Mini, such that a one-bay NAS from a good manufacturer like QNAP or Synology would be fine. But of course I might be wrong, and that's where you come in.

I guess an L1 remains an option, though budget-wise it's a stretch. But if Lumin users say it's made a big difference with respect to sound quality, ease of use, or both, I could be swayed to stretch the budget.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by brodricj

I've been using a QNAP TS-131 with a 4TB Seagate surveillance grade HDD for years. It's been great, it just keeps going. But I don't have much content on it. If I had a large collection of content I'd want a 2 bay NAS with RAID for peace of mind.

Thanks. That's one of two or three units I was looking at. Very helpful.

As for having RAID on an NAS dedicated solely to music ... I buy music maybe once a month, but usually several albums at a time, so I've been backing up my music to numerous and various drives (four at last count) once a month for years. I was thinking that having another larger NAS with RAID would actually give me double backups for my music files because they'd be on the "music NAS" and also on the "bigger NAS." Unlike my work files, I'm not adding to my music files daily so I don't see a need for immediate/daily backups. But maybe I'm missing something.

Peter and others ... thanks a lot for your replies and guidance.

In the last 24 hours, I've set out to learn some basics about computers, since I had no idea was x86 was. I was good with computers in 8th grade, but that was in 1980, the early era of Apple IIe computers, and, um, a lot has changed since then. [My dad, born in 1930, was a computer programmer and worked on massive mainframes in languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN and with memory-storage schemes such as punchcards and huge magnetic tape reels. I got into it for a while, but took a different path because, well, that's what kids do.]

Anyway, after doing some reading and watching YouTube videos, I tried an experiment and would be interested in thoughts.

At present, I am using a 2015 MacBook Air (4GB RAM) with MinimServer installed to run my music library off of an external 2TB USB drive. I've adjusted the settings so the computer does not go into sleep mode. It seems to be working just fine with my U2 Mini. This MacBook Air is a spare to a spare. In other words, it was two laptop computers ago. It was sitting there doing nothing, so I thought I'd put it into service.

Any downside to doing this, at least for now? As I understand it, using a Mac as a streamer is not a good idea because the sound quality is sub-par (I can attest to that), but here I am using it as a server, right? So there should be no effect on sound quality? My music library is only 900 gigabytes, so it fits fine on a 2TB USB drive. [I have my music library backed up on two other USB drives and two very old Western Digital external hard drives. It's safe, unless there's a fire. I need a NAS to replace the Western Digital drives.]

I tried getting this to work on a Mac Mini with an M1 chip, but I can't get MinimServer to open even after reading the instructions for installing Java on an M1 Mac, etc. I assume this is because there's no Intel inside?

This got me thinking though ... would it be worth getting a cheap, old Mac Mini (with Intel and at least 4GB RAM) off eBay for $100 be a good move if I pair it with a 2TB USB drive containing my music library? That's cheaper than getting a NAS with at least 2GB RAM dedicated to music. I have a closet in my home office where my laser printer sits alongside the old Western Digital drives, all wired to ethernet, so that's where the old MacBook Air is set up and where an old Mac Mini could go.

OK, back to the jazz I was listening to.

Originally Posted by wklie

If you have a wired network connection from the MacBook Air, or your MacBook WiFi connection is really stable and you don't have any streaming issue with it, then that's ok.

For MinimServer on M1, please follow this to download the appropriate version of Java:

Installing MinimWatch 2 on Mac

If that still does not work and you really want it running on M1, please ask in MinimServer forum. I believe this is a solved issue and it really should work after some installation / configuration work.

I stated x86 instead of ARM only because I thought you were interested to buy an ARM NAS. ARM in consumer grade NAS is a different thing from M1 - these are different ARM chips at the two different ends of performance spectrum. One is (I believe) low performance budget lower power processor below x86, while your M1 actually exceeds the performance in Celeron x86 NAS.

With your library size you probably don't need to worry about RAM at this point.

Thanks so much for the guidance! I have a wired connection and it works very well in our 114-year-old house, thanks to the latest MoCA technology. (We renovated in 2010 and installed coax instead of ethernet, right before ethernet became a thing). Anything that can be hard-wired is hard-wired via ethernet/coax/MoCA.

I'll keep troubleshooting the M1 and see where it leads. I do need an NAS eventually for work reasons more than audio reasons, but it would be nice to assign music-server responsibilities to the M1 Mac Mini if possible.

Originally Posted by Emil

Mini 2 arrived yesterday!
Setup was a breeze. Hardest part was remembering my Tidal and Qobuz passwords.
No issues using my android tablet. Worked flawlessly.
Any way to change the background from white to dark?

Hi Emil,
How do you find the U2 Mini compare to your Bluesound node? Does it sound better & how is the Lumin app compare to BluOS?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by MichaelsMinute

VERY true. I just did a test last night between mass-market ethernet switches and to my surprise noticed a difference.

Hi Michael,
Just curious why you were surprised there would be a difference. All switches reflect different design embodiments, and thus have different functionality and response to "noise factors". The switch is performing, at the highest level of abstraction, a transfer function, y=f(x). That transfer function is susceptible in it's "quality of output" to noise factors. Noise factors are anything and everything that impact or affect the mean, the median, or the variance (variance, S.D., or IQR) of the "response", and these metrics can impact the response individually, all togther, or more importantly, they can interact to create "failure modes" (a failure mode is anything that can go wrong) that may not occur from a single individual noise factor acting indepedently on a single key function. A simple example of an interaction folks can get their head around is Time*Temperature. When baking a cookie, a simple chemical transfer function, is it the interaction of time X temperature that results in a properly baked cookie, NOT Temp or Time alone. Well, not only can control factors that drive the response interact, but noise factors can interact as well.

In the real world, there are no perfect transfer functions. All functionality is impacted by noise or variance factors. Even in a circuit with 0V gain, there would be "shot noise" in the circuit, for example.

"Digital domain" devices e.g. routers and switches, network bridges, FMCs, optical transceiver, streamers, and digital cables, are susceptible to noise factors e.g. low- and high-source impedance leakage current, threshold jittter, deterministic jitter, phase noise and common-mode noise. Even the isolation transformers in the RJ45 jacks can contribute to the passage of leakage current, or if properly designed, as they were in EtherREGEN (which has 12 isolation transformers/port) can have an audible impact. Even how the cores for the isolation transformers in each jack are wound has an audible impact. This doesn't matter when sending a Word doc to a printer for printing a hard copy, but because our brains are so exquisitely sensitive to factors like timing and phase noise when listening to music "reproduced" as imperfect analog square wave voltages, all the factors listed above, and I'm sure others I haven't, have an audible impact. And with el-cheapo, consumer-grade switches using crap switch-mode power supplies, crap clocks, crap RJ45 jacks, crap isolation transformers, crap winding of the isolation transformers, crap isolation from vibration (digital clocks are extremely sensitive to the impact of vibration of their crystal oscillators), and crap wiring into crap cable replete with common-mode noise, it would logical to assume a lot of audio quality variability between Ethernet switch manufacturers.

Here's a much simpler way to get very high quality music from a source into a preamp section: put a well-mastered and pressed LP onto a Rega turntable.

Excited as ordered the U2 mini from my dealer, do the Lumin play cds by attaching a cd rom to it?
I know hifi rose does..

Thanks.

Originally Posted by blackspider777

Excited as ordered the U2 mini from my dealer, do the Lumin play cds by attaching a cd rom to it?
I know hifi rose does..

Thanks.

Congrats on your new Lumin U2 Mini! It does not support a CD ROM drive, but since it will be feeding an external DAC you can instead connect a CD transport (or player with digital output) to another input of the DAC.

Originally Posted by blackspider777

Excited as ordered the U2 mini from my dealer, do the Lumin play cds by attaching a cd rom to it?
I know hifi rose does..

Thanks.

Congrats on your Lumin U2 Mini. Lumin makes great products...

Hi all. New owner of a U2 mini with a quick question if i may. ( Sorry if it's been asked before, but i couldn't find quickly)
Coming over from the Bluesound ecosystem, how do i add a new song i like to an existing playlist in Qobuz? Like, i know how to create a new playlist, but i have several existing playlists that i like to add & subtract songs from which was a piece of cake in bluesound. Whilst surfing new music, if i like a song - tap the 3 buttons, choose "add to existing playlist", scroll through saved playlists & tap on the one i want it in. Done. Can't seem to find as simple a way in Lumin App.
As a workaround ive tried clearing Lumin playlist (ie "live" playlist, not saved) adding the saved playlist of choice to now playing, then search new music - add song i like to the Lumin playlist, then save updated playlist - making sure to call it something else. Then go & delete previous saved playlist. Is that it?? Surely i'm missing something.......
Rgds
Darren

Originally Posted by wklie

Lumin app does not have this feature yet. .

[emphasis mine on the yet: I’m encouraged by the word ‘yet’ and hope that feature makes it to your excellent app. I prefer to use it with my U1 Mini than any other controller software.

Another workaround is to use mconnect with an iOS device, and DLNA/UPnP stream Qobuz to Lumin devices. You lose the OpenHome benefits of the Lumin app but mconnect does support Qobuz playlist adding/appending.

Thanks Peter for considering this feature.

DSB69,
"ive tried clearing Lumin playlist (ie "live" playlist, not saved) adding the saved playlist of choice to now playing, then search new music - add song i like to the Lumin playlist, then"... and then you can overwrite the existing saved playlist with the icon right of "edit". Saves a step or two.

Originally Posted by wklie

Lumin app does not have this feature yet. Please use Qobuz app to manage your Qobuz playlists.

Looks like it does now with the latest iOS release (ver. 8.6.0). Thanks! Love it and it works great.

Sorry, another feature request: would it be possible, on the list that comes up after selecting ‘Add to Qobuz Playlist’, to have at the top of the list of existing playlists, an option to create a ‘New Playlist’? Thanks for considering it. And thanks for the great updates.

Originally Posted by M1k3

…Sorry, another feature request: would it be possible, on the list that comes up after selecting ‘Add to Qobuz Playlist’, to have at the top of the list of existing playlists, an option to create a ‘New Playlist’? Thanks for considering it. And thanks for the great updates.

*New* Playlist [+] working! Thank you Peter, and the LUMIN software team! I just tested this with the latest Android version of the app and it works great for both Qobuz and TIDAL. Awesome, thanks!!

I still would love to have you implement what mconnect does for linking to artist pages from a song, as mention in my post here: Lumin App Request

Thanks for working so hard to make Lumin the best solution for streaming music.

Cheers,
M1k3

I tried Amazon Music & apple music on my U2 mini through Airplay. I can only see the Airplay icon on the Lumin display.

Anyway to display track information on the lumin display?

Thanks.

Hello
Is there any incompatibility between U2 Mini and Apple computers with M1 processor?
I have a MAC Mini M1 from which I cannot stream to the U2 Mini via Apple Airplay, from the same computer on a 3D Labs streamer it works without problems. On the other hand, from an iPad tablet I can stream without problems on the U2 Mini. The two devices are connected on LAN in the same router. On the M1, I can select the U2 Mini as an AirPlay device, but when I start play, it freezes after a second. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thank you

Bogdan

Originally Posted by wklie

Currently, Lumin AirPlay does not show track name.

Any plans to implement it? as the other streamers do display track information even via airplay.

Thanks.

Can Jriver in a computer stream to U2 mini using Upnp? I.e U2 mini acts as a Upnp receiver.

Originally Posted by Adyc

Can Jriver in a computer stream to U2 mini using Upnp? I.e U2 mini acts as a Upnp receiver.

Yes, and you can read the specific thread on this forum here

Thanks!

Hello
Last week I received a firmware update on the U2 Mini, but still there is no word on the official website, the last one that appears is the one from May 22.
In the application appears 16.0h release date 2023-08-4. Does anyone have any idea what this is about?

Pardon the slight "digression" from the subject thread, but just a note that the U2 I have in for review is racking up hours. The U2 has some notable enhancements relative to the U2 Mini with respect to features and functions, including the ability to use LC/LC optical fiber, a new direct-coupled, very low noise USB-A port specifically designed for connecting to USB DACs, and an internal linear power supply.

It's got less than 100 hours of "burn-in" on it, and needs 500 to fully burn-in, but already I am very impressed with it. It's sounding...wonderful.

If you have a U2 Mini, and are considering an upgrade, or looking for a streamer to connect a "remote music server" to your system, the U2 would be my "go-to" recommendation for a "straight streamer" (i.e., no internal DAC) for folks looking for a streamer to connect to a DAC of their choice.

It also has a dedicated ground terminal for connecting to an Altaira.
This takes its already impressive performance to yet another level.

I honestly don't know if the fiber network brings a plus (noticeable in my system), but linear power supply and better clocks I think matter a lot.