Lumin U1 vs Lumin U1 mini + sbooster?

Its fine having beliefs. But having a belief and actually listening is a different thing. People have been using DI20HE after some pretty high end streamers in their chain including auralic aries g2 with gains in SQ. For those reading this go to head fi and talk to the guys there including Jimmy Chang who did an A-B of dcs bridge vs pi +di20he (dcs bridge is known by many to be better than even the full size lumin u1).

By the way di20he can also take external clock and I don't even have one connected. But a $300 morion ext clock from queensland seller off ebay takes SQ even further! Its a future upgrade I plan on.
I think having a strong ext psu with the u1 mini is a great option because then you have a PSU in another chassis like full size u1 and have the ability to use the psu you want (there are better PSUs out there than sbooster). My dealer modded my u1 mini so I can put on w/e PSU I want. This gives you the flexibility select  a very high quality PSU.
I think the one main advantage of full u1 is that its a cleaner looking solution with less boxes and looks very nice compared to my stack of boxes (but I do like the look of my box stack).

I completely agree with your statement there about having beliefs vs actually listening to it. I hope you’ve listened to the LUMIN U1 and compared it against your current setup rather than “believing” that your setup out performs the U1 based on what you read. 

The aforementioned streamer, in my opinion, is inferior to the LUMIN U1 and probably on par with the U1 Mini with S Booster - again, that’s based on my experience in my system. Your experience might be different. 

I gave up using reclockers and external clocks in order to reduce the amount of boxes to have a more streamlined but “ultra” high performance system, if possible.

Again, I’m glad that you’re happy with your solution, after all that’s what we are all after - the joy of having a satisfying system that completely eliminates the need for further “upgraditis disease”.

I got good results with AES out of the DI20HE also. But I2s just took it further. Im also only using a basic 8k shielded amazon HDMI cable. Still waiting for a better wireworld chroma cable.
But you'll definitely feel most of the benefit with AES.

Thank you for the quick response. This is the first I'd heard of the DI20HE and your comment of pi and it to be reportedly comparable to the dcs bridge really got my attention. I've been considering the DCS nb or a u1 mini and now a di20he but it might just be a sideways move in my system as I'm pretty sure my streamer (sonore SSR) has a great built in LPS and sonore paid special attention to the spdif implementation with a separate board for it if I remember correctly. I'll ask the manufacturer if my DAC can be retrofitted with I2S, if so,  that might be the way to go for its simplicity. I've read much about I2S sounding the best, of which the SSR has that output.

What I am talking about is not my belief I am simply reporting real world findings of audiophiles that have compared DI20HE + pi to DCS and that have compared DCS to full U1. So its not my personal belief based on my theoretical understanding. Its real world experience from other audiophiles.
I am not saying that I personally observed that. If I tested it myself I may disagree or agree with them. But given their findings I am content with my solution and their impressions are enough for me to be satisfied that going full U1 would not be worth it.
To re-iterate (because it seems you did not read/understand my post)... they found that:

DI20HE + Pi > DCS Bridge
DCS Bridge > full size u1
Feel free to read audiophile style or head fi if you doubt what I am saying ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES.

One other anecdote is from Steven Huang of audiosensibility who finds that sbooster + u1 mini is about 80% of the performance of full U1. So taken all the above its not a far stretch of the imagination that a better ext PSU + di20he in the chain would be on par or likely out perform full u1.

@stray

With your system probably the smartest thing to do is just add DI20HE. And down the road ext morion clock is an option. Sonore is already a great streamer. Going to full DCS bridge or even u1 mini probably not worth it based on everything I've said above.