Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

@nyev

Its all good. Whatever gets us to the desired outcome. I hear you regarding research, reading, gathering info...but so many reviews are embellished or worse...they might be truthful and factual but without a clear understanding that context is everything. To make matters worse, the writing style and the motives of the writer sometimes combine to communicate an unintentionally false impression. The writer may be trying to drive home the point that product A is "warmer" than product B but they are afraid to alienate manufacturer B by adversely comparing the two products. Therefore, they attempt to write something objective when, in fact, neither product might align with our respective definition of "warm". Unless everything in our system is identical to the reviewers, then the outcome will be different. Unless our version of a term aligns perfectly with the person recording their findings, then we will innocently form an incorrect assumption.

I was merely giving you a hard time to drive home the point that we all get conditioned..."if I add a component then I have to buy Audioquest Diamond or Audio Note Sogon interconnects" or I won’t hear it "at its best". We go "there" without ever hearing the component and cable combo and worse, we listen for a few minutes and immediately wonder how we can improve it. I’ve done it...I have a closet full of various gear, cables and interconnects to prove it LOL. We buy a filter or gadget and immediately buy more to see if daisy chaining them is cumulative?

Keep it simple, have fun, know why we want it and repeat. For instance, I have some speaker cables I swear by in my system and recommended them to a friend and he hated them. My amp is a single ended triode vacuum tube amp which is optimized for 6/8 ohm loads, my speakers are 12 ohm, 96db and my cables are almost 30 ft in length. He has SS amplification and drives 8ohm, 90db speakers with 2.5 meter speaker cables. What could possibly go wrong? What could possibly explain the difference of opinion? Of course, the physical properties which optimize those cables for my system are inconsistent with what was required by his system. Interconnects? Single ended interconnects of a particular brand/model SHOULD sound different than the xlr version of the same wire but which is right? Most likely the balanced version because the standard removes most variables.

Best of luck.

Thanks @ghasley. I also don’t think I’m far off from what I’m looking for in SQ - the N20 proved that. It does everything I want, aside from a slight bit of what the the Innuos does. Just needs a hair more transparency and I’d be there. I don’t even need all the transparency of the Innuos. Is that unreasonable? Maybe! But maybe not….  

@ghasley I am also seriously considering your suggestion to try to get a demo of a well-respected standalone DAC in-house for a demo, as an interim step before sourcing a K50.  I’d only opt to try a DAC within budget, to be fair to the dealer, to enable the path of potentially purchasing it.  

The Bartok is a combined streamer/DAC.  I guess it would be fairly easily within budget even if I had to firesale my servers today (not that I’m going to!).  But do you suggest I try to stick with “pure” standalone DACs?  There is a DCS dealer in an adjacent city that I might be able to get a demo Bartok from…

I think I am going to stick to the plan and acquire a K50. I have an opportunity to acquire one for a deal.

BUT I am also going to follow @ghasley’s advice as well; will get a demo DAC in house AFTER the K50 is good and burnt in. Steps:

1. Acquire a K50 and start burning in while continuing to live with and focus on the N20
2. Acquire a demo of a respected DAC like a Bartok/Lina/Meitner (go Canada…)
3. Spend time with all of the variables possibly even a year
4. Wait for the impending recession to end (who knows how long, but hopefully not long)
5. Sell what I don’t need anymore and possibly buy a DAC, if I feel like it. I have no idea why, but I truly enjoy selling my old gear to people who are very excited to receive it. It makes me happy. I even got carried away and sold my beloved Clarus Crimson Biwire cables just because I wanted to sell them to an eager buyer - and regretted it. The manager at the post office knows me now, and always asks about what audio component I’ve sold this time….

This approach just gives me a bit wider experience, with three premium servers instead of two, to trial with two DACs. Could still fit the MU1 in this mix but it may not be necessary depending on how things go - I’ll have a whole lot of great stuff to trial in different configurations, that I can relax and take my time with. At that point I’ll have a very informed take on the three great servers, used with multiple DACs, and with both USB and AES. Sounds like a plan to me.

The fact is, the parameters I’m working with, shipping and duty wise, demo-access wise, and where I live plays a huge part in how I proceed with something like this.  For someone in the US, I am guessing you have far more flexibility with a plethora of dealers and US-based distributors, for almost any audio component you might want to try.  This journey may be unusual, but it’s going to be fun, informative, and relaxed. Discovering the very blatantly obvious sonic traits of the N20 vs the Innuos has already been informative. Best of all, the net expenditure will not be too crazy after all is said and done.

I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of trying this earlier with the N20 but I totally forgot to try changing my Gryphon DAC module’s filter from the default slow setting to fast. With the Innuos setup, a long time ago I concluded that “fast” produced an overly sharp and thin sound, and just changed back to slow and left it alone since. But with the N20, the effect is really pleasing. Given the overall rich tonal density I’ve been getting with the N20, with the DAC set to “Fast”, the top end is now more naturally crisp, but not sharp like it was with this setting on the Innuos. Vocals are also freed up a bit, are a touch less veiled, and are just a touch more 3D. It’s REALLY quite nice now. Still nowhere near the level of high frequency detail and transparency as the Innuos, but I find so far, I’m not as constantly aware of missing upper detail with the N20 as much as before. This is good! Very enjoyable sound now.

I thought maybe now I’d hear a difference between AES and USB, but nope! Maybe something is capping the AES performance, or my DAC’s USB and clock implementation is so good it makes no difference. I know, extremely unlikely…  I thought I’d hear a difference by now, at the very least simply from the brand new cable burning in vs the well-used equivalent Diamond USB cable.

I read once that changing from slow to fast filters, you gain something (higher upper frequency response) but you also lose something (less stable frequency response due to the more aggressive response). Not sure I have that right. Anyways if I lost anything, I haven’t noticed yet, and I gained more with “Fast” engaged.