Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

This has been a very interesting thread so far.

As several others have mentioned, letting the N20 run for a week would be a good idea. I'll go on record that most likely it'll need that or more given the fact it really hasn't been played that much by the prior owner. Let me share a story with you I'm living through now.

I've been working a bit on Network optimization. I have a Shunyata Hydra 6 power conditioner that I'm not using and that had been in two systems over the course of approximately 15 years. I recently replaced the Hydra with a much better power conditioner in my main system and so it was free. The Hydra has been sitting for a year in my office and I finally decided to use it in my Network; the Hydra 6 now powers my router, ER + LPS, fiber endpoint coming into the house, and a computer + monitor and powered speakers. Sound Cliffnotes: upon listening to my system, the sound was much worse with the Hydra 6 than with the $25 power strip that had been there. It took 10 days before the sound started to open up and it was changing a little each day for the better. It took another five days until it really started on song and my system has now never sounded better, but I think this burnin/settling has not fully finished yet. I share this with you because I thought I shouldn't really have any or just a little burnin/settling since the Hydra has literally 15 years of use on it. I found that to be totally untrue. So my advice is to just give the N20 time, I bet you'll get much more out of it. I've had an N10 for four years and have had my eye on the N20, so I'm very interested in your findings. Have fun while doing all this!

Thanks for sharing @pokey77 , good story! And yes I’m totally with the general advice that things will likely change with a week or more of run in.

One of the other network players I want to try, the Antipodes K50, is widely known to take many months before it fully settles, with very sudden improvements that show up every 1-2 months during this time. Word is it can be a bit harsh prior to this burn in. Not sure if that is specific to the K50, but I’ve heard similar accounts from owners of the new Innuos Statement Next Gen. Apparently it is the power supply that needs this breakin the most.

The best thing so far about thenN20 is that some of the things I found to be less desirable about my system’s sonics that I had attributed to my speakers are resolved now (sorry speakers I love you again….). That was a nice surprise. The question is whether, over time, I’ll notice other less desired elements, simply from getting attuned to the sound more!

The other wildcard as mentioned is the demo AES cable that is en route. Aurender’s marketing and some on this thread had suggested that the AES cable will sound superior, so it may or may not be a game changer. Aurender’s marketing language suggests the advantage of their high precision clock with AES will drive the DAC and be better than USB.

@nyev 

The newer power conditioner I have took four weeks until the sound went from analytical to musical. And week five brought about a good bit more improvement as well. I was wondering if I'd have to try a different power conditioner, but it all worked out, but 5+ weeks seemed like a long time to me! So I get your comments on the K50 for sure.

FYI - I'm using Nordost Heimdal 2 AES and I also tried the equivalent Heimdal 2 USB and I thought AES was ever so slightly better. And it didn't hurt that the cable was shorter so less mess behind the rack. -I've read a lot good about Jorma and I may try better AES cables in the future. I think Lalitk probably knows some good options.

I’m really interested in getting my hands on that AES cable after reading Aurender’s marketing pitch on how much better it is than USB. Which I know is just marketing.

It’s clearly aimed at differentiating from Innuos who only do USB - except for the fact that their brand new Pulse products support AES, and my guess is all their new products will as well.

As others have said what matters is which interface they’ve invested in. But here’s the thing - if Aurender has invested in making AES good such that they recommend it over their USB interface, and the USB interface sounds good, then how much better will AES be? I’ve seen countless accounts of AES being far better than USB on the Antipodes K50, but I’ve not seen this as widely mentioned for Aurender.  Yet it seems Aurender and Antipodes are aligned on prioritizing AES.  Aurender claims:

Ultra-High-Quality SPDIF and AES/EBU Digital Audio Outputs

The N20’s AES/EBU, BNC, Coaxial, and Optical outputs provide a superior musical presentation with some DACs due to the superior clock and oscillator. As opposed to asynchronous USB connections, where the DAC pulls packets of information from the player, N20’s SPDIF audio outputs push the signal out to the DAC at intervals defined by the on-board precision OCXO clock. With a clock this precise, once heard, you’ll want to use it.

@nyev reading your post about the PhoenixNet, bear in mind that it is a 100Mb/s device, so it would limit the network speed of your whole house if you put a second one in where you were pondering. We now know that a lot of streaming devices sound better running on a 1Gb/s connection speed, which the PhoenixNet cannot do.