Lumin U2 vs Aurender N200

I believe that the usefulness of an upgrade can be answered simply by purchasing from a dealer with a good return policy.  This way you don’t have to rely upon what everyone else thinks.

I went to an Aurender N20, purchased used from a member/dealer here and it was a solid upgrade to my iFi Zen Stream with iFi’s top power supply.  It wasn’t subtle.

@lalitk 

@john1629 

Regarding the McIntosh DAC2.  Mine malfunctioned and I really didn’t go back once I got it repaired.  I moved to the Aurender and Holo May DAC KTE during the long down time of my DAC2 and the combination Aurender/May DAC were a major upgrade, but here is a pretty good evaluation of my integrated the MA12000 (with DAC2)  against much more expensive equipment.  They also compare the DAC2 to the new PS Audio DAC.  Worth a look.

McIntosh MA12000 Dan D’Agostino Progression Integrated

I purchased the MA12000 because the Sabrina X has a 2.6 ohm dip at 135Hz, but with a bit easier to drive speaker, I would expect our integrated amps to sound much the same and these guys really praised the DAC2, so leave upgrading the DAC for the future and put money into a great streamer, balanced interconnects and put some money into the right Ethernet cable and power.

However I will say that the post by lalitk mentioning the questionable thought process of OP wanting to upgrade his streamer but staying with the McIntosh dac is something worth paying attention to.

Of course, but staying with it as an interim step and replacing the DAC2 at a later date might allow for both a better streamer and better DAC than what could be purchased all at once.

@milo0812 

Have you heard the N200 + DAC2 vs A200?  If you have an A200 and want to improve upon what you have, what do you buy and what do you dispose of?  If you have a N200, you can easily upgrade the DAC.  Of course you can just not use the internal A200 DAC, but as a streamer does the N200=A200?