Lumin T2 vs Lumin A1

I have a Lumin A1 for about 2 years now. It’s a very good and I love it.  Very decent sound quality and beautiful sounding.

Recently, I had a chance to keep a T2 for a week and in my system (was carefully tuned for A1 and my liking) this T2 is simply no match against A1 in sound quality and physical build.

John

 

I've had the A1 and now have the X1, but haven't heard the T2.

Nevertheless, I would choose the T2. The A1 is a nice enough sounding unit but the Wolfson DAC chip it uses is quite dated and to me does not sound as good as the current series of ESS chips. For example, I think the Mytek Brooklyn Plus (which I also own) is preferable to the Lumin A1.

But I would expect the Lumin T2 with the current ESS dac chip to be closer to the X1 in sound quality and to surpass the older A1.