Hi Dave,

I've had my eye on the D2 for a while now and the lack of reviews has indeed been a bit troublesome. So your review is most welcome.

GdeB

BTW, this may be of interest; "Roon: Digital Room Correction for Less Than $100" - https://blog.roonlabs.com/digital-room-correction/

In the post, Kevin P describes exactly how Roon can incorporate Room EQ Wizard (REW) to achieve digital room correction.

Voila! So, the D2 with Roon and REW can provide even that capability.

I’ve had the chance to add an Sbooster linear power supply.

I’m a big fan of the upgrade

-it adds a very firm bass foundation. Drums have more weight and impact, and bass guitar has more body, better soundstage and instrument separation. I can more clearly delineate the finer details of instruments. Guitars seem to leap a bit more from the background. Midrange is wonderful. Vocals have more body and feel more rounded.

- It has more energy and dynamics.

Hi Dave,
So I gather a primary benefit of the Roon server is to upsample 44kHz files to DSD64. Otherwise, If you had a small digital library, say, less than 50GB and less than 5,000 tracks, would you still need the Nucleus? Why not go right to the D2 with Roon software? Are there other sonic advantages?
Thank you.
Paul

You need a Roon server - that is how Roon works. You can use a regular PC or a dedicated Nucleus device - same thing. I wanted a dedicated device and not a standard PC, as it may produce a slight sonic benefit and i don’t need to boot up and hassle with a PC. But you can just use a standard PC or laptop to run Roon. Nucleus is a set and forget, always on fanless Roon server. Roon also upsamples to DSD128 which the D2 will process, not just DSD64.

I stream TIDAL premium service directly to my Lumin D2 player. The sound quality is very good however a bit bright and fatiguing to my ears for most of the content that I play. I prefer a warmer sound with more low end weight, but unfortunately neither the Lumin or my pre-amplifier have tone control adjustments.

I am considering the addition of Roon to my setup because I understand the software provides additional signal processing in the form of a parametric equalizer .

Feedback from others that have a Roon / Lumin setup would be appreciated. In general does Roon offer sound quality benefits over streaming directly to Lumin? Are Roon's signal processing and tone control features an effective solution to tame a bright sound without sacrifice of sound quality? Is there another solution that I may want to consider?

A few thoughts.
- I found the Lumin D2 thread on Roon and followed the advice from user wlie (the tech guy from Lumin who gives the preferred settings in Lumin and Roon app) and it really helped. Here’s the thread - it’s long: https://community.roonlabs.com/t/lumin-d2-could-it-be-a-perceivable-upgrade-in-sound-quality/36567
- I upgraded to the Sbooster D2 power supply and connector kit. That was a clear improvement. It was a $450 upgrade but so worth it, eliminating the glare and increasing musicality and bass control.

If anyone is looking for a black D2, I'm selling mine, open box condition!
Let me know

hi, I'm quite new to the "audiophile" scene, I bought recently a Rega Elex-R, Rega Planar 3 with PSU, and a Parasound Zdac.v2, with Dynaudio Emit M20. I just finished setting up everything properly, and the sound is very nice. Initially, I looked for a potential upgrade of the zdac to C851n, but I really like the MQA concept and I ended up shortlisting the Lumin D2. Based on the experiences here would you say it would be a worthy enough upgrade over the zdac?

More than a worthy upgrade - a big upgrade. The ZDAC is decent, but the Lumin is significantly better.

thanks, ordered it

I would review the excellent Lumin D2 thread in community.Roonlabs.com, as they talk about proper setup of the Lumin. Also, highly recommend the Sbooster Linear power supply upgrade.

My time with the D2 was so enjoyable that I recently took the leap to the T2. It is a significant improvement over the D2, and is closer in performance to DACs and streamers in the $10k range. It also uses a switching power supply like the D2, but I’ve been pleased enough with the sound to avoid adding the Sbooster linear power supply.

With this upgrade, I still feel strongly about the D2, but once you’ve heard the T2, it is hard to unhear the improvement. It is costlier for sure, another $2k, but the sonic improvements are immediately clear: warmer more natural sound, while being significantly more detailed, two attributes that seem incongruent, but somehow the T2 pulls it off.