Lumin U2 or Aurender N200

so to help answer your question I used to own the lumin x1 and I now own the lumin u2 (love lumin as a streamer but wanted to try different dacs)

I setup a fiber connection with the x1 for very cheap. I think with all the parts it was just over $100

Now, today I will (depending on the weather since its been snowing a lot) take possession of an etherregen switch with afterdark linear power supply and external dedicated clock. I will also be trying out the u2 configured with fiber optic. apparently, even the Transceiver Module makes a difference and has sonic characteristics so I have upgraded versions of these as well

Hopefully over the weekend after a long listening session i will be able to give you feedback but even with the dirt cheap switch and parts on the x1, it sounded great and noticeably better than its non optical counterpart.

so rest assured and dont be worried it will sound fantastic and you honestly dont need to spend very much money on a switch, cable, and transceivers

will the upgraded network parts make a difference? stay tuned and i will give my feedback 

My initial feedback of fiber connection

the overall sound is mostly that of a lower noise floor/blacker background

my issue however is the sfp+ modules. They all sound drastically different

ive tried a few different ones out. No matter what it sounds higher resolving than plain cat 6 Ethernet. Very clear and detailed

however, some modules sound thin. with the finisar im currently listening to all the bass is gone

there is one particular Cisco module that has a nice detail and separation. Very clear but the soundstage is flat

i opened up a new can of worms here! considering switching back to cat 6