Lumin U2 or Aurender N200

AQ Diamond USB is here! I’ll let it cook for a week or so before I know what it’s really capable of, but it’s an immediate improvement in soundstage and tone over the stock cable. 

Stock cable, as in the throw-away that came with the unit?? 

@mclinnguy I would not go as far as to call it a throw away. Aurender actually includes a somewhat decent USB cable that doesn’t do much harm. It doesn’t offend. Is it the last word in refinement, noise floor and extension? No.
But I’d say it’s sufficient to hold over until a better cable can be obtained.

Which kind of does make it a throw away now that I just said all that. Lol

I’ve also been running a stock power cord on the N200. Being as OCD as I am about all this, I got an AQ Tornado for the N200 to match the Diamond.

So before the Tornado, initial impressions after about 20hrs of break in on the Dianond….lower noise floor, fuller more luscious mids, bass was lean and loose in the first few hours but rebounded nicely and is weighty and fast, highs are sweet and more natural than the stock cable. I do think it’s got ways to go though so I will give it the full 200hrs to come up with final thoughts. So far the upgrade is worth it.

@audphile1 

I used a cheapo Wireworld starlight for years, as even the engineer of my previous DAC stated it would make no difference. Finally decided to try it and got a Lightspeed and a Lush^3 to check it out. Absolutely they changed the sound, but you are talking OCD? I would switch them back and forth depending on the track: Lightspeed was more detailed and extended, the Lush was definitely named appropriately, but sometimes the bass became overbearing- and the lush was customizable with its grounding wires! I couldn't handle tweaking cables every few minutes, it reminds me when I was a kid with a car stereo that was worth more than the car it was in, and I fiddled with the 10 band Sony equalizer constantly- by the time I got it right the song was over!

I have since acquired a USB-less DAC, sold the USB cables and very relieved not to have USB options at the moment 😁

Curious though, if you upgraded to the N20 would you still use the USB into the Bricasti M3? Or would AES then be the best option? I checked Aurender's user manual and it states connection would be DAC dependent. 

@mclinnguy N20 has OCXO clock. Yes the connection is DAC dependent but also content dependent. I would experiment with equal level AES and USB.
Assume that the OCXO clock in the N20 is the superior of the 2 units, I’d use AES for regular Qobuz hi-res streaming. But if you have DSD rips, it would be worth comparing once again the DoP via AES to DSD Native via USB.

Thanks for your recommendation @la45. I don’t want to hijack this post, but I have been wondering if it’s worth the investment to add the fiber setup for the Lumin U2. Are you using the Lumin U2 with fiber now? If you are I’d be curious to know what you’re using on the fiber network side. I was thinking I could try something inexpensive like the TP Link TL-SG3210. I didn’t know if it pays to use something better with a LPS. I also heard it’s worthwhile to use Finisar SFP’s. Wondering if you have any experience in this area?