Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

“Aurender you can only use their Conductor app”

@nyev

As a long time user of Conductor app and ROON (18+ months), this would not be a source of your dissatisfaction with Aurender. The Conductor UI is not as layered or advance as ROON but it’s very intuitive and robust, both streaming from cloud based services or local files. Most importantly, conductor app renders your files faithfully, zero tempering with resolution. I’m not sure you read last paragraph in my previous post. That’s a very important consideration as it pretty much future proof your purchase should you choose to upgrade your DAC.

@lalitk , thanks and yes, I did read the last paragraph.  I guess I’m wasn’t really focusing on future-proofing as I have no desire to switch my Diablo and DAC module, which doesn’t allow for such integrations.  But it’s a good point as who knows what will happen years down the road…. Adding a master clock sounds intriguing but right now I want to reduce my devices and cabling!  And I just hate the fact that regardless of the device, premium power and signal cords ALWAYS make a difference, regardless of what the device is….  I suppose my objective now is to get the best sound I can with a one box player/server solution, with my integrated amp and DAC module.  But yeah your point is a good one still.

@pokey77 

Retirement is drawing near for Steve, and some of his tech he plans to pitch.

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

Nothing but speculation and assumptions. Follow your plan to listen to all 3 of them. They’re all quite worthy. for all you know you may find the Aurender N20 your favorite.

Charles

 A lot of this is apples to oranges comparisons, best ports on streamers and dacs make direct comparisons impossible. One should purchase dac and streamer as a package, decide in advance which scheme they're going with, AES/EBU, USB or I2S, both dac and streamer should be optimized for that scheme. I'll reiterate usb most difficult/expensive to optimize, has more inherent disadvantages, usb can have extremely high sound quality, gets bad name from less than optimal implementation in both streamers and dacs.

In question above as to how N20 would compare to Zenith and Phoenix. I'd keep Zenith + Phoenix vs N20, K50 and MU1 IF STAYING WITH USB. Now, if changing rendering schemes anything goes. USB is capable of wonderful rendering, Phoenix is one example of that. Now, is that Phoenix going into dac with optimized usb board, that being XMOS or Amanero, perhaps some proprietary board. If that is the case one isn't going to do much better using another rendering scheme. Assuming the Phoenix going into dac with great usb implementation, there still may be gains to be had with a better streamer serving only server duty. In other words Zenith II may be bettered with newer Zenith or some other streamer.

Point I'm trying to make above. Streaming sound quality can also be improved through better streamer acting ONLY as SERVER.  Lets say one already has optimized usb rendering via Phoenix or another dedicated usb streamer only, assume optimized usb implementation in dac. One can still achieve better sound quality with higher quality streamer, and NOT USING IT'S RENDERING CAPABILITY.  Improved noise suppression, music player processing  ALONE can make substantial improvements in sound quality. I know this from my own experiments with multiple rendering schemes VIA USB.

I have no experience with I2S and coax rendering so above may or may not apply. At one point  thought I'd experiment with I2S via DDC, in the end made no sense considering extra complexity, limitations of DDC equipment itself and less than optimal I2S implementation in  dac.