Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

@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.

@nyev 

Your post at 01-13-2023 at 12:19am 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.

“I’ve yet to find a dealers/salesperson who doesn’t let their biases get in the way of getting great advice”
@nyev

I know it’s a rarity but they do exists. I have been very fortunate to work with few dealers that are audio enthusiast at heart. They are driven by their passion to help others in putting together great sounding systems.

Back to your query, Is AES better than USB? The answer lies within the implementation of these protocols between the two components, your DAC and streamer. IME, N20 implementation on all of its available outputs is simply stellar and uncompromising. And I expect the same from your Gryphon DAC. What you end up preferring is squarely depends on the quality of USB or AES cables. YES, the cable between the two components is going to matter a lot. I have extensively compared the USB & AES between my components and they both sounded stellar with N20 as a source.

My advice to you, don’t buy a component that limits your options. Why spend top dollars and limit yourself to AES and 24bit/192kHz file resolution (MU1) or K50, that may sound better with AES but not USB. At the end of the day, listen and access what’s sounds best in your system.

As far cabling goes, sky is the limit. Shunyata, Harmonix, Acrolink and Sablon gets my vote for AES. For USB, Network Acoustics USB III, TCHERNOV, Kimber Hybrid are the among best I’ve heard.

Here is another important consideration that doesn’t get mentioned here. Aurender is been at their game longer than anyone else. They offer seamless integration (via Conductor app) with some of the top DAC’s. This integration includes Master Clock sync and advanced Network like RAVENNA. Also eliminates the need for AES, SPDIF or USB cabling. MSB and Merging are two I know of, I am sure there are more.

@lalitk thanks for this.  Very helpful advice.  Looking forward to trying some cable options, whichever way I go.  

I guess all options have limitations of sorts.  Innuos has no AES (except new Pulse line which may signal a general change for future products), Aurender you can only use their Conductor app, Antipodes has superior AES implementation to USB, etc.  for me, the player app doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t totally suck.  Yeah I love Roon and it’s radio mode but sound comes first for me.  I still find the Innuos Sense app is glitchy, with tracks sometimes not wanting to start when I play them or skip forward into the track.  But it still sounds better than Roon+Squeeze on my Innuos stuff so I use it.
 

Since the N20 is the lowest priced option, would it still be a higher class than my current Zenith Mk 2 + PhoenixUSB?  I’m pretty sure the K50 and MU1 must be.  Pretty sure I read a couple of posts a while back on other forums from guys who made the same jump to the N20 and found it was a big lift in sound.