This review page is supported in part by the sponsors whose ad banners are displayed below The new power supply exhibits the same electrical properties as the previous one. It’s thus possible to use on the S1 a 3rd-party PSU designed for the original A1. The S1’s new PSU has been upgraded with bigger Elna capacitors and new ones from Rubycon. To my knowledge that’s the sole modification since Lumïn have stuck to the same Plitron toroidal transformers. As you see, there is not a lot to say about technical developments. How Pixel Magic have developed their new flagship is rather similar to the old Japanese art of design which selects with extreme accuracy those parts which can deliver significant sonic improvement, then lays out the best circuitry to organize them. I also have to make a short mention of the iPad app because Pixel Magic have constantly upgraded their Lumïn software over the past two years. It’s now possible to navigate through the complete folder tree of external storage devices. Radio streaming uses the Tunein service. A specific DSD filter eliminates ultrasonic noise when playing DSD files. The USB input can now connect to a USB hard or flash drive to create a kind of Lumïn USB server. Finally PCM to DSD upsampling has been extended to include 88.2KHz and 96KHz PCM files. Today I consider the Lumïn app to be the most complete alliance of browsing and pure audio functions I have experienced yet. It’s really a terrific achievement. I now think it would be utterly silly to involve 3rd-party UPnP apps with Lumïn’s network players. When I compare what this small Hong Kong-based technical team have achieved versus Stream Unlimited—the specialist subcontractor for many manufacturer like Atoll, Ayon and Musical Fidelity—I am amazed by the overall quality of Lumïn’s developers. Sound. I first want to state firmly that my goal for this review was not to tell you whether the technology used by Lumïn is better than another; if 16 x Delta-Sigma converters exceed a discrete R2R implementation; or whether DSD streaming is better than high-resolution PCM files. I honestly think of it all as a never-ending quite sterile topic. My goal instead is to share with you my impressions based on living with the Lumïn S1 for a long time and comparing it to other solutions I explored. Let’s start with the new PSU. I mentioned that the electrical specifications of the new S1 allow the use of previous A1 supplies. I was thus able to compare my Kenneth Lau DIY realisation with the stock S1 PSU. Despite the last Kenneth Lau power supply unit having been a great improvement over the standard A1’s, the new S1 ultimately performed better with its own improved PSU. Li On, Pixel Magic’s lead designer, told me that their new one was designed to deliver more current to better suit the new D/A conversion stage which obviously relies on higher power reserves than the previous circuit. Thierry Nkaoua (Audiophile Magazine ) on left, Nelson Choi (Pixel Magic CEO) on right at HighEnd Munich 2014 How about applying the S1 PSU to the A1 in a cheap trick of reverse engineering? First, it’s always amazing to hear the impact of a modification to a power supply on the overall sonic result. Surprisingly, Pixel Magic’s pragmatic approach to alter only a few carefully selected critical components became to my ears the winningest strategy over the audiophile-grade parts approach of the Hong Kong DIYer. The S1 PSU brought better dynamics, a slightly wider soundstage and a bit more detail. The sound was also a bit more forward whilst the Kenneth Lau version delivered a more relaxed laid-back perspective. It might be a matter of personal taste but I honestly thought that the S1 PSU gave a slightly better overall result than the DIY version. Considering the S1 compared to the stock A1 and even the A1 equipped with a more sophisticated power supply, there is no doubt: the new S1 has amazingly increased its performance for PCM file streaming. The soundstage has grown impressively bigger, the level of detail has increased significantly and the quality of tone in my opinion is the greatest achievement of the new flagship. The original A1’s reproduction of timbre which already had a bell-like clarity is taken to a new level. Timbres have greater palpability and realism, partly as the result of less grain and edge which were already very low with the A1; partly because of greater resolution of textural detail. Streaming PCM files, I would say that I now encountered the same quality of tone as delivered by the Ayon S5 which I hosted in early 2013, albeit with perhaps more neutrality and undoubtedly less euphony than the tube unit. Put differently, I found in the Lumïn S1 a tonal balance that perfectly fit my personal tastes. This shouldn’t imply that the previous A1 was weak in this area. I have lived with the A1 for two years and enjoyed great listening pleasure. The S1 simply snapped images into sharper focus and increased the sense of clarity, precision and definition I had already enjoyed with the Lumïn A1. Now the S1 moved things further up to approach the high-end results of the most ambitious existing digital players without any consideration of price.