Lumin P1 in 'da house

[Puma Cat]

Just in for review....the Lumin P1.

Presently using it as a streamer, DAC and preamp using the innovative LEEDH volume processing.

One of the things that is really nice....I don't need to use an Ethernet or USB cable to connect it to my music server. Going straight into it from my music server using...OM-1 specification optical fiber using the optical transceiver normally used in my EtherREGEN. It's powered with the amazing Shunyata QR-s power cable connected to an Everest power disributor.



Presently using it with a Constellation Inspiration integrated amp with volume set to Unity gain. Controlling output volume using the LEEDH technology either in Roon or with the supplied remote control.

Just connected it up yesterday, have no more than 24 hours or so on it, but so far, I am very impressed with it. It has superb transparency, clarity, and the inner detail and resolution of timbre and texture are exemplary. And....it is QUIET.

More later as it runs in....

 

[J007B]

I’m looking forward to your review. I have a Lumin U1 and love it. I’ve always been impressed by Lumin’s constant drive to improve their products.

 

[Kenc]

I am also looking forward to hear about this. I am using a Lumin U1 (with X1 power supply) into a Baltic 3 dac. I hope you will be able to compare the internal dac of the P1 to the Baltic. It's also interesting that Lumin has gone with an internal PS on the P1.

 

[Puma Cat]

I am also looking forward to hear about this. I am using a Lumin U1 (with X1 power supply) into a Baltic 3 dac. I hope you will be able to compare the internal dac of the P1 to the Baltic. It's also interesting that Lumin has gone with an internal PS on the P1.

That is definitely on the agenda.

 

[Puma Cat]

I’m looking forward to your review. I have a Lumin U1 and love it. I’ve always been impressed by Lumin’s constant drive to improve their products.

Yeah, I am very impressed with Lumin, too. They think everything through very thoroughly. I like their rigorous approach to design and engineering.

 

[Puma Cat]

So, I've had the Lumin P1 playing continuously last coupla three days, even when the wonderful Constellation Inpiration integrated is turned off, and I estimate the Lumin P1 has about 60 hours on it at this point. And....it is sounding really wonderful, even at this fairly early point. My guess is it will continue to improve with more hours, and I'll cycle it off for a spell tomorrow to help with forming the caps, but so far...I am very impressed. It has superb transparency, clarity, inner detail, a natural, lovely, tonal palette and excellent rendition of timbre and texture, along with a spacious and wide soundstage (wider than the Linn, for example). And like the excellent Aurender N20 streamer/server, the P1's stereo image has excellent 3-dimensionality and "palpability" to the instrumental and vocal "voices"; there's weight and body to the images and vocals.

Peter has been helpful for arranging for me to get the L1 music server as well, so I'll add that in to the mix when it gets here.

I haven't heard all that many "all-in-one" 1-box streamer/DAC/preamp combos, most notably the Linn Klimax DSM/3, and the P1 fully holds its own with the Linn on pretty much every front, and actually presents a wider soundstage. And for 1/4 the price.

 

[Puma Cat]

Update regarding the Lumin P1...

I've been racking up more and more hours on the Lumin P1, and I continue to be more and more impressed with it. I estimate I've got 100 or so hours of burn-in on it, as i sometimes leave it on overnight, with the integrated amp powered off, but the P1 on with music files running through it.

I calculated the other day that by using the P1 with a direct fiber optical l connection, I was able to eliminate a significant number of "devices" from the streaming reproduction chain: no need for an Ethernet switch in the main rack, no need for an LPS for that Ethernet switch, no need for a network bridge, so no need LPS for the network bridge, AND...no need for power cords for those power supplies, AND... no need for an Ethernet cable or a USB cable. That’s…six, count 'em six, fewer “components” overall in the signal path from music server to DAC.

Just yesterday I put all the "networked music server" components onto a Shunyata PS10 power distributor in the "remote music server room", and that brought about a significant increase in audio quality. Things have come a long way since the venerable little Hydra 4.

Anyhoo...the P1 continues to impress me with it's performance for any and all high-end audiophile attributes that we tend to "geek out" about.

More to the point, it just makes MUSIC, and in a most wonderful way, indeed.

Paired with the luscious Constellation Inspiration integrated amp, which I'm still listening to as my dual-mono power supplies for my First Sound preamp only arrived just today after being upgraded with Shunyata's latest CCI-X noise filters, this combination makes for an exceedingly musical "perfect pairing", if you ask me.

 

[Puma Cat]

Well, I was so impresssed with the Lumin P-1 that I bought one. It arrived yesterday.

I did the P-1 "install" with my iPhone. Downloaded the Lumin app, and it immediately found the P-1 on my network, and downloaded the latest version of the operating system, in all of about 2 minutes. Then, I logged into my Qobuz account, and was streaming from the P-1 via the iPhone in a manner of minutes.

I'm presently using it with my little Amp Camp amps; both the P-1 and the ACAs are connected to an "analog amplification segment" SG Altaira hub. What makes this easy is that Lumin installed a proper chassis ground terminal on the back of the P-1. Just another reason why Lumin has it got it goin' on in my view.

All the gear inside the red borders is now gone, replaced by the P-1.

Did a "back-of-napkin" calculation, and by installing the P-1 in conjunction with the Inspiration integrated amp, I'm able to remove 15 "bits of gear" from the system, after adding up all the cables, power supplies, components, switches, blah, blah, etc.

Here is the new set-up: MUCH tidier and simpler.

And...it sounded absolutely FANTASTIC right off the truck, without even having had time to settle or burn-in, yet. Oh, man! Simpler is better....

 

[DSkip]

The Lumin P1 has a home in my reference system and it is very good, especially as a transport. For me the special sauce of Lumin is in their front-end handling of a file. If you take that P1 and hook it up to a great DAC, you will see huge gains.

I knew I was going to use a transport and not an all-in-one (still not sold on ANY AIO units I've heard, at least at the reference level), so it came down to the U1 and the P1. By the time you add the X1 power supply to the U1, you're already at $8,600, just $1,400 shy of the P1. Add in other areas you need to address - dual chassis vibration control, upgraded umbilical.... - and you begin to easily surpass the cost of the P1 which houses the X1 power supply internally. On top of that, you don't get the HDMI connection which has allowed my demo space to become a theather again that the family really enjoys. Note I haven't even touched on an internal DAC.

I was shopping outside of Lumin as well, considering a new line to add, but I couldn't find anything that really spoke to me. I've heard the big players and the fringe units didn't do enough to convince me to jump off the Lumin ship.

 

[Puma Cat]

The Lumin P1 has a home in my reference system and it is very good, especially as a transport. For me the special sauce of Lumin is in their front-end handling of a file. If you take that P1 and hook it up to a great DAC, you will see huge gains.

I knew I was going to use a transport and not an all-in-one (still not sold on ANY AIO units I've heard, at least at the reference level), so it came down to the U1 and the P1. By the time you add the X1 power supply to the U1, you're already at $8,600, just $1,400 shy of the P1. Add in other areas you need to address - dual chassis vibration control, upgraded umbilical.... - and you begin to easily surpass the cost of the P1 which houses the X1 power supply internally. On top of that, you don't get the HDMI connection which has allowed my demo space to become a theather again that the family really enjoys. Note I haven't even touched on an internal DAC.

I was shopping outside of Lumin as well, considering a new line to add, but I couldn't find anything that really spoke to me. I've heard the big players and the fringe units didn't do enough to convince me to jump off the Lumin ship.

Interesting info, thanks. If you think a Lumin P-1 is good, you have to hear it using a segmented* Shunyata Altaira SG Ground Hub system. Whoa. (I need that "top of the head blowing off'" emoticon...)

*–one segment for the digital "front end" and one segment for the analog amplification componnents)

 

[Lee]

Interesting info, thanks. If you think a Lumin P-1 is good, you have to hear it using a segmented* Shunyata Altaira SG Ground Hub system. Whoa. (I need that "top of the head blowing off'" emoticon...)

*–one segment for the digital "front end" and one segment for the analog amplification componnents)

Have the Altaira grounding system running in my system and I fully agree.

 

[Puma Cat]

Just an update on my Lumin P1: I now have >400 hours of burn-in, and just some of the folks from Lumin communicated to me, once you get past 400 hours on the P1, things get considerably better. Once I got past 400 hours, what was already a VERY impressive integrated streamer, DAC, and preamp just..."EXPLODED" with a notable increase in overall audio quality: increased resolution, clarity, depth, imaging, soundstage, detail, articulation, dimensionality, presence, and most importantly, expression and musicality. I continue to be "blown away" by just how good the P1 is...and, from what I've read, it will continue to improve past 500 hours. I know my comments appear to be "waxing poetic", but...goddam! Honestly, I'd rank the P1 in the top 5 or 6 components I have EVER heard, along with products from Technical Brain, DarTZeel, TAD, Esoteric and Constellation. And while not inexpensive, as their respective price points, I think Lumin's products provide an exceptional value proposition.

Bottom-line: when it comes to a streamer, DAC, and preamp, I'm...done.

 

[Puma Cat]

Have the Altaira grounding system running in my system and I fully agree.

What Altaira does for a system is just frickin' INSANE. When I had an Altaira dedicated to the Constellation Inspiration integrated amp, honestly, in my estimation, it provided like 40% improvement in audio quality for what was already an incredible-sounding integrated (love me a good integrated, BTW).

 

[keithc]

What Altaira does for a system is just frickin' INSANE. When I had an Altaira dedicated to the Constellation Inspiration integrated amp, honestly, in my estimation, it provided like 40% improvement in audio quality for what was already an incredible-sounding integrated (love me a good integrated, BTW).

Caelin said, in his recent interview video w/ TAS, that everyone should try simple grounding of their components before the Altaira.
What does that mean? Like external ground wires from each component chassis to my foundation? I've always assumed the ground prong was enough...

 

[Puma Cat]

Caelin said, in his recent interview video w/ TAS, that everyone should try simple grounding of their components before the Altaira.
What does that mean? Like external ground wires from each component chassis to my foundation? I've always assumed the ground prong was enough...

There's a number of ways you can try this, Keith.

One way is to simply connect any unused interface ports, e.g. RCA, using a Coax-TV style RCA plug that has a pure copper wire connected to only to the RCA plug's minus (negative)-terminal, and terminating with a pure copper split-bolt at the end. This will provide an audible difference in lowering the ground-plane noise to some extent. Here's one I made up...in this case, I simply plugged these RCAs into an unused L and R input (or 2nd output, if there is one) of my preamp. Note the pure copper wire only goes into the negative terminal on the RCA plug (on the right of the back of the plug).

Alternatively, you can connect a single RCA plug with only the - terminal connected to a copper ground wire to a S/PDIF input on a DAC for example, and connect the other end to a GP-NR (ground-plan noise reduction) terminal on a Shunyata power distributor. You could also put a spade or banana connector on this end. This will lower ground-plane noise more than the copper split-bolt.

If your component has a dedicated chassis ground terminal, as my First Sound Presence Deluxe preamp does (thank you, Emmanuel Go!) you can connect a ground cable from that to the split-bolt, or better yet, the GP-NR of a a Shunyata power distributor (shown here with at lower right using a Shunyata Alpha CGC ground cable with a spade termination)

And, yes, those are Shunyata Venom-X ICs connected to the FS' inputs and output RCAs.
"Yeah, baby, yeah!" - Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery

Same applies to an amp. I installed the same type of dedicated chassis ground terminal that Emmanuel uses on the back of my C-J LP70S power amp (and checked that it made a connection to chassis ground using a ohm meter) This is because the "earth ground" screw on the back of my LP70S is cannot be loosened as it has a lock-nut on it on the inside part of the chassis. So, I installed my own.

Same for connecting the ground terminal of EtherREGEN to my Shunyata Everest's GP-NR terminals. This made for a BIG improvement. Digital-domain devices in particular usually have a fair bit of noise on their ground planes (so much for "Perfect Sound, Forever"...yeah, right, Sony!) Particularly those digital devices powered using a switch-mode power supply...ugh! Ghastly! Ack! - Bill, the Cat.

Many thanks to John Swenson of EtherREGEN fame for installing a ground terminal on ER. John also knows what he's doing...

All of these ground connections improve by about at least an order of magnitude when they're connected to the appropriate Altaira hub. The improvement Altaira brings in ground-plane noise reduction is profound.