Lumin U1 vs Lumin U1 mini + sbooster?

Goofyfoot, unfortunately everything in the chain can make a significant difference.

I just upgraded from the D1 to U1 mini and it was quite the leap. I would have never imagined a streamer transport could make that much of a difference.

Even after my eye opening experience upgrading my digital cable to the Black Cat Tron, the mind seems to be quite unimaginative when it comes to these things.

Mrcyrpuz, after seeing what the Tron can do, I definitely would not skimp on the digital cable if I had a full size U1.

There is where a one box digital solution would make life a lot easier.

Audio sensibility sells a conversion kit for the U1 mini to run with linear power supplies other than the sbooster.

The kit has a 5.5 x 2.1mm DC socket.

I use it with an Uptone JS-2 LPS.

The U1 mini sounds fantastic in this setup.

I also ground the U1 mini with an Entreq Olympus minimus.

macdude, yes of course everything in the chain matters, that’s why my stereo sounds so good. However the problem with changing technologies is a serious consideration, especially for the companies building DAC’s and digital streamers. Ayre is a company that continues to upgrade their components because they want to keep there customers current. If Lumin had a reputation for doing the same, then I’d be less apprehensive about buying their product. I don’t want to have to drop a few thousand every six years in order to play a larger file size. 

I owned both the Lumin U1 and dCS Network Bridge.  For a number of reasons I don’t own either one now, I found the U1 sounded better to me than the Network Bridge.  I was using both with a dCS Debussy DAC.

sfseay, are still using the Debussy?