Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

“to be substantiated through my testing….”
@nyev

That’s been my motto as well. Only through testing within the context of our systems we can leverage the strengths and recognize weaknesses of a given component. All else is pure speculation or simply an opinion. Given my extensive experience with N20, the N20 performance greatly varied by what’s ahead in your chain. With EMM DA2 DAC, I enjoyed N20 more with AES over USB. Not that USB sucked but I preferred AES as it sounded more addictive and natural to my ears. Granted, I was using two different brands of cabling. Another friend of mine, reported similar traits, N20 connected through AES to his MSB Reference DAC.

Later I switched to a Network Attached DAC with external clock and power supply. The N20 connected to my DAC via LAN (no USB or AES cabling) and re-clocked by external 10MHz clock was a different beast all together. The effect of external clock on N20 was pretty startling to say the least. The channel separation, lower distortion and a greater phase clarity became the hallmark of music signal. The new level of realism, more analogous, intimate presentation with external clock in the mix especially with higher resolutions files.

Again, this is going back to the argument of separates vs one box…USB implementations, OCXO’s clocks on a PCB board in a confined space can only do so much. And for most part, they do a pretty darn good job. Having experienced what I’ve with external clock, I can’t imagine going back to listening to a Streamer and a DAC without an external Clock in the mix. I am now looking forward to further pushing the limits with either W20SE or N30SA.

Whatever you decide, just enjoy the ride!

@lalitk +1

The day before yesterday I connected an Atlas Mavros (copper) AES between my N20 and DAC. Just interested to see if I'd been missing something regarding AES.

Well started listening yesterday evening and it was sorely lacking compared to the USB. Granted the USB is solid silver, but they are both similarly priced.

With AES music was less separated, sounded congealed with less micro detail and above all zero PRAT.

I could easily tell in a blind listening test. The USB being light, airy with high tops and clear bass. Timbre and textures were excellent too. Vocals were real.

So I know my Musetec 005 is USB optomised but as @lalitk said even all your downstream components can influence the sound.

Anyway we'll find out for certain when you get your cables.

@latik In stating I was sold on Antipodes, I was within days of purchasing K50 when I was notified the custom build streamer I ended up purchasing came up for sale. Again, K50 was my choice based on the second ethernet port optimized for output to second streamer, as you know still my preference at this point. I had nothing against the Aurenders or Innuos, simply fact Antipodes had the nice AES AND network outputs.

@lordmelton , interesting results of your AES testing, thanks. Not suggesting this is the correct way to think of it, but Audioquest’s AES Diamond cable costs 2.5X their Diamond USB cable (both silver). Just raising the question of whether an equally priced AES and USB cable should be expected to perform equally or not. Audioquest’s pricing suggests not, but I really don’t know.

@lalitk 

Later I switched to a Network Attached DAC with external clock and power supply. The N20 connected to my DAC via LAN (no USB or AES cabling) and re-clocked by external 10MHz clock was a different beast all together. The effect of external clock on N20 was pretty startling to say the least. The channel separation, lower distortion and a greater phase clarity became the hallmark of music signal. The new level of realism, more analogous, intimate presentation with external clock in the mix especially with higher resolutions files.

Forgive me if I’m missing something but if your dac is “network attached” then the N20 will have virtually nothing to do with the performance of the dac/clock.

@lordmelton 

Your aes vs usb test is very likely a null result…if you were to get your hands on a really good aes cable and a similar quality usb cable you might hear an accurate outcome. Very few (unless your dac has an inferior aes input and a supercharged usb input) would arrive at your conclusion. The N20/Aurender aes implementation is quite often the preferred output. The clock in the N20 is quite good…