U2

You too? Lumin's U1, a pure streaming transport from ~2015, just hit the reset button. Voilà, the U2 successor with all-new processor, linear power supply, fiber-optic and dedicated USB⇒DAC ports plus PCM768 and DSD512 routing.

Use mouse-over loupe function; or open in new tab for full size.

Of course there's RJ45 and attached storage via 2 x USB. More digital outputs live on AES/EBU, BNC, coax and Toslink. There's also an external ground post. That and the familiar industrial Lumin style complete the U2's me too to catch up with the remainder of the line. It aims at all 'have DAC, am happy' users who want to bolt on quality headless network streaming with wireless tablet/smartphone control.

It's a dedicated transport not fully loaded streamer with built-in SSD and DAC. Instead we bring our own NAS and streaming clients. "Last time you reviewed our P1 with multiple analog and digital audio inputs. There we updated our original firmware to support 'non-network' use for the analog and digital audio inputs. But the U2 is simply a streaming transport to make a network connection essential. If you want to use an iMac with Roon to play to the U2, our app will run on an iMac with the new M1 chips. If you use an old Mac with Intel CPU, it won't work." So no iMac without Roon; no older iMac with Lumin app. As regular readers know, our household suffers a WiFi allergy. Its radiation gives up headaches. With tablet remotes outlawed, our streaming strictly hardwires. It starts with a fiber-optic node on a mast in front of the house. That black box patches into our service provider's router via more fiber optics. From there up to 30m industrial CAT8a spurs spread out like octopus tentacles to various PC. Because we rent not own, we've not extended our white tentacles up the staircase onto the second floor. Hence all upstairs systems use either physical media or SD-card storage. Network access limits to the ground floor but even there insists on being hardwired.

Use mouse-over loupe function; or open in new tab for full size.

As Lumin and I discussed a review, it seemed that with our dig's limitations and focus, I'd not be able to use it. "The only Lumin with a USB Audio input is the P1. None of the U2's USB ports are inputs. The only input is RJ45. But you could certainly use Audirvana on your iMac to stream to the U2 or any other Lumin." I asked why one would want to send local files over the network. The path they proposed was iMac ⇒ RJ45 ⇒ network switch ⇒ RJ45 ⇒ U2 ⇒ USB or AES/EBU etc. ⇒ DAC. "Our streamer works like any other computer in that one can't direct-connect two computers without the network via a switch/router. Of course if you use only your iMac and store all your music there, you don't need a network streamer. It's just different products for different users." While we must thus leave proper reviews to others less 'handicapped', at least I could pen this short it lives page. Over and out.