Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

I've found 'closed in' sq typical early in burn in period. Fuses do make a difference, forgot about this in case of streamer, will try the purple.

When speaking of deriving pleasure from the sound of my system vs music, its not a battle, rather I take great pleasure from both. Certainly my immersion into music has followed with better sound, but better sound has also brought a new appreciation of that sound, the analytical mode of listening is no longer something I want to avoid.  Now I can relate to the need to get away from the analytic mode of listening, in the sense this will uncover some already known flaw or perhaps new flaw. In this case the analytical mode is not bringing us full measure of pleasure, its simply a utilitarian mode required in creating our 'perfect' system. Easy to understand the desire to escape this and fall into the music loving mode. Perhaps I am like Matisse in that I can now derive pleasure from what could be analagous to a painting, in that I perceive my audio system as a totally unique 'work of art'. Think of all the work and time that goes into building our systems, in my case nearly fifty years of listening to audiophile systems and or building systems, think of all the resources we expend in our never ending search for this 'perfect' system.  So now we reach this point where the analysis of sound no longer brings displeasure, only pleasure. This becomes OUR great work of art, we take great pleasure in the 'shapes and hues' of our creation. Hues and shapes in regard to audio reproduction is the overall gestalt of our creation, this holistic perspective in regard to sound can bring great pleasure, the SOUND is OUR masterpiece, the music is another person's masterpiece.

And this mode of listening need not compete or interfere with our immersion into the music, it only ADDS to it. I have to seriously question whether I'm  alone in taking this amount of pleasure from APPRECIATION of the sound ? Hard for me to believe all of us don't take some measure of pleasure from our creations or works of art!

@charles1dad  When speaking of 'different strokes for different folks' I was referring to a  preference for the color of our systems on a warm to cool scale, romantic being on warm side, analytical on cold, cool end. I've built systems and heard systems that reside at nearly all places on  this scale. Based on quite large sample size I've come to realize my preference is for just slightly cool side of neutral, someone else may fall anywhere along this line. This preference is why I stated I'd prefer the Innuous over the Aurender based on @nyev  sound analysis.

@sns

I’ve come to realize my preference is for just slightly cool side of neutral, someone else may fall anywhere along this line. This preference is why I stated I’d prefer the Innuous over the Aurender based on @nyev sound analysis.

No problem at all. As we both know this is subjectivity in pure form. You’re just a bit to the “cool” side of neutral and I’m just a bit to the “warm” side of neutral.

Charles

I’m also realizing through this process with the N20 and Innuos that I too lean slightly warm side. I guess I knew that before as my Diablo 300 and DAC are slightly warm leaning, but I didn’t know that I’d also prefer slight bit of warmth in my network server.

The N20’s AES and USB outputs sound utterly identical now. @lordmelton I tried changing the output to “Professional” as suggested and there was no change. Aurender’s documentation states that this setting is to address compatibility issues with some DAC’s only and has no effect on sound quality whatsoever, and they imply most should not need to touch this unless they have compatibility issues.

At this point I’m preferring the N20 over the Innuos for its more solid and musical presentation. Still need that smidge more high frequency transparency and detail to get me there. Still more burnin to go of course. Planning two weeks of burn-in of the AES circuits and cable (I think the rest of the unit must be fully burned in at this point), 2-3 weeks of critical listening and living with it, then I’ll sell either the Innuos stuff or the N20 to make way for the next comparison.

It is a bit odd and unexpected that there is absolutely no difference between AES and USB on the N20, despite the fact that the AES circuits and cable are still burning in. Given how different the N20’s circuits are between USB and AES, I would have expected SOME difference, regardless of whether better or worse! It makes me wonder if something else in my system is capping performance of the server across the board which causes both output types to sound the same. Can’t think of what though.  Even due to the fact that the AES cable is brand new, and that fact alone, should cause there to be differences but no!

@nyev 

Indeed, perhaps surprising while maybe not all that surprising.

I can't speak for the others who have commented but in the back of my mind, no matter how good we all think the Gryphon dac module may be, it will likely be the weak point in your very high quality chain. I'm not saying that to be critical in any way. In fact, you have to admit that the dac module plays at a very high level for a plugin type module but dacs in general have come a very long way in a few short years. In a logical world, the clocking of the N20 should be superior to the clocking of your dac module.

@ghasley, totally agree that maybe the DAC is holding things back. Unlike many I have no problem being objectively critical of my gear even if I have an affection for it. One thing though is that the Innuos unquestionably has more high frequency detail (to an astounding degree that I was not expecting, and possibly having too much detail for my system) feeding the Gryphon DAC module. So I don’t see that it could be the DAC module that is capping this part of the performance at least.

Update: Unless, I realized, Innuos has done something in their USB implementation that gets past the Gryphon DAC module’s limitations somehow. As I mentioned above Innuos did feed the Diablo DAC module with the Statement Next Gen at the Munich show last year.  If that turns out to be the case, maybe I need to seriously consider trialing the Innuos Statement. Maybe I can even consider putting the funds I was planning to spend on the AES cable towards the Statement Next Gen if I were to buy it. Nuno at Innuos did offer to send me one for evaluation.  I just don’t think I’d get the touch of warmth I am looking for, but I’m guessing it would more than compensate in other ways.