Lumin D2 Dac/Streamer Vs 2021 Node/Denafrips Ares ii or Chord Qutest

Can’t speak to the Denafrips but the Qutest is an incredible DAC. It will sound best with USB. One advantage of the Chord is the filters. You can tailor the sound to your liking. Warm filter would be perfect for the hot recordings to mellow out some harshness. Incisive filter would be great with good quality recording. Solid DAC overall and a very safe buy. You would have to spend significantly more to beat it.
Another option is the Benchmark DAC3 (whatever variant that’s within your budget). Slightly better SPDIF performance than the Qutest but has no filters. A fine sounding DAC.
The best option would be to pick up a U1 Mini together with whatever DAC you choose to get and call it a day.

You can usually find a Lumin U1 mini for about 1700 or so at some dealers, that’s what I paid. Add the Ares II and you are in at your budget. I wouldn’t go with the D2  because the dac is almost an afterthought. But the Lumin streamers are a noticeable improvement over the node. And after living with a Pontus II for a short while, I’d have no problem recommending a Denafrips dac.

IMHO, the Blusound isn't in the same league as the Lumin or other alternatives in your budget SQ-wise. Many like the experience using the BlueOS, but if that's not your plan, there goes that benefit. 

I used the Lumin app with other gear for years, and while it's more intuitive & functional than most DLNA apps, reliable connectivity with network can be wonky & frustrating, even with a mesh wifi setup. (This drove me towards trying Roon which IMHO is best experience by far)

Qutest is priced more closely to Denafrips Pontus II (which I own); the Ares II is much lower priced. IMHO, all these are revealing, but that's a good thing. I'd say the the Pontus is relaxed in a way that most non-R2R dacs aren't...that might help with the poorly recorded music you mentioned. The Ares leans in the same direction but with less ability to untangle complex arrangements and less instrumental body. 

Lastly, whatever you do, please consider a plan that avoids Airplay for your library playback. It's limited sampling rate will invalidate your well thought out investments. It's junkyard tires on a new car. Cheers,

Spencer

I’ve used a Lumin D2 extensively while working part time at a local dealer. When it came time for a purchase I chose the Node2i because the user interface and stability of the app was so much better than the Lumin. I’m  not computer illiterate or anything but the Lumin app was frustrating. Blusound,  like all of my Apple products, is intuitive and reliable. Even with a generous discount on the Lumin I preferred the Node2i because it just works.  
 That said the DAC in the Node2i is definitely a limitation and I’m currently researching an separate one. Everything I’m reading points to the Denafrips Ares II for my budget.   

I like my D2 and its currently being used with Roon.

Be aware if you want the just use it as a streamer with Tidal you would have to use the Lumin app or Roon as the D2 does not work with Tidal Connect.

I’m hoping Spotify HiFi sounds good which would mean I can remove Roon.

The U1 Mini sounds like it would potentially be a nice fit for me! I love the fact it shares the same design features with the other Lumin streamers/Dacs as they are the most beautiful on the market today imo.
However, one of my biggest concerns with any streamer is constant connectivity issues and frequent dropouts, as Acaciaavenue and others have experienced. My time is limited for at-home listening, and constant disconnecting/reconnecting would really suck the fun out of it. I recently upgraded to the latest Verizon Gigabit modemn and mesh network extender so  I will mess around with that a little this weekend and see how stable it is. Luckily, if I did go the U1 mini route, it would be running on the mesh extender, which isn't incredibly far from the modem. Acacia, thanks for pointing out the D2 is not Tidal connect compatible, as that's a bit of a deal-breaker for me. I saw Lumin listed on the Tidal connect supported devices page and just assumed being the D2 is a newish model it would have been supported. It makes me wonder if the U1 Mini or any Current Lumin Devices will be compatible with Spotify Hifi once that's officially released. 

Spencer, I most certainly plan on phasing out airplay and Itunes classic out down the line once I'm settled in with my new system. Keep in mind that a lot of the non-streaming source material I listen to is 320KPS mp3 quality, so I'm unsure how much quality degradation I'm experiencing using airplay. This is one of the reasons I plan to integrate a transport eventually so I can rebuy a lot of the music I listen to on CD that isn't available in higher quality digital formats.

Lumin have confirmed Spotify Hi-Fi will be supported.

@mrcorky 

I’ve not had a single connectivity issue with my Lumin U1 Mini in the few months that I own it. Zero issues. I use eero mesh network. I reboot all network components every other week…old habit from when I owned the AURALiC streamer. 

 No connectivity issues with Lumin for me using Ethernet.

What is too revealing, an artificial construct?

@mrcorky I'd definitely go hardwired on ethernet insteat of wifi.

+1 hardwired ethernet

@mrcorky a whole separate conversation, but when you get to consideration of pbuying a transport and a bunch of CDs, you might want to research 2 alternatives:

1) the obvious one, is CD quality available to stream via Qobuz etc.

2) if you can get digital files of this music by purchasing download or "other means" ;-) consider a NAS that would connect to the network and feed the files to the Lumin. Much has been written on this topic and many(myself included) have found advantage in NAS playback vs. both local drives attached to the streamer and to spinning CD/SACD. Cheers,

Spencer

I definitly miss playing actual CD's and I don't plan on rebuying my entire music library again. Just stuff that isn't available in higher quality streaming formats elsewhere. With the prices of CD'S so low it would be cheaper for me to rebuy what I wanted instead of downloading. I haven't really explored the "other means" of finding high quality Flac files. I've been using soulseek for a long time and FLAC formats are slim pickings for what I listen to. 

So since the D2 and U1 Mini are around the same price I might as well just stick with the D2 and just by-pass it to use as a streamer but still have the option to play around with the internal D2 dac if I wanted.

I suggest you look at a Raspberry Pi4 with an Allo Digione Hat. Feed that into a Chord and call it a day. That is the best setup hands down. Regardless of cost, which is substantially less. 

Hi Hambon. Do you have the qutest? I'm a bit concerned about how it would do with the type of music mentioned above and poor source/lower quality formats. I'm basing this all off reviews and user observations though. The Ares just seems like it would be more flexible in that regard and maybe a better fit for Rock oriented music.

@audphile1 Would you consider the qutest  a good all rounder in terms of good performance regardless of genre and source quality? Do you listen to any rock/electronic oriented music?

I run Bluesound Node --> optical --> Chord Qutest to play my library via Airplay. As I understand, Airplay is CD quality (which Qutest receives as 44.1kHz.)

A nice bonus with the Bluesound Node is their 4 Radio Paradise MQA radio stations (Main Mix, Mellow Mix, Rock Mix, World/Etc. Mix) each with very well curated and great sounding content (which Qutest receives as 88.2kHz.) I also like local radio via TuneIn. 

If you go with the Qutest I highly recommend a linear power supply. I got an Sbooster with the add on dongle. To be honest I was not happy with the Qutest until after adding this power supply, so figure an aftermarket power supply in the cost of the Qutest. 

This set up is great for resolution, clarity and sound stage, which I value. The level of sound quality is so great that I am happy with this as my end game digital. I also think poorly recorded material sounds better through this set up than through my previous Marantz ND8006, maybe just because the sound stage is better?

Enjoy your new system!

Cheers!