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...
@lalitk @lordmelton , thanks for the tips on the master clock. I’m intrigued. But I also worry that I’ll feel like I’ll be repeating the experience of adding the USB reclocker, where I went “yeah, big difference. But I wish I just went with one single box that had this level of performance.” If I were to go for the master clock I’d worry I’d keep upgrading and end up with a taiko extreme or something, lol…. |
@sns , I wholeheartedly agree that you and others may prefer the Innuos. It’s even possible I may shift back to preferring the Innuos after some time. They just sound SO different, so there is some degree of novelty bias at play here I’m sure. While I would still characterize what I hear just as I described, I have to say how I feel about those differences has changed slightly, having listened to a wider scope of music on the N20. On some tracks, I’m missing the Innuos setup. What am I missing? Mid and upper transparency, higher highs, lower lows. The N20’s more “focus on the basics” approach sounds superb on a lot of material and is a bit of a relief, but on other material it can sound a bit flat and unengaging. Can’t recall who said the N20 will do “razor edged guitar solos” (and that the MU1 wouldn’t), but I actually find the N20 tones down guitar solos quite a bit in comparison with the Innuos setup where guitar solos leap out at you. Innuos Zenith Mk2 + PhoenixUSB - expansive sound, focus on full frequency range, transparency, and deep soundstage. Aurender - organic, relaxed, denser upper bass and mid bass with more energetic presentation in these specific areas, fleshy vocals. A bit concerned that after testing the Aurender I will want a blend of what Innuos does best and what Aurender does best - with none of the bad parts of either! At this point, I’m actually quite surprised at the lower resolution of the N20, which I never would have noticed if I hadn’t had the experience with there Innuos setup. I would not go so far as to say one is more “pure” than the other without manipulating the source. Not saying that’s not true, just that I don’t know. The AES cable with the N20 may change everything, when I receive it. We’ll see. Also, regarding burnin, the Statement Next Gen and the K50 are known to have point-in-time “step” increases in performance after MONTHS of use, with no change in between these points. People even report a temporary decline in the Statement Next Gen just before the final bump up to stabilizing on the max performance. Not sure if any of this applies to the N20. For what it’s worth, I’ve only noticed a change over the first few hours of use; it’s sounded the same since then so far. Very glad I took this approach to testing network players. I’m in no hurry to return a demo to a shop and say I’m not interested. I can continue to test over a long term in a relaxed manner. It’s a fun process so far, and I’m still totally stunned how different the two setups sound from one another. One thing I forgot to mention - the N20 throws the soundstage so differently that I actually had to adjust my speaker positions! Vocals were sounding a bit off on some tracks, and I found that toeing my speakers inwards, much further than my Innuos setup prefers, was required to fix the slight soundstage issues.
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My suspicion is continued burning-in and switching to the AES connection path is only going to improve the Aurender N20 from its already impressive initial presentation. Charles |
@nyev The master clock is for later consideration but it's absolutely essential for realising the full performance of the N20. In the meantime why don't you try inputting one of your Dragon PCs into the N20 and disabling the powerline in your AQ USB cable. At this stage I would only listen to tracks on your SSD and try the N20 in critical listening mode. If you do some streaming don't forget to switch MQA on, if you listen to Tidal, the N20 will give you the first unfold, 96KHz.
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