Founded in Hong Kong in 2012, Lumin Music is an offshoot of Pixel Magic Systems Ltd, which began around a decade earlier, and rapidly established itself as an integral part of TV viewing in Hong Kong via its Magic TV set-top boxes, and AV processors using a combination of advanced software programming and design.
Lumin Music launched with its A1 model in 2014, both setting the style for the company’s products, with their thick, sculptural aluminium metal casework/chassis, and establishing the processing software and hardware for the audio section. From the off, Lumin products have supported PCM-based formats including WAV, FLAC,ALAC and AIFF all the way up to ultra-high sampling rates, and also DSD, with upsampling of all incoming signals to DSD available for the ultimate audio purity.
Close attention was paid to maintaining signal integrity in this first model, and is central to the entire Lumin range to date, with isolated power supplies and connectors, and every effort made to keep any source of electrical or processing noise well away from your precious music.
The current models also support a wide range of streaming services, including Qobuz, Spotify, Tidal Connect and TuneIn Internet Radio. They’re also Roon-ready, and you can combine multiple products to set up a whole-home multi-room audio system.
ALL KINDS OF STREAMING
The Lumin range offers streaming in all shapes and sizes. The current range comprises nine models including Network Players, which connect to the home network via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, playing music from the internet or local storage (like the Lumin L2 Music Library) via integrated DACs, to Network Music Hubs, which can act as streamers, DACs and pre-amplifiers, to transport-only models (streamers) designed to feed an offboard DAC or an amp with onboard digital-to-analogue conversion. And at the core of the range sit the two Network Hubs, which connect to source components both analogue and digital and feed direct to a power amplifier – which Lumin also offers.
FLEXIBLE, POWERFUL AND SIMPLE
The flagship hub model is the P1, but Lumin also offers much of its technology in the smaller, more affordable P1 Mini. The P1 Mini is equipped with five analogue and digital inputs, a linear power supply and many other components from the flagship player – there’s even a HDMI ARC input for the sound from your TV, while the option of fibre optic networking provides even better isolation from any electrical noise on your home Internet connection.
Like all the Lumin products, the P1 and P1 Mini can be controlled using Lumin’s own control app, developed alongside the hardware and software powering the units. This runs on Apple iOS, Android, Apple Silicon Mac computers and Chromebooks. It offers a seamless interface for set-up and control, and makes combining multiple sources from network playback to online streaming services simple.
