I take dealer advice with a pinch of salt. The overzealous approach in shilling their product lines put to test when they are unable to provide a product for in-house demo.
Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?
I've recently become interested in the Grimm MU1. While reviews of top end players from Innuos, Aurender and Antipodes and others are typically all very positive, the tone of the many pro reviews of the Grimm MU1 go far, far beyond, with some reviews resorting to using superlatives and gushing of positive system transformation and not being able to stop listening to material, etc.. HiFi Advice and Steve Huff (actually calls it "magic") have such reviews.
Given the delay in availability of the Innuos Pulsar which I'm told will be better than my current Zenith Mk3 + PhoenixUSB reclocker, I am interested in replacing my streaming setup with a one-box solution that includes a high-precision clock. The new streamer will continue to feed my Gryphon Diablo 300's DAC module, which I have no interest in replacing.
I'm actually a fan of Innuos, after they improved the sound of my Zenith with firmware updates and after I added their PhoenixUSB reclocker. I appreciate this commitment to improving sound quality which is why I was so interested in the Pulsar.
The trigger for considering an upgrade is not for improved sound, but rather, to solve some issues I have with too many Audioquest power cords coiled and clumped together. I will get to lose one of them and one of my USB cords with a one-box streamer. I've noticed my sound is very sensitive to positioning of my AC cords and find I often need to re-adjust the PC feeding my amp to get proper sounding vocals at center stage. One of my subs also seems to be picking up AC noise when the crossover is set above 60Hz. The second trigger is simply system simplification, removing one box. All that said I don't really have any complaints regarding sound, and the PhoenixUSB reclocker truly did improve the sound of my Zenith.
While the Grimm MU1 has it's 4X upsampling up it's sleeve with reviewers absolutely glowing over this feature and it's extreme ability to separate tones to the left, right, front, and back far better than the rest, I don't see that Grimm has gone to any lengths with regard to power supply management in the way other brands do including Innuos. The MU1's ultra-simplistic interior doesn't bug me, but the lack of transformers and power management makes me wonder....
Are there any updates from folks who have directly compared the MU1 vs similarly classed streamers from the competition? Did you find it to be as revelatory as the pro reviewers found it? And, how does it compare to other streamers with it's 4X upsampling disabled? Does it sound like it suffers from it's lack of power management? I do see that the clock should be very good...
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@lalitk I am totally against negative selling in the manor that @audiotroy goes about it. If you have valid, verifiable and repeatable testing data then provide it. Make your case. Video your blind tests and put them on YouTube like many other dealers and distributors do. Kevin Deal comes to mind in the early PL days. Do not make unverifiable blanket bs statements just to generate interest. I know this is a more sophisticated audience/clientele that is not buying into his hyperbole. He may be a very good dealer but I will never patronize is establishment.
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@lalitk , yeah of course I get that the dealer is biased :) I didn’t spell it out as it was obvious. Unfortunately I’ve yet to find a dealers/salesperson who doesn’t let their biases get in the way of getting great advice. I know there are some out there, based on accounts of others, but unfortunately I’ve yet to meet them. The best sort that I’ve encountered are the ones who are glad to help you and don’t seem motivated to make a sale. But these guys rarely give advice and when they do it’s biased to their gear. Is the consensus here that AES will likely sound better than USB on all three devices? Need to budget for a good cable too. Of course the MU1 needs it to utilize its upsampling, and everyone seems to say it’s the best with the K50. What about the N20 - would AES connecting to my Gryphon Diablo 300 DAC module likely be better than USB as well? My local dealer can get demos of Shunyata and Audioquest cables. Thinking of trialing a Sigma and Diamond AES from those respective vendors. I’ve also heard great things about the Sablon AES cable which I believe is in the same price range. At some point I’d want to try the Shunyata Omega and the Nordost Valhalla V2 cables, which I have heard great things about, and I expect these cables to both sound great in quite different manners. But I don’t want to spend that much on an AES cable quite yet. The Sigma/Diamond/Sablon is the class I’ll be looking at now.
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Your post at discusses USB cable length. Steve Nugent of Empircal Audio, aka Audioengr here on A'gon, used to discuss the USB cable length question as it was often brought up. He has been around for some time, but haven't seen him post in a while either. But he often noted that USB cables shorter than 1.5 meters caused reflections (I think also mentioned in this thread) on the cable and so it was best that either the cable be very very short or 1.5+ meters in length to avoid reflections. That is the best that I can explain it, but Steve is very well respected, and he also builds some very impressive audio gear. His forum "Empiral Audio Forum" can be found on Audio Circle and you can also look up his website of the same name. I assume you'll find much more clear and concise information on this topic there. I've heard several of Steve's systems at the Newport show and they were really really good, so that makes me give significant weight to what he says.
I've been enjoying following along with this thread, some great posters providing a lot of insight in here.
One thing that may be of value is that if you might consider adding a master clock in the future, that may be a feature that you'd want your streamer/server to allow. |
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