LUMIN - Audiophile Network Music Player

[ted_b]

PSMe, I sent you a PM.

 

Questions for this thread:

1) I use a Synology DS410 NAS for simple file serving with my Windows 8 music server and Meitner DSD-capable MA-1 DAC. I see that the Synology is a good fit with Lumin as it can be configured easily for Lumin's UPnP server. However, i also see that the software, Minimserver, can be installed on a Windows (or Linux or MAC) box. Which would be the best sonically for a setup like mine (i.e minimserver on Synology or on Windows box, with Synology used how??).

2) the free Lumin iPad app looks very nice. I currently use jremote (iPad) with j River so this apradigm is nice, and familiar (also used Apple remote and Linux MPD's mPad). If I were to "pre-configure" or play with setup of the NAS and the iPad app would it mess with my folder structure already in place on the NAS that J RIver is pointed to? I would not want to mess with my production setup. Thanks

[ted_b]

There are a lot of other streamers out there that play these same file types you have listed, but also do more.

 

 

I'd love to know of other DSD (DSF format) streamers out there. Which ones come to mind?

[ted_b]

Psme,

I had a very nice meeting with Nelson at CES. We discussed everything including Pixel Magic's main business. Very insightful. I look forward to listening to the Lumin very soon. thanks

Ted

 

P.S. what are these plugins for. I have played DSD on four DSD capable DACS so far, two I own. Will I have to do something special to my DSF files to have the Synology UPnP server (with minim) send them to the Lumin??

Thx

[ted_b]

Lumin arrived for eval.

 

So....I have a few questions to all of you who might have opinions.

 

1) I use a Synology NAS for my CAPS-to-Meitner PCM and DSD file serving (no UPnP, etc). I plan on installing/activating the Synology UPnP app (as per Lumin) and installing Minimserver there. Can I still use the NAS for the CAPS (i.e simple file serving) while I also use it for the Lumin.....I'd like to a/b the two server/DAC setups on two different inputs to my preamp.

 

2) My music room has only one ethernet connection so i will install a simple gigabit switch to have ethernet connections to both the CAPS and the Lumin, using a couple short rocketfish (best buy) cat 6 cables. Right now I have this: Dynex

Any issues I should be aware of with this setup?

 

Thanks, Ted

[ted_b]

Ted. I don't think you'll need to install te Synology UPnp server first. Just install MinimServer.

 

The switch looks fine.

 

Eloise

 

Eloise,

Thanks, but the Lumin quickstart page says kind of the opposite; i.e start up the Synology UPnP app but makes no distinct mention of Minimserver (except in the detailed support pages). I do not want to over-install anything, and surely don't want to muck up my nice minimalist CAPS-Meitner music system (i.e no installing anything on the CAPS).

[ted_b]

Ted B, please post on the Zuma thread your impressions of the Caps 2 plus vs. the Lumin. Thanks.

 

I haven't unboxed the Lumin yet, and plan to give it hundreds of hours before any eval. When i do the Zuma page will likely not be where I post it cuz I have no Zuma in my system, in my plans or in my evaluation. No offense. I will post here.

[ted_b]

So, a Lumin update. I unboxed the Lumin system (player, power supply and cables). It is packaged beautifully, and the build quality of both the player and the power supply is of VERY high quality. The player itself is nicely carved out of aluminum and deserves a spot on the top of one's high-end rack (especially given that the player has a design that hides all cabling from the top view, with a protruding "roof" over the back panel that makes the unit look larger than it is, and retains a very clean clutter-free appearance. This design does not interfere with setup, however.

 

I hit quite a few snags, but they were all user error or the unfortunate fact that my Synology DS410, a 2012 purchase, is a lowly ppc processor and not available to be streamed directly to the Lumin, via neither its own shitty horrible (did I say bad, waste of time) Media Server app, nor able to install Minimserver (which requires a Synology with an ARM or x86 architecture). This lack of knowledge (thanks psme for coming to the rescue on a Sunday afternoon) caused me to re-index my folders numerous times and waste a great portion of my day (although watched football while all this was being indexed-for-no-reason).

 

I finally simply installed Minimserver on my home office desktop, pointed it to my NAS music folders, and am now playing DSD (that took like an hour, max). I won't comment on sound quality until this player is well broken in.

[ted_b]

@Ted_b

I have some difficulties to understand your opinion about Synology Multimedia Server.

Best

Thierry

 

It sucks; is the most unintuitive setup I've ever seen.. And for the Lumin it doesn't work. It's a moot point cuz I'm using minimserver, but not sure what you didn't understand. I don't like it! The word "sh$tty" should have been a giveaway.

 

Wap, I am hardly a streaming guinea pig (or crash test dummy). I was Dan Wright's (Modwright) first commercial Modwright Transporter customer (and started a 100 page thread about it on AC) and have used Squeezeboxes for years. Streaming hirez is not difficult once setup. So far my 24/192 and DSD via Lumin has no dropouts; I don't expect any. But I'd much rather stream via NAS than my generic home office Dell desktop; oh well. It was one of the reasons I was so interested in the Lumin. DSD and Synology. I have one of two working. Synology needs to be x86 or ARM; mine is neither, yet my DS410 model is less than 18 months old. ?

[ted_b]

Click on packages center

Find multimedia center

Click on "install"

Put your tracks in "music" directory

That's all.

Thierry, please don't be condescending. Of course it is easy to "install" the app; it's a simple button on the package page! That is not what I am talking about. Oh, and I am not about to move my 3 TB of music to a "music" directory (thereby messing up my NAS setup for my CAPS server, etc) so i had to create a new pointer to my folders..the process of which was not spelled out in the instructions at all.

If you want to customize the menu layout that appears on Control Points, you can open Multimedia Server on the NAS Web interface and chose each high level title and content by drag and drop.

This is where the app fails IMHO. These high level titles never appeared on the Lumin. The app also did not pick up any tags or cover art, until I went to the "indexing multimedia" section of the NAS's control panel. It was there that I needed to re-index (took about 3 hours of that) in order for my 3 TB to be seen with any tags. I have 7500 albums, 900 of which are DSD; the app-to-Lumin saw 88 of them. Psme thinks this is becuase the NAS is ppc and Lumin is not compatible with the Synology app.

 

 

If this is too complex, never try to configure Minimserver or Twonky.

 

Do not forget to install the Minim appli on Mac or PC and to restart Minimserver each time you add a track to your NAS.

 

Don't forget to install? Huh? Of course I installed minimserver; I've said it 3 times. It also is one of the lesser apps I've used. J River, Pure music, Audirvana, Fidelia, SqueezeCenter, yadayada. They are all better than what I've seen so far. And most audit the music folders so re-starting is not necessary. What a pain. So, yes, I stand on what I said. Thank you for the condescending instructions though...very helpful.

[ted_b]

English is not my native language. I am French. Sorry if my post appeared to be condescending. It was not my intention at all.

 

 

Thierry, and I apologize as well...I should have known that something was amiss in the translation. I'm sorry for coming down on you. I see you were only trying to help.

 

I will judge the Lumin mostly on sound quality and on overall value (i.e rather than CAPS server, expensive USB cable, two 3rd party hi-end power cords, a CAPS linear power supply, a DAC of course, etc) but must also score the software, setup and convenience factors that are always a part of computer audio, good and bad. It's those softer areas that are struggling right now, probably mostly due to user error and NAS incompatibility....but these things are learning curves (and character builders ).

 

My biggest disappointment so far is the lack of compatibility with my seemingly recent Synology DS410. It surprises me that an 18 month old 4 bay powerful NAS by Synology doesn't have the horsepower (or at least cpu type) to run the UPnP apps like minimserver locally. It has forced me to run minimserver on my general use home office desktop Dell Vostrol (keeping other servers and processes away from my minimalist CAPS setup), thereby mucking up a value prop I was hoping to investigate (i.e no pc server needed, just NAS and Lumin).

[ted_b]

Agreed Jesus. Nobody's touching my CAPS V2+, even with their UPnP app.

[ted_b]

I'm confused why anyone would convert using DST encoding? Why not always convert using DSF (full ID3V2 tagging supported) and always use the -c command to decode out DST, whether it's there or not. All 1000 of my SACDs play in J River and play in Lumin. None of them are problematic, all of them are easily interchangeable among players, and all of them are well tagged (unlike DFF). The DSD formats are DSF and DFF, not DST. DST is not a format, it is a compression algortihm used with high-content (read: multichannel) discs to allow for room. Since most players throw up on DST compression why encode it?? Storage is cheap.

[ted_b]

Oops, direct playing ISOs right! Sorry.

 

 

About Jriver, can you confirm that its multimedia server cannot handle DSD? Jriver is able to decode it, but DSD tracks are not served but its multimedia server. Am i wrong?

 

Best and kind regards

Thierry

 

I do not know what you are asking? Multimedia? As I have documented all over here at CA, I use standard J River to play native DSD in both stereo and 5.1 varieties. My stereo is either ASIO (Mytek) or DoP (Meitner or Mytek). My multichannel stack are three Myteks, playing via USB hub in ASIO (J River 18, beta version 13x).

[ted_b]

Yes, Minimserver.

[ted_b]

I am happy to announce that not only is the LUMIN is back in my system (as many know I had been focused on the stacked Mytek project, but need to demo the LUMIN further, for my review and own edification) BUT...thanks to ThierryNK's help I am now using my very familiar JRiver and Jremote iPad app to browse and play the LUMIN (both DSD and PCM). Yeah! Nothing against the other clients or UPnP servers, but this is VERY comfortable, not to mention all my tagging has been done for awhile.

 

[ted_b]

Here's another view, showing the use of JRiver/jremote's nice custom views (in my case, DSD and 24bit HiRez). So anything you can do in JRiver and jremote you can do with it using the LUMIN as player.

 

[ted_b]

JRIver asks "can LUMIN support SetNextAVTransportURI"? That is what is needed for JRiver to do gapless.

 

Note: don't shoot the messenger..I have no idea what the command above even means.

[ted_b]

Miska, thanks. I began googling it after I got the message from JRiver, and was coming to some kind of understanding, but your summary is all I needed to get it. Thanks.

[ted_b]

No reason to use command line. I have several bat files that automate it all (for multiple ISOs). It's in my guide, but a mini-primer here:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/carbon-playback-buffering-issue-sacd-files-server-design-flaw-or-config-issue-15909/#post222823

[ted_b]

Did the price go up from $4K to over $7K????

 

Norman, yes, the intro price (Lumin always said it was intro) was below $3900, then it went to $5500 and now it's at $7200 list. !