Lumin D1 MinimServer & burn in time questions

[erniejade]

I recently purchased a Lumin D1 with a SBooster power supply. I have a couple of questions. I have not figured out a way to load MinimServer on my Western Digital My Cloud EX2 NAS https://www.wdc.com/products/networ...pert-series-ex2-ultra.html#WDBVBZ0040JCH-NESN The Lumin software does see and play music from the Western Digital without the MinimServer software. Before I spend money on a different NAS that will support the MinimServer software, what benefit will I have doing so or using MinimServer software? Will it make the D1 sound better? I am running Flac and uncompressed WAV files. I don't have DSD files yet but, soon will. I just need to rip my Sacd's.

I also tried the D1 with a USB drive. I think the NAS sounded much better then the USB. I tried using a AudioQuest Jitterbug with it and that did help however the NAS still sounds better. Anything else I can try or just stick with the NAS?

When I change between the USB drive and the NAS,
it seems that the D1 re-caches the NAS. I was under the impressions that once it is cached, it should not need to re-cache even if you switch sources. Am I doing something wrong?

I know it needs time for the unit and power supply to break in. How many hours do you think it needs or around what hour mark does the magic start happening? While it doesn't sound bad, the sound after only 3-4 hours running last night is a bit constricted, sounds stage is more narrow, lacking some high end and warm where it shouldn’t be warm and the low end is also missing a hair compared to my laptop / w4s recovery / w4s dac2 combo or just vs the physical cd itself. Do you think with break in time, the sound stage will open up more and some of the high end comes in? It does have highs but just not the air, sparkle, or wideness the laptop & dac2 combo has or my cd player and the cd player is tube with vintage mullards in it.

 

[Oly]

Ernie - I also recently acquired a D1. I'm running Minimserver on a dedicated Mac Mini. I experimented with USB drives, a regular DLNA server, JRiver server, and using my Sony HAP Z1ES as a server to the D1. All four sounded the same to my ears.

Where they differ is in functionality. Minimserver allows you to sort by artist, recency, album title, etc. compared to the other methods which were more limited. You'll see the difference in the menu bar. It also runs faster/more smoothly with Minimserver.

Gary

 

[erniejade]

I can do a search and sort by artist, or album title. The Western digital ex2 I have does have Plex on it. I wonder if that is why I am able to search it like that?

How does the D1 do against the Sony? The sony was on my radar but what turned me off of it is the stories of how long it takes to load up.

 

[erniejade]

The nas does have built in DLNA/UPnP devices for streaming.

 

[erniejade]

Maybe it didn't load it all up because now it is starting to freeze up and when I click on the back button, it goes right back to the root of the entire drive instead of just back to where I was. I guess I will need to change my NAS or figure out how to get the usb to sound like the NAS. I wonder if Ifi makes a power supply that will fit my usb drive... hummm

Right now the Lumin app reads my flac file's name title but the rest says unknown. Any idea why? Jriver, BubbleUpnp shows artist, song title and album. Why would the Lumin app not show the same information as the other apps do on the same files?

A few more questions, as this unit breaks in, will the highs come out more? Usually during break in, it helps tame the highs down but on my rig, I need the highs to come up more to match my laptop / w4s recovery & dac2 combo.

The volume at 100% or even fixed, it is lower than my W4s Dac2, cd player, chrome cast audio. Anyway to get more volume out of it? I have to have my preamp turned 3/4 up ( like 2 o'clock position ) to match the other inputs ( like 10 o'clock)

 

[wklie]

I recently purchased a Lumin D1 with a SBooster power supply. I have a couple of questions. I have not figured out a way to load MinimServer on my Western Digital My Cloud EX2 NAS

I suggest you keep using the WD built-in UPnP server first, if you don't experience any functional issue or limitation with it. MinimServer does not make the D1 sound better, but it is the best UPnP server because others often have some limitations, such as some album art not showing up, or not supporting DSD, etc.

I did a search and it seems that MinimServer can run on some model(s) of WD, but its installation is not as straightforward even if does. If you purchase another NAS in the future, buy only Synology or QNAP.

Official figures for burn-in times are low, but I read three user reports of burning in 7x24 for a month. Fortunately it's relatively easy to do this, just fill the playlist with music of different sampling rates, turn on repeat, turn on the pre-amp, turn off the poweramp if not necessary. The D1 (and A1 / T1 as well) uses two WM8741 DAC chips, which do sound different from the ESS9018 chip you're used to.

 

[wklie]

The volume at 100% or even fixed, it is lower than my W4s Dac2, cd player, chrome cast audio. Anyway to get more volume out of it? I have to have my preamp turned 3/4 up ( like 2 o'clock position ) to match the other inputs ( like 10 o'clock)

Lumin models follow industry standard of 2V RCA and 4V XLR. Please use the balanced XLR outputs, and make sure the settings of Analog Output Level is Normal, and CD De-emphasis is off.

 

[erniejade]

Thanks for the info Peter. Unfortunately my Joule Electra LAP-150A tube pre only has RCA. The output level is normal and the De-emphasis is off. I did play around with the settings and found the unit sounded best with the volume disabled on the Lumin.

You are right on with the 2 chips sounding very different. Maybe my ears just need to adjust to the new sound. I have had the dac2 since .... I think 2010 or 2011 so I have lived with the unit for quite a bit of time.

I will look for a hack for my Western Digital ex2 to put MinimServer on it.

I will let everyone know how it goes.
Thanks all!

 

[erniejade]

It is opening up nicely. The top end is more extended now.

One more question, the lumin app shows the number order out of order. Example instead of 1,2,3,4. It's 19,2,1,4,13. Why is that? It's not just on things I have ripped, it's also stuff I have bought at HD tracks is out of order. It all is fine on other software like Jriver, windows media player, but the lumin app it's all out of order. Is there a setting I am missing? It doesn't matter if it's on the NAS or USB drive.

Thanks

 

[Mike]

Lumin D1 MinimServer & burn in time questions

It is opening up nicely. The top end is more extended now.

One more question, the lumin app shows the number order out of order. Example instead of 1,2,3,4. It's 19,2,1,4,13. Why is that? It's not just on things I have ripped, it's also stuff I have bought at HD tracks is out of order. It all is fine on other software like Jriver, windows media player, but the lumin app it's all out of order. Is there a setting I am missing? It doesn't matter if it's on the NAS or USB drive.

Thanks

It could be showing the track number. Glad it's opening up nicely for you. The D1 with the SBooster is a killer one-two punch.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[erniejade]

One more question on the app. Besides the number order, when you hit back on a folder you are in, anyway to make it not go all the way to the top of the page and just bring you back to the spot you were ? Example I have about 1000 CDs ripped, I go to the S area for Santana, I look for what I want, hit back to look for more and it brings me right back up to the A's on top.

 

[Mike]

One more question on the app. Besides the number order, when you hit back on a folder you are in, anyway to make it not go all the way to the top of the page and just bring you back to the spot you were ? Example I have about 1000 CDs ripped, I go to the S area for Santana, I look for what I want, hit back to look for more and it brings me right back up to the A's on top.

Not that I'm aware of. Searching on a HD is a little clunky compared to a NAS or L1. On a NAS/L1, I search by artist, album, etc.

 

[erniejade]

Re: Lumin D1 MinimServer & burn in time questions

The track numbers physically show up in the list in the folder but out of order so when you want to play that folder ( ripped cd or bought download) it will play out of order. Again. Jriver or other software pieces show it all proper. Makes it difficult for gap less like Floyd dark side or classical.

 

[erniejade]

Here is an example. This is how it looks in the viewer and the order it plays.

 

[erniejade]

Re: Lumin D1 MinimServer & burn in time questions

Jriver.

 

[erniejade]

Re: Lumin D1 MinimServer & burn in time questions

The unknown. Vs jriver. Same file. Same folder ripped with dbpoweramp

 

[erniejade]

Also gapless isn't working correctly for me. On stuff that does show up in order, there is a pause. Let's use Led Zeppelin how the west was won for an example. The first song is 14 seconds. It cuts blanks out the sound at 12 seconds before it goes to the immigrant song.
Playing the song by itself it plays the full 14 seconds. I tried this from my nas and USB drive with the same results. Jriver. No issues. Plays right through.

 

[wklie]

One more question, the lumin app shows the number order out of order. Example instead of 1,2,3,4. It's 19,2,1,4,13.

This looks like an issue with the UPnP server in your WD.

To prove this, install MinimServer on your computer and let it serve the same albums (either copy those albums to the computer, or use the network mounted share from WD).

 

[wklie]

Also gapless isn't working correctly for me. On stuff that does show up in order, there is a pause. Let's use Led Zeppelin how the west was won for an example. The first song is 14 seconds. It cuts blanks out the sound at 12 seconds before it goes to the immigrant song.

Please check whether gapless works from other tracks (not track 1). I've also sent you a beta firmware by PM.

 

[erniejade]

Peter, thank you so much for the help. I have uploaded the files to the D1 and it now plays gapless without any issues!

I tried putting my spare 3tb USB drive to the Lumin and it still sees unknown for the title and the numbers out of order on flac files. It's strange, on wav files, all the numbers are in order but flac, they are out of order. Jriver and BubbleUPnp both see all the files, name, title, and album name properly.

I will I'll try loading up minimserver to my laptop and see if it corrects it but, I have one more question. How does the lumin software read the files? It seems like it does not completely read how it's tagged. I was looking at some flac files that show up out of order on the lumin app but those files all show up full artist, song title, and lp name vs wav files that show up as unknown but, in the properties of the file itself the wav files show way more things vs the flac files.