Lumin X1 or dCS Bartok


Both of these beasts look like they could be that “forever purchase”. These are basically the newest offerings from both well respected companies and are within spitting distance of each other price wise  (without the Bartok headphone option installed). Anybody heard both and able to comment?
spinaker01
Hey Ozzy! A hard drive can be partitioned to appear as multiple drives instead of a single drive (i.e. a 5TB drive can be single partitioned with its full storage as D:, or be partitioned to appear as multiple smaller drives such as D:, E:, and F:) Sounds like yours is in the standard single partition, folders are not an issue.

However while I believe the Lumin will recognize a hard drive like yours connected via USB, to have full indexing and metadata display they recommend that you run MinimServer which is free server software. So I think you’d be best off connecting the drive to a PC on your network and run MS on the PC to support that drive, or else use a NAS drive instead of a USB drive and run MS on the NAS drive.

I don’t own a Lumin myself but this is from what I’ve read about them. I’d suggest discussing your setup with a Lumin dealer to ensure how it will work with your current drive, what limitations is might have, and how to set it up with MS if needed as I know Lumin recommends.
bill_k,

Thanks, I think I understand most of what you stated. I'm nearing 68 and  I missed most of the computer generation.
I like to keep it simple, if I can.

ozzy
Late to this discussion but recently I trade my DCS Bartok in on a Lumin X1 and I am very happy with the switch.  Not having them side by side I did not A B them.  But I can tell you that the Lumin and Bartok both sound great.  They both run or ran through a Mcintosh C22 and MC462.

It terms of the difference I think the Lumin just sounds more real.  I am a guitar player and I notice that with the Lumin it sounds like an acoustic guitar playing in the room.  It sound like high end analog without the fuss or records.

One more point I was very happy with the DCS and never felt like I needed more but I was using Sonos through the DCS for multi-zone music and I could not use Tidal and was limited to spotify. To build a multi-zone system with DCS would have been very cost prohibitive.

That led me to the Lumin X1 paired with the two M1s for my other zones.  The Lumin M1 is a self contained amp dac streamer.  I now have the perfect HiRes 3 zone set up.

I also run a Lumin T2 with a Mcintosh MA6500 (which has 2 zone built in) in a second home.

I love the dependability and resale value of Mcintosh.  Paired with Lumin which provides ease of use, world class sound and rock solid dependability you have a great combination that will last for years.

One last comment I like the thought of having a tube component (C22) in the chain.  It would be interesting to try a solid state pre in place of the C22.

Happy for now.  LOL 





fiza32 posts
08-26-2020 7:44pm
I was told that the following $800 DAC beats Bartok in resolution and openness :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjus0erFU_4

LOL!!!