dcas71

I've used U1 mini to chord Qutest and currently to RME ADI 2 DAC. For me it's consistently very good across all outputs, with only subtle differences which could easily be due to cable types/brands. I have ended up very slightly favouring the coaxial BNC output over the USB due to slightly more dynamic/punchy sound. Cables include Bluejeans 75ohm rca-rca, Shunyata Cobra Zitron BNC-BNC and currently Silversonic D750 BNC-RCA. Tried USB cables: Oyaide Neo d+ Inakustik Excellenz USB CuriousUSB. Of these I preferred the Oyaide surprisingly as it's by far the cheapest, but had the most balanced sound and felt like less noise/hash was being passed along with the signal.

I've ordered for the July batch. Really looking forward to see whether I hear audible improvement against a standard HP switch in my system: Lumin U1 mini, RME ADI-2 DAC both powered by HDPlex 200w PS Feeding Mackie HR 624mk2 and Rythmik F12 sub I use the EQ on the ADI 2 to fix some measured room modes and add a curve for my preference for a bit of warmth. Really liking the sound of this downsized system already so I'm hoping this will be some icing on the cake..

Now 2 months in with U1 Mini feeding my Chord Qutest, so I thought I'd update on what I hear and a couple of cable tweaks. I started with DHLabs D750 rca-bnc which sounded very good already. Swapped to USB using Inakustik Excellenz cable, and couldn't reliably detect much difference in the sound, although the SPDIF maybe gave a touch more engagement and sounded slightly more relaxed. I finally took delivery of a Shunyata Cobra Zitron bnc-bnc (after a faulty one in the first delivery), which to me gave a subtle further uplift in sound quality, feeling like better dynamics & timing of the musical elements leading to a more real/natural sound, a nice option. By comparison this made the Inakustik USB cable feel like it still passed some tiny amount of 'digital harshness' through to the DAC. Anyway, curiosity(!) got the better of me and I decided to try a Curious USB cable to see what the fuss is about. After settling and running music through it for a week or so, it's given a further improvement in sound quality, several aspects adding up to a clear difference over the other cables. First is that the sound moved further outside the speakers than I have heard before - sound cues/instruments which previously could be pinpointed to one tweeter or another now separate themselves from the speakers entirely to appear correctly placed across the soundstage, and the music envelopes the entire listening area more. Instruments and voices now sound more real and convincingly in the room, as dynamic and tonal contrasts & texture seem to flow more freely from the speakers. Start and decay of notes feels more like the real interaction of musicians, instruments and room. Overall I'm a very happy camper, and feel like I would need to spend thousands to get any kind of meaningful upgrade in musical enjoyment - so upgradeitis is fully in remission, just in time for Christmas. System: U1 Mini(Plixir LPS)>CuriousUSB>Qutest>Inakustik Referenz RCA>Hegel H160>Quad S5

I'm using DHLab spdif rca-bnc as that's what I already had. I've also been listening a little on the USB connection but not enough to compare, first impressions are that it's very close which is obviously a good thing for those with single-input DACs. I have a Shunyata Cobra BNC-BNC on order so will see in a few weeks whether the Zitron technology makes an audible difference.

Maybe read back my post again. I didn't present any case for LPS vs SMPS at all, just that I prefer to minimise the number of smps in my system. But also that I find the Qutest stock PS just fine plugged into the same clean electrical spur as the rest of the hifi. I also said I can't comment on U1 mini sound with LPS vs SMPS since I ordered it with the LPS conversion. I may well swap the conversion back myself at some point just to compare. I already had the LPS from my D1, but for most new buyers I would advise to try the stock U1 mini first. I can happily say that mine took a step forward sonically between 150-200 hours of play. It really came on song yesterday and now sounds very natural, dynamic but also easeful and relaxed/effortless. It's overtaken the sms200 as the best sounding transport I've had in my system. If there's any further improvement as it runs in I'll be very happy indeed, the U1M-Qutest is a killer combo to my ears.

I was using D1 with an external Plixir LPS (the new one with smps is D2 I think which has a slightly larger case to accommodate). For me the D1 was very good, but as a transport sonically not quite at the same level of dynamics, tonal richness and ease of presentation as the SOTM sms200. Since the authorised dealer here in Singapore also makes highly respected Plixir power components, I took a U1 Mini already converted for LPS which includes the proper DC 4-pin termination replacing the IEC inlet. If it ever needs to go back to Lumin, or if I simply want to revert to the internal SMPS, he will reverse the conversion (I still keep all original PS components for reversal). I see that SBooster are already selling conversion kits for DIYers, not sure if they've posted the instruction sheet yet but the change and the reversal are quite simple, although I prefer to leave that to an experienced professional myself. @kelly200269 I hear what you're saying but for me it's low risk since the authorised dealer converts/reverses. I didn't hear the U1m with the SMPS so I can't comment on the sonic difference, but like many people I prefer to minimise the number of SMPS in my audio chain. I tried the ifi iPower on my Qutest DAC but found the stock PS richer sounding to my ears. I also tried keeping it on the 'dirty' spur of my mains with TV, PS4, AppleTV etc but found the audio sounds better with Qutest PS plugged into my dedicated audio electrical spur. So in my case I can say that Qutest SMPS causes less audible harm to the rest of the audio component, than all the other SMPS devices cause to Qutest sound. For me, the stock Qutest wall-wart does the job just fine for this device, however I do have the benefit of a cleanish dedicated electrical spur installed. I am toying with the idea of trying an LPS with Qutest, but I don't want to add a second box behind my rack, so I may try the new HDPlex 200w supply - this could power my Lumin, Qutest and also my network switch so could well be worth a go. @JMD54 U1 is a very different price league, but LPS-converted U1mini should get quite close to it in sound. D1 didn't quite do it for me as above..

So I'm one week in with my Lumin U1 Mini, and it's already sounding great connected to a Qutest DAC. I upgraded from a D1 which didn't quite do it for me as a pure transport (I've found that in my setup Qutest seems a little sensitive to RFI when using the spdif BNC input). I've also used SOTM sms200 in my current setup, which sounded great but didn't have the right level of usability (I use local NAS, Tidal and Spotify), where the Lumin OS and app makes for a great UX. The U1 mini is opening out nicely, and I'm hoping there's even more to come over the next few weeks. I'm comparing connections between DHLabs spdif RCA-BNC and an Inakustik USB cable (waiting for delivery of a Shunyata Cobra Zitron BNC-BNC). No conclusions yet, it's very close. System: NAS/Tidal>Lumin U1Mini>DHLab D750 RCA-BNC>Chord Qutest>Inakustik Ref 1203 RCA coax>Hegel H160>VdH Magnum bi-wire>Quad S-5

My network is fine, NAS/media server itself is probably a bit slow for the SOTM using UPnP. The main issue was that SOTM couldn't do local, tidal and spotify under the same mode, and changing modes through the browser is clunky and problematic (often led to lockup and a restart being needed). Bluesound, Lumin and Auralic OS all support seamless changing of modes and built in library management making play queue mgt and longer play queues much slicker. I have pulled the trigger on a Lumin U1 Mini. I'll report back on how well it pairs with Qutest once I have some hours on it. I'll most likely be using the same USB cable which gave me the best sound previously with the SOTM.

Thank jos, does the Rendu firmware allow seamless switching between playing of local files, Tidal and Spotify (i.e. spotify connect can interrupt either of the other modes without going to a browser to select the spotify mode on Rendu)? If so, it could be a good option for me but otherwise it's a non-starter regardless of sound quality.

Into my Qutest I have used Bluesound Node 2 (spdif coax and toslink), SOTM sms200, and Lumin D1 (spdif bnc). For me, the Qutest sounds best with its galvanically isolated inputs. The SOTM via USB sounded supremely natural, followed by the Node2 with Lifatec glass toslink. Lumin D1 sounds marginally more 'tense' and digital by comparison. The sound quality delta between SOTM and Node2 was greater than between Node2 and D1 which is marginal. Unfortunately I can't live with the SOTM as I want to be able to switch between local files, Tidal and Spotify without messing in a browser. It was also much slower in operation and locked up more than the Bluesound/Lumin units both of which have great control apps and seamless library/streaming service access. I'm looking at the Lumin U1 mini or an Auralic Aries femto to provide the best combo of sound and usability for me, hoping that either will be as good or better sounding than the SOTM. If you only use local files or only one of the streaming services then I would highly recommend the SOTM based on sound quality alone paired with Qutest.

Update - OK I have managed to get the sms-200 playing the entire queue now, not really sure what was wrong there. @MayfromSOtM Still hoping for someone to chime in on the new values for MPD buffer config settings. Lastly, is it possible to play hi-res files in squeezelite (openhome) mode? For me with Kazoo or Lumin control points it will play 16/44k files just fine, but if I select 24/96 or 192 files it will add them to the play queue but then not play them at all - the track timer just stays on 0:00. Is there any setting/workaround to play hi-res in squeezelite, or will I need to switch to MPD mode just for this?

I have managed to get my local music stored on my NAS to show up in Squeezelite (openhome) mode now. I'm using Linn Kazoo and Lumin as control points and I can add an album to the play queue, however the SMS-200 then only plays the first track and stops, without playing the rest of the tracks in the queue (same with both control points). Can someone point me to the correct setting in squeezelite/LMS config to change in order to fix this? Secondy - in MPD/dlna config, since the latest firmware upgrade the unit measures (MB, sec, ms) for the MPD buffer config seem to have changed, so the old values from the Eunhasu instruction guide are no longer correct/accepted. Please let me know the correct values for the new unit measurements, as I guessed at them and now I'm getting Tidal starting to drop out badly after a few songs in this mode.

I just got an SMS-200 and am exploring the various play options, so excuse me if my questions may have been answered before. I have managed to get music playing from my: - NAS (from my MiniDLNA server through MPD/DLNA mode) - Tidal (through MPD/DLNA and Squeezelite/LMS/ickStream with BubbleServer configuring those as OpenHome renderers and using Linn Kazoo as control). - Spotify Connect (Squeezelite/LMS/ickStream again) My DLNA server is MiniDLNA running on my DLink DNS-320L NAS (I also had to set the sms-200 library config to SMB1.0 as this NAS seems only to support CIFS/SMB1) I have come across two issues: 1) In Eunhasu>LMS configuration, I cannot get LMS to see my NAS library properly. Under the Settings>MyMusic tab I can click Music and then see 'NAS' but it's not clickable to expand and see the music library. 2) In Squeezelite mode, and using Linn Kazoo, I can select 16/44 tracks from my MiniDLNA server and play them, but if I try to add any hi-res tracks e.g. 24/96 then I just get silence, it doesn't seem to add the track/album to the play queue. If I switch to MPD/DLNA mode in Eunhasu, I can add and play all NAS tracks just fine including hi-res from MiniDLNA server. It would be nice to be able to play all my local files in Squeezelite mode, since that would mean I don't need to change the mode (local, Tidal and Spotify all working under one mode) Any advice what I need to change, or is Squeezelite mode limited to CD res files? thanks, Dylan

Thanks for the update, that's great feedback and it looks like mR is a good transport option for me. Were you using the Unitiqute into the Cronus amp directly before? Could you give a description of the sonic gains you experienced first by adding Gumby to the Unitiqute, then with mR? And are there any downsides to both these changes i.e. anything lost such as the Naim prat/dynamics? My feeling is that using mR into Gumby may be plenty good enough for me vs spending a lot more on an Yggdrasil or Naim DAC v1. I've heard DAC v1 fed by a Unitiqute, and Gumby but in different systems, and liked both compared to UQ alone but didn't feel like the DAC v1 was a night and day difference.

Thanks Brubacca for the info. It looks like Bubble on the mR itself may give me what I need. With this running and the using Linn/Lumin app as a control point, I assume that mR will stream direct from Tidal, without any need for another media server in the house? I'm running a D-Link NAS with miniDLNA server installed - this has been working fine serving around 750gb worth of FLAC albums to my Naim streamer unit, so I would prefer not to change the NAS. My other main source is Tidal HiFi, although I keep Spotify for the shared playlists and better discovery. But I guess maybe I can keep spotify for mobile use only in future. Definitely the goal is to go not just headless but PC-less. Even if I get a standalone DAC and mR as a USB source, I don't want a PC/Mac involved in the chain - I work on a PC all day and don't want one in the lounge for controlling music, or to have to keep one switched elsewhere in the house just for serving music. So the big question for me is can I introduce mR and a good DAC (maybe Schiit Gungnir or even an Yggdrasil), without losing the easy control and streaming service integration I get with a Unitiqute or Bluesound Node2. I considered Chromecast Audio, but based on users' impressions I think that mR would make far more sense with the level of DACs I'm looking at.