One of the fastest-growing categories in the audiophile hobby today is streaming. There are many mainstream music streamers that offer pretty fantastic connectivity and Apple-like ease-of-use, stunning graphical user interfaces and whole-home connectivity. With less than nine percent of all music sold as Compact Discs or LPs in 2022 (according to the RIAA who reported record music sales in that year), the fact is that consumers aren’t investing in physical media, as they are clearly embracing music streaming instead. Audiophiles may have smartly ripped their Compact Disc collections, and many carefully curate their LPs, but the most important source in nearly every audiophile system today is the component that is doing the streaming.
Lumin is an audiophile brand that was born from the pro broadcast world of its parent company, Pixel Magic Systems. They make high-end video products for use in editing, broadcast, and other often complicated HD video applications. Lumin is their sister brand, dedicated to audio, and they’ve been pioneering audiophile streamers and DACs pretty much from day one of this product category. As you might have guessed, the Lumin D3 is the third version of their more affordable DAC streamer, and has a host of meaningful, real-world updates.
The Lumin D3 at $2,600 is a small form factor DAC/streamer that comes in a gorgeous anodized aluminum skin, and packs the same DAC chips as those found in the impressive yet affordable Chi-Fi DAC, the Topping D90 III (Sabre) for $899. The Lumin D3 has digital or analog inputs, and only one somewhat offbeat (BNC connection option for S-PDIF) digital output, but it does control volume and has both analog RCA and fully balanced XLR outputs. The Lumin D3 has its own app, which is commendable and focuses its streaming on the providers that do the most in HD, meaning QoBuz and Tidal. The D3 can be controlled by Roon, which opens a few more doors, as does Apple Airplay 2, but isn’t as strong on sample rate at 24/48. How does the Lumin D3 compare to the mainstream music servers, as well as the comparably-priced ones from mutually highly-respected audiophile brands? That’s what I am here to answer for you. Let’s get started.
What Makes the Lumin D3 Streamer DAC Special?
- The Lumin D3 is packing an all–new processor. This allows the Lumin D3 to upsample your lower-resolution music to higher levels, which can make a sonic difference not found in more mainstream music streaming components.
- The DAC chips inside of the Lumin D3 are well–regarded and high-performance. The Topping D90 III (Sabre) blew me away recently when I got some time to shoot it out as a low-cost Chi-Fi DAC, versus some much more expensive units. My testing of the Lumin D3’s analog outputs provided similarly excellent performance. Can it toast a $6,000 dedicated audiophile DAC like my reference Bricasti M3? No, but for the money spent, you get a whole lot of the performance from the more expensive DAC (with a streamer) for much less money, with the main differences being in the high-frequency performance.
- The Lumin D3 is very audio format-friendly. MQA, DSD, PCM, FLAC, WAV … there is nothing that I tried that couldn’t be streamed in the D3.
- There is a silver and black version of the Lumin D3 Streamer/DAC. The metal work on the D3 is improved from the D1 and D2, and is pure eye candy. The feet are nicely made, and the unit, while lightweight, is nothing short of gorgeous.
- Lumin has made their own pretty sophisticated app, but you can control the unit using Tidal Connect, Apple Airplay 2 (granted at 24/48 – not 24/96 or higher) rates. Roon is likely where most power users will end up, because the Lumin D3 is Roon-ready, and that opens up the D3 to even better meta-data for music, as well as possibly a few more streaming options on a platform that serious streamers (and that’s who’s going to buy a Lumin D3) will be familiar with.
- The LEEDH lossless volume control is a new feature that will appeal to many audiophiles. I tested the volume control on the Lumin D3 to a certain extent, but normally left the unit at Unity Gain and then allowed my preamp to control the levels. The LEEDH technology is a way to provide very quiet and quite accurate volume control if you need such attenuation from your streamer.
Why Should You Care About the Lumin D3 Streamer/DAC?
The consumer who might potentially be into the Lumin D3 is likely a power user and an experienced audiophile. He or she knows their way around IT, network storage issues, and likely has played with Roon or a few of the other music management platforms. The person interested in the Lumin D3 is willing to deal with its flaws and quirks in order to get a little bit more sonic performance, while paying a pretty penny to get there, as compared to mainstream (some not even HD – like the Sonos Port) music streamers. For many audiophiles today, streaming is the premium source played in their systems, and getting the most from that source is well worth $2,600 … if not more.
Some Things You May Not Like About the Lumin D3 …
- Support is a little off-beat (questionable) with Lumin but we’ve got the inside hook-up for you with their representation in this country. The long-time importer of Lumin is based in Orange County, California but they oddly aren’t listed on the main Lumin site. They can be reached at 949.322.4973 or admin@sourcesystemsltd.com for our readers or those looking to reach out. They also have an active forum community that can potentially answer your questions which might help if that is a way that you are comfortable receiving support. There are many premium U.S.-based audiophile dealers who sell Lumin who can help but that isn’t a fair place to go for legacy product support without offering to pay them a little something-something for their support. For retail Lumin clients, lean on your dealers when you like as that is what there are there for.
- The Lumin D3 doesn’t support every format of hard drive (network or local). Let me explain … I have a huge music drive on a solid-state drive (SSD) that houses well over 100,000 songs and north of a terabyte of musical data. That drive normally feeds my Apple MacBook Pro, and I don’t like to have it on my network for security reasons (call me paranoid, and I will tell you funny and true stories of causing trouble with Ozzy at Bristol Farms grocery store in Beverly Hills). That drive doesn’t show up on the Lumin D3, because it is formatted to work on my Mac, and it needs to have different formatting, like FAT32, to work on the Lumin. There’s no chance on God’s green Earth that I am reformatting that drive, but I was able to use a 1TB USB-A thumb drive for local music, which isn’t where I normally get my HD music from, but there sure is plenty of it on that drive. I know of one audiophile (who has a Master’s in EE and a $200,000 audiophile system) who owns a Lumin D2 and, when I couldn’t get the support needed to get my drive to show up on the unit, I asked him how he did it and he admitted that he didn’t. Basically, it was too complicated for the EE to make work, so he just used it for streaming.
- Many of the best streaming services are not supported natively on the Lumin D3. Most audiophiles can rock QoBuz and/or Tidal (I am mostly QoBuz most of the time, with Tidal in the rear with the gear when it comes to HD music streaming), but there’s lots missing. Pandoramight not be HD, but their relational database is second to none, thus they make excellent playlists. Spotify is supported, but no Pandora. 200,000,000-plus people have Amazon Primeaccounts, which means that for their $150-ish per year, they get powerful access to music, along with their two-day shipping, which is a great value. Amazon is a go-to source of HD music, and it isn’t supported on the Lumin app or on Roon. Roon brings more streaming options and beyond-excellent meta-data via an API to your streaming experience. Another solution for more streaming and connectivity options is to use Apple Airplay 2 or Tidal Connect. Yes, AirPlay 2 isn’t quite as high a sampling rate as other ways of streaming, but it gives you many more options and that slick Apple-like GUI.
- There is only one digital output from an audiophile-grade, high-end streamer? The only digital output to send your Lumin D3 to your external DAC is S-PDIF via BNC connector. That means it is missing I2S (HDMI), COAX (RCA), AES-EBU (XLR), and optical. What is also missing is a low-cost BNC-to-RCA adaptor, which I have suggested be added to future shipments to help people have real-world digital outputs, without consumers needing to order something for a few bucks on Amazon. And once you get your adaptor, you aren’t done with your troubleshooting yet. In the Lumin app, you then need to use the “gear” (think: settings-like gear from your iPhone) button to bring up a long list of options on your control iPad or smartphone, and then manually set the Lumin D3 to use the digital out. If you don’t – expect no output, as the unit is either analog or digital output, but not both, and you need to select the one that best suits you.
- The “awning” on the back of the Lumin D3 is a cool way to manage cables, which is a smart idea, but there are issues. I’ve lost a good bit of weight recently, but still my fingers were too fat to get the analog XLR connectors from my Wireworld cables disconnected from my Lumin D3. Perhaps there should be a way to get that away from the back of the unit when you are making changes? I am sure there will be a D4 version, so maybe put that little idea on the drawing board?
Listening With the Lumin D3 Steamer/DAC …
My system consists of a BlueSound Node for a source, a Bricasti M3 DAC, an Anthem STR stereo preamp, a Pass Labs XA25 power amp, Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4 loudspeakers and Wireworld cables. I volume-matched the inputs for the Lumin D3 and BlueSound Node within a pretty tight tolerance, and used QoBuz as my source – all with songs at CD or HD resolutions.
I stuck with some very, very familiar music for my testing. The first thing that I want to touch on is that the internal DAC in the Lumin D3 is quite nice. For good reason, it reminds me of the Topping D90 III (Sabre), as they both share the same DAC chips. I wonder if the Lumin has a better power supply? That’s possible. On its own as a DAC/streamer, the Lumin D3 makes a very open, detailed vibrant sound. Like I found when I torture-tested the Topping DAC with much more expensive units, the high frequencies sounded smoother and possibly more extended on, say, the $6,000 Bricasti M3 than the much less expensive Lumin or the Topping. Never did anything make you say “this doesn’t sound good [or right]”; it just was ever-so-slightly more resolved and open on the Bricasti. 95 percent of all audiophiles (maybe more) would be thrilled with the performance of the internal DAC in the Lumin D3.
On “Gold Dust Woman” from Fleetwood Mac’s all-time audiophile classic album, Rumours, on QoBuz, the Lumin D3 was directly compared to the roughly $500 BlueSound Node. The differences were audible, although not earthshaking. What I could hear most notably was improved openness, specifically in the higher frequencies. Yes, the Bricasti DAC was more open and smooth-sounding than the internal DAC in the Lumin, as you should expect at that price, but with the Lumin D3 streaming exactly the same file, you could hear a little more of what’s on the recording. Specifically on the higher-frequency side, you got a never-harsh but livelier or more engaging high-frequency performance. The bass on the Lumin sounded a little deeper or rounder. The bass just had a little bit more heft in it, but with a little less bloat. In a very good audio system, much like fine-tuning a race car, you are looking for all of those little details, and the Lumin D3 delivered.
One of the things that vinyl enthusiasts rightfully love about LPs is that they tend to round out the sometimes harsh sound that we get, especially from early digital. A good example of that type of early-gen digital recording comes from Peter Gabriel’s So album and the MTV classic “Sledgehammer.” While some of that digital hash is “baked into the cake” from back in the day, the Lumin had a less digital approach to the sound, meaning that it didn’t quite sound as etched in the high frequencies on the Lumin D3 via QoBuz. Tony Levin’s Chapman Stick (plays the role of a bass guitar in this recording), as on “Gold Dust Woman,” had just a little bit more gravitas to it with the Lumin in the loop. None of these differences were massive, but they were all there for discerning ears. If you want to hear Peter Gabriel without the old-school, first-generation digital sound – stream the new record i/o, which isn’t quite the same iconic performance, but it is a much more modern, smooth and dynamic sound that comes from a better recording.
Roger Waters’ bass sound on “Have a Cigar” from Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album continues the Lumin’s modestly improved bass over the BlueSound Node in terms of total overall audio performance. The somewhat growling bass sound was just a little bit deeper and engaging with the Lumin D3 in the system than with the BlueSound Node. However, again, the improvements were slight. They require careful attention in your listening sessions and careful volume-matching, as a bump of a few dB here or there could easily sway an opinion one way or another. This isn’t like changing out a pair of speakers type of audiophile difference. This is more like a fine refinement that adds to your collection of upgrades to get you to that next level of musical polish. A subtle improvement, but one that you wouldn’t give up on once you heard it.
Does the Lumin D3 Have Any Resale Value?
Being a somewhat volatile audiophile product category, there is room to lose some value on a product like an audiophile-grade, $2,600 DAC/streamer, but it shouldn’t ever be too severe. The Lumin D3 is a strong performer as a DAC, separate from its role as a streamer. As a preamp with no inputs, there isn’t much upside there for bringing in potential new suitors when you would be done with a Lumin D3. With the limited number of streaming platforms supported natively, and the limited number of digital outs, there are other issues at hand, but still, there is going to be somebody who wants a high-end music streamer/DAC that can sound very good. The Lumin D3 is that today, and will likely be that way for years to come, thus I am not worried about any uniquely high loss of value if one were to invest in a Lumin D3.
What is the Competition for the Lumin D3?
Let’s start with the aforementioned BlueSound Node at $499. This streamer/DAC is a total game-changer and, at its price, it delivers 95-plus percent of the sound of the Lumin D3 at a small fraction of the price. If you are on a budget, your decision is easy when looking at the value proposition that the BlueSound Node offers. Additionally, the BlueSound Node’s GUI is massively superior to that of the Lumin app. The number of supported streaming devices is head and shoulders better than the Lumin on its app, or running Roon on the D3. The BlueSound Node captures what is great about Sonos, and delivers it in a more audiophile-friendly package. For the money, nothing beats the BlueSound Node right now. It is also limited in the variety of digital output options. However, it bests the Lumin in that department, despite the price difference. The internal DAC of the BlueSound Node is not comparable to the Lumin D3, as the Lumin is clearly superior. Overall, you get the Nth degree of sonic performance better from the Lumin D3 than the BlueSound Node.
The PS Audio AirLens at $1,999 has been wowing fellow reviewer and in-house streaming expert Greg Handy. He too has a BlueSound Node, as both of us are on a mission to find out what more money gets you in that category. The build quality of the PS Audio is gorgeous. The AirLens has resulted in incrementally improved sound and offers some better connectivity options for less money than the Lumin D3. The AirLens doesn’t include a DAC in its price.
My reference DAC is currently the Bricasti M3, which is a $6,000 professional audio digital-to-analog converter. For about $1,000, you can add their streaming technology to their DACs via an additional card. I went to the next level, which helps a reviewer like me, and I procured one of their Bricasti M5 standalone, half-rack width Bricasti M5 streamers, which is $2,500 total retail. This small but insanely well-built streamer is laser-focused on getting the best possible sound from your ripped music collection, as well as your streaming. Unlike the Lumin, the Bricasti doesn’t have its own OS, which is fine. You would likely use Roon or one of the other music management software systems for overall control for either unit.
Final Thoughts on the Lumin D3 Streamer/DAC …
The people who make the argument that physical media is making some sort of meaningful comeback are about as in tune with reality as the folks who think that they will upgrade their AOL OS when a new CD (or floppy disc) arrives in the snail mail. It simply isn’t happening, as that ship sailed long ago. Audiophiles have significant digital music collections dating back to the mid-1980s, and the Lumin D3 is a capable tool to manage those songs and albums in a way that sounds a bit better than other, more mainstream options in the market today.
The vast majority of audiophiles now stream their music from one of the better sources of HD music, such as the Lumin D3-supported QoBuz or Tidal. The Lumin has its significant quirks and limitations at $2,600 versus less expensive options, but what it does is deliver that next incremental level of performance sonically, and that might get the attention of the advanced audiophile.
Streaming is the audiophile source of today and clearly that of the future, so why not get the best possible performance sonically? That’s why one would potentially invest in the Lumin D3, which isn’t crazy expensive in the overall pantheon of audiophile components these days. If I bought a unit, I would run the Lumin D3 using Roon to get the slicker GUI and hope for even more connectivity, as Harman (they bought Roon not that long ago) will be able to work with others like Amazon, and allow other streaming options into your audiophile world outside of Airplay 2. The Lumin D3 brings a professional broadcast-quality product to the audiophile world that is complex and quirky, but powerful and effective at the same time, which will appeal to performance-driven audiophiles without question.
