Luminis

Reviewer: Srajan Ebaen
Financial interests: click here
Main system: Sources: Retina 5K 27" iMac (i5, 256GB SSD, 40GB RAM, Sonoma 14), 4TB external SSD with Thunderbolt 3, Audirvana Studio, Qobuz Sublime, Singxer SU-6 USB bridge, LHY Audio SW-8 & SW-6 switch, Sonnet Pasithea, Laiv Audio Harmony; Active filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Power amplifiers: Vinshine Audio x Kinki Studio Dazzle & Gold Note PA-10 Evo in mono on subwoofer; Headamp: Enleum AMP-23R; Phones: Raal 1995 Immanis; Loudspeakers: Qualio IQ [on loan] Cables: Exact Express Flame, Furutech; Power delivery: 2 x Kinki/Vinshine Tai Hang on amps and source stack, Furutech DPS-4.1 between wall and conditioners; Equipment rack: Artesanía Audio Exoteryc double-wide 3-tier with optional glass shelves, Exoteryc amp stands; Sundry accessories: Acoustic System resonators, AudioQuest FogLifters; Room: 6 x 8m with open door behind listening seat; Room treatment: 2 x PSI Audio AVAA C214 active bass traps
2nd system: Source: FiiO R7 into Soundaware D300Ref SD transport to Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe with POW; Preamp/filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Amplifier: Kinki Studio EX-B7 monos; Loudspeakers: Virtual Hifi Cobra [on loan]; Subwoofer: Zu Method; Cable loom: Exact Express Earth; Power delivery: Vibex Granada/Alhambra, Akiko Audio Corelli Corundum & Castello Solo; Equipment rack: Hifistay Mythology Transform X-Frame [on extended loan]; Sundry accessories: Furutech cable lifts, Furutech NFC Clear Lines; Room: ~3.5 x 8m
2nd headfi system: DAC: Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe with POW; Headamp: Cen.Grand Silver Fox; Headphones: Raal 1995 Magna, HifiMan Susvara
Desktop system: Source: HP Z2 work station Win11/64; USB bridge: Singxer SU-2; DAC/preamp: Audalytic DR701; Headphone amp: Audalytic HP70; Speaker amps: Topping B200 monos; Loudspeakers: Virtual Hifi Viper; Headphones: Final D-8000, aune SR7000, FiiO FT7
Upstairs headfi system: FiiO R7; Headphones: Meze 109 Pro, Fiio FT3
2nd upstairs speaker system: Source: FiiO R7; Integrated amplifier: Simon Audio Lab i5; Loudspeakers: ModalAkustik Musikboxx with Dynaudio S18 subwoofer
2-channel video system: Source: Oppo BDP-105; All-in-One: Gold Note IS-1000 Deluxe; Loudspeakers: Zu Soul VI; Subwoofer: Zu Submission; Power delivery: Furutech eTP-8, Room: ~6x4m
Review component retail: €15'800

Use mouse-over loupe to zoom in; or right-click to open in a new window at full size.

Wanna dance? In public you mean? With every smartphone watching? That's exactly what he meant, him being Milomir 'Miki' Trošić of Serbia's valve-audio house Auris. My proposed date was to be his flagship Luminis, a 20wpc parallel single-ended 300B beauty with 6SN7 inputs, 75mA auto bias, classic double C-core output iron and no global feedback. Looking at my inventory of dancing shoes sadly showed hole-ridden soles all around. 83dB monitors only getting properly high on 200wpc. Hybrid ported/dipole 3-ways loving 300wpc of high-current direct-coupled Mosfet juice. None of it would ideally waltz with Luminis other than do the ol' Potomac 3-step: one forward, two back. I nearly declined to spare myself embarrassment. Then, Sauron-like, my roving mental eye saw Zu's Soul VI. Whilst that stumpy floorstanding widebander with compression throat tweeter welcomes high-power class D, it's equally fluent in low-power class A triode. If Miki thought my Americans suitable for his top deck, I was willing to put my moves on it. White men can't dance. In my defence, I've had my way-back triode times with Art Audio's PX25, Yamamoto's 45, Ancient's 6C33C SET and other glow bugs. Like riding a bicycle, surely the SETango would come back to me? In fact, my last such assignment dated back just two measly months, to the push/pull 2A3 Woo Audio WA33 2nd gen, albeit on headphones not speakers. For some Travolta muscle memory, I asked for a fully pre-conditioned unit. "No problem. I'll ship you my personal demonstrator." Luminis wouldn't be denied.

Two stacked power toroids, two output transformers below deck, two atop it shown below.

With all the 'x' and 'o' ticked, I relaxed again. Having done proper diligence, upfront not after the fact, how would my first speaker-based triode encounter in very many moons come off? Could I forget my DC-coupled 2.5MHz transistors and meet a quartet of 300B on its very own merit? One extra feather in the Luminis cap is being switchable to 'mesh' bias, opening the doors to Emission Labs and similar glass with true wire mesh not solid or perforated plates. If you hadn't kept tabs on current 300B production, there's Japan with Takatsuki, Korea with Stradi, China with Linlai, Psvane and TJ/Full Music, Czechia with EAT, Emission Labs and KR Audio, Slovakia with JJ, Germany with Elrog and the US with Western Electric. Presently shunned for the war in Ukraine, there's also Russia with ElectroHarmonix. No matter our selection, we have plenty of choices well before raiding any rare NOS inventories of possibly dubious provenance. As to Auris provenance, "we make amplifiers, a phono stage, DACs and turntables. Due to our decision to focus on premium products and reduce our number of models, I sold our tonearm project to Chris Feickert. He is now the owner of tonearms we designed and manufactured for more than five years." Clearly our Serbian brand is far from a one-trick pony; never mind sister brand EarMen for portable kit. There's even very ambitious new product in the chute which I've been promised first dibs on when the time comes. But today is all about Luminis. If Serbia hadn't as yet factored on your hifi map, other brands I'm aware of are Dayens, NAT, SAEQ, Senna Sound, Solaja, Raal and Trafomatic. There are probably more. As Dragan Solaja explained once about why valves are popular in his country, "our libraries had many old textbooks on tube circuits whilst availability of modern Western parts was limited. So many Serbian DIYers focussed on tubes from plentiful Soviet inventories and some of them grew into successful commercial enterprises now known around the world".

By dedicating an output transformer to each individual tube, paired operation separates cleanly rather than allows one 300B to influence the other in a shared channel. It's like twinned dual mono. 6SN7 octal twin-triode driver tubes are the classic big-tone choice for 300B outputs though the absence of a 5UG4-type rectifier shows that Miki's design team isn't stuck in the past. With transformer-coupled valve amps, the old 'power is everything' mantra looks most intently at the output magnetics. They're the bridge between the power triodes and our speaker inputs so critical to the sound. Tube DIYers usually outsource them, be it from Poland's Toroidy, Sweden's Lundahl, Canada's Hammond or America's Mercury Magnetics. Even commercial brands do just like many famous speaker houses still procure their drivers from specialty vendors like Accuton, Monacor, SB Acoustics or Scan-Speak. But then there are tube-audio brands that wind their own transformers. In fact Octave of Germany, Trafomatic of Serbia, Fezz of Poland and TruLife Audio of Greece all started out as transformer suppliers well before branching out into their own electronics. 13 years after launching Auris Audio in 2013, where are Miki's output transformers of today made? For Luminis, what are basic performance specs like -3dB bandwidth, S/NR and residual µV noise? From the opening photos we already saw its 1:3 XLR:RCA inputs and 4/8Ω binding posts. We saw an OLED display with real-time VU meter. How about beneath the bonnet for other sonically critically key parts like the interstage coupling capacitors? What about the IR remote? On these question marks, the current Auris website is peculiarly mute though the photos clearly show that the stock tubes are by Psvane; and that there are at least two gain levels. That's common for headfi, far less so for speaker amps. Just so, lower voltage gain is usually synonymous with lower noise. Now 100dB+ types like Voxativ widebanders or Avantgarde horns would be especially catered to.

On an older website from when the brand's aesthetic still championed ivory leather wrap between bevelled solid-wood plates, its manually wound double C-core coupling iron was identified as coming from Trafomatic or Auris whilst capacitors included the brands Audiphiler, Epcos, Mundorf, Rubicon, Siemens and Wima. Here's how Miki updates us for his totl Luminis of 2026. "For the past 10 years we have designed and wound all our own output transformers using double C-core amorphous cores. Toroidal AC transformers we continue to source from Trafomatic. Our coupling capacitors are by Mundorf. The chassis is machined on our own CNC station. The side panels too are designed and manufactured by us and function as heat sinks."

… to be continued…