Article: Lumin U1 Streaming Transport Review

[esldude]

Firstly thanks for your review.  I think software navigation of playlists is a big boon once one acclimates to it. 

 

It seems odd this unit serving up bits could be responsible for the difference in sound you describe.  And that the differences would remain the same when you change how the devices are connected to the DAC. 

 

Maybe a topic for elsewhere, but when I primarily judged sound quality using subjective listening impressions, the strength of the differences heard seemed greater when I auditioned something new with other audiophile friends present We seem to hear the same differences.  My level of certainty was much greater after such session. I think it is something of the Clever Hans effect we have on each other.  In time errors began to make me question this methodology.  One I remember is getting a rather expensive for the time digital cable.  Inviting a few friends over.  We listen to the old one and then the new one.  Finding agreement the new one was a considerable benefit and largely agreeing on what those benefits were.  After a half hour we wanted to hear the old one again.  At which point we discovered that while the new one was plugged in we didn't ever switch to it (old one was coax, and new one AES).  We had been listening to the same old one the whole time.  By then two of the people present were already discussing ordering the new cable up because it was such an obvious improvement.  One was wondering if AES was simply better more so than the cable in use.  To then only find ourselves with a bit of egg on our collective faces. 

[esldude]

Well if the SPDIF is used the clock has to be recovered.  How that is effected by the Lumin will depend somewhat upon the device doing the recovery at the DAC end.  If USB output is used, the clock of the Lumin isn't used.  So no bits are bits logic isn't archaic. 

 

If there is a different sound via USB output, and that difference is the same over SPDIF, it becomes something odd that doesn't make very good sense in a straightforward manner. 

[esldude]

53 minutes ago, wklie said:

 

In a videophile forum, I've read people there report significant improvement to SQ (typically ATMOS / TrueHD / DTS HD-MA, etc.) and comparatively minor improvement to picture quality with LPS mods of the power supplies in video players, which output bits via HDMI.

 

If this debate continues, someone will bring up expectation bias and blind test quickly.  Rather than talking about own products (which would sound like hard selling), let me report that we actually carried out a blind test of a leading USB cleaner product popular in this forum.  To our surprise, our expert listeners actually got 100% right in the blind test in identifying when the USB cleaner is used and when it is not.  (I'll try not to say further on this, please pardon my lack of response in advance.)

Yes, please keep this on the down low.  Don't let anyone know.  Too controversial to discuss what you did and what the results were. Thank you for your advanced discretion.  

[esldude]

9 minutes ago, LowMidHigh said:

 

The video portion had been addressed below. Maybe not fully, but I'll leave it as is. 

 

Let me attack the fallacy of the "bits are bits" from a different angle.

 

Let's assume you sampled an analog wave and now wish to recreate it in the Cartesian world. The bits (i.e., different voltages) you plot along the y-axis; the timing, along the x-axis.

 

Now, what happens if the points along the x-axis deviate from the originals? Would the result be identical to original analog wave? Certainly not. Thereby, the new curve wouldn't sound exactly the same. Throw in random jitter, and the sound will be pretty terrible. 

 

In summation, for applications that operate in a single dimensional space, e.g., a word processor file system, "bits are bits". On the other hand, the demand of applications that operate in multi-dimensional space is precision in all plains. 

 

 

Thank you.  The evanescent jitter.  The digital devil we can all believe as the bane of all bit based reproduction.  It explains all the unexplainables.