Lumin U2 mini vs Mac laptop sound test

@12many 

Yes! Welcome.  I am doing another test today lower volume really listening deeply to see if I can hear a difference and will post the results. However, when I was setting things up this morning, it is absolutely not night and day.

I did another test today. I carefully listened to the Mac/USB/SPL Director DAC combo for a while before changing to the Lumin.  What I "think" I am hearing is more depth in the sound stage, more details on decay of symbols, more ambient feeling like hearing the room of the instruments echo a bit indicating they are not in a treated studio but a live club.  I did confirm that the differences require close listening to be heard. This again today was not night and day differences, in fact the differences in my DAC's, amps, even speaker cables reveal more of a sonic difference than the streamer experiment which remains boggling. I have watched/read reviewers say they hear sonic traits/differences in streamers but I may need more training to hear significant differences.  That said I am going to continue playing around and borrowing any streamer I can to continue this experiment.  Welcome all thoughts and comments.  

Thanks JH

That’s weird… when I upgraded  my streaming from a laptop feeding my dac via USB to an Auralic Aries feeding the same dac via USB, the improvement was immediately audible. Lower noise floor, better separation of instruments, more apparent detail. I’ve toyed with the idea of trying out a lumin; your post really puts me off the idea.

Please full system details (room too) and is your hearing Aok?

@wsrrsw 

System other than streamer

SPL Director pre/DAC

SPL S1200 Power Amp

Reimyo 999 main DAC

Kirmuss speaker cables 

Audio Solution Figero M speakers

My ears?  Maybe. I am better than I used to be at hearing things in the music but my mentor could hear this and say he hears a huge diff!