I switched from a dCS Vivaldi Upsampler to a Grimm MU1 about 6 months ago. It took me about 15 min. of an in home dealer demo (via UPS) to decide the Grimm was playing in a different league. If you are interested read the reviews on the Grimm and the interviews on Youtube, as I found them to be accurate to my listening experience. I didn't believe the company's claims that you don't need the usual exotic power and internet treatments, but I have found their claims to be true. By replacing the factory power cord with a Shunyata Sigma or Alpha V2 NR cord I can make it sound slightly different, but I can't tell if it's better. I also had the whole two Farad LPSs with all the upgrades, Afterdark 10MHz clock with $450 clock cable, all tied to my Etherrgen and several higher end Ethernet cables. I went naked for fun, that is I plugged the "house wire" CAT 6 cable with no switch other than the utility house switch to the Grimm. Without the big time switch, cables. and clocking, my decay and leading edge definition were better and still digital glare and sibilance didn't show up. All that extra gear did help my previous streamer, but it sounded like a filter with the Grimm. It was a humbling experience. It appears that Grimm has sorted clean power and low jitter to a level that other manufacturers have not yet achieved. So for 12K invested in a Grimm you get a built in Roon Core, 4 to 8 TBs of storage, a world class streamer, AND you don't need to spend 7 to 8 K on ethernet enhancements and power cords. The Grimm is also designed to feed any other manufacturer's DAC which appeals to me as well. If you PM me I will tell you what Grimm dealer let me do the free in home trial. This is a difficult post to write, but I went down the wrong road for the right reasons. For me, learning is one of the joys of this hobby. I encourage you to seek out a free Grimm in home trial and experience the grimm within your audio ecosystem. I think you will be very happy you did so,
