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On the recommendation by a dealer, we brought a Lumin X1 to a user's home to get some objective feedback. He was a user of Lumin A1, upgraded to S1, then moved on to something that is several times more expensive than the X1. The rest of the setup includes (may not be 100% accurate):
- Goldmund pre-amp
- Goldmund mono amp with a separate voltage regulator tuned to 230V (normally 220V here)
- Goldmund speakers
- Ethernet cable - Vertere together with a LAN isolator
- Ethernet switch - Buffalo BS-GS2016/A modified with LPS and OCXO, and all LED connection cut
- NAS - Synology DS918+(?) with Seagate hybrid drives, Paul Pang modified SSD cache, fan and LED connections cut
- All switching power supplies for the whole network are replaced by LPS
He is pleasantly surprised by so much more musicality from the X1, as compared to the S1 he had before. He thinks the X1 performance is very good especially considering the price. Another visitor, who is a current Lumin S1 user, also thinks the X1 sounds better and is seriously considering to buy the X1. Comparing to his current setup that costs multiple times of X1 - a DAC with a streaming network board option, an external power supply upgrade, an external clock, fuse upgrade, he thinks the X1 has more bass presence but his current setup has more treble extension.
Switching from Vertere Ethernet cable to optic fiber (3M Volition single mode duplex fiber with a pair of TP-Link TL-SM311LS SFP), he thinks there is more detail and it sounds different.
His equipment is star grounded to a grounding box. After connecting the X1 to the grounding box, he thinks female vocal is better.
After disabling everything unnecessary on the X1 (Roon Ready, Spotify Connect, AirPlay, front panel and network LED - new from X1), he thinks the clarity is improved.
He thinks 2.4GHz WiFi as used by the tablet affects the SQ of his setup (regardless of DAC), switching to 5GHz WiFi sounds better, even if the music data travels from wired network only. [I think this is a case of WiFi interference.]
The above is the preliminary result of the user's perspective of a listening session less than 3 hours. He'll listen to the X1 for a few more days, and may do some upgrade (such as fuse). Hopefully we'll have more results next week.
Regarding the cutting of all LED in the network chain, it made network error diagnosis harder. Initially we could not get the optic fiber network to work, because the switch is hidden behind a sofa and is hard to reach, so the SFP was probably not inserted properly. After re-inserting the SFP module it worked.
By the way, we also listened to great sounding vinyl. I also get to personally experience how mono vinyl can sound stereoscopic (I don't know why, perhaps readers can enlighten me).
- Goldmund pre-amp
- Goldmund mono amp with a separate voltage regulator tuned to 230V (normally 220V here)
- Goldmund speakers
- Ethernet cable - Vertere together with a LAN isolator
- Ethernet switch - Buffalo BS-GS2016/A modified with LPS and OCXO, and all LED connection cut
- NAS - Synology DS918+(?) with Seagate hybrid drives, Paul Pang modified SSD cache, fan and LED connections cut
- All switching power supplies for the whole network are replaced by LPS
He is pleasantly surprised by so much more musicality from the X1, as compared to the S1 he had before. He thinks the X1 performance is very good especially considering the price. Another visitor, who is a current Lumin S1 user, also thinks the X1 sounds better and is seriously considering to buy the X1. Comparing to his current setup that costs multiple times of X1 - a DAC with a streaming network board option, an external power supply upgrade, an external clock, fuse upgrade, he thinks the X1 has more bass presence but his current setup has more treble extension.
Switching from Vertere Ethernet cable to optic fiber (3M Volition single mode duplex fiber with a pair of TP-Link TL-SM311LS SFP), he thinks there is more detail and it sounds different.
His equipment is star grounded to a grounding box. After connecting the X1 to the grounding box, he thinks female vocal is better.
After disabling everything unnecessary on the X1 (Roon Ready, Spotify Connect, AirPlay, front panel and network LED - new from X1), he thinks the clarity is improved.
He thinks 2.4GHz WiFi as used by the tablet affects the SQ of his setup (regardless of DAC), switching to 5GHz WiFi sounds better, even if the music data travels from wired network only. [I think this is a case of WiFi interference.]
The above is the preliminary result of the user's perspective of a listening session less than 3 hours. He'll listen to the X1 for a few more days, and may do some upgrade (such as fuse). Hopefully we'll have more results next week.
Regarding the cutting of all LED in the network chain, it made network error diagnosis harder. Initially we could not get the optic fiber network to work, because the switch is hidden behind a sofa and is hard to reach, so the SFP was probably not inserted properly. After re-inserting the SFP module it worked.
By the way, we also listened to great sounding vinyl. I also get to personally experience how mono vinyl can sound stereoscopic (I don't know why, perhaps readers can enlighten me).
opcorn:
