Clock vs Streamer advice

Actually, some are affordable for me. I was on a different site where they were more expensive, but the k21 looks to be $7k

@zpatenaude37 I don't know why this is still for sale: absolute bargain

k50

@zpatenaude37 

Perhaps you might check out the Grimm MU1 (disclosure: I’ve onwed one for 2+ years). With the introduction of the MU2 (MU1 with inboard dac) a few preowned MU1’s have popped up for sale. At the time of my purchase I compared with others inclusive of the Innuos Statement and preferred the MU1. The current street price for a preowned appears to be in your target price range. I run mine via AES into a DCS Bartok Apex…simply breathtaking. There are alot of fine products out there and I passed through the tweaky phase (ether regens, filters, fiber, usb, all kinds of stuff) and found the greatest improvement was simplifying the chain, which the MU1 facilitated. I believe strongly that AES is superior presently. While the inboard streamer over ethernet in my DCS sounds exceptional, there is just something very special with the stream from the Grimm. Good luck and best wishes.

@ghasley very nice. Yes, I can't see how someone would be disappointed with an MU1. Are you now simply going ethernet cable direct from router? or switch? Audiophile ethernet cable? 

Hi @mclinnguy , I hope you are well!

I go from router to a Network Acoustics Rubicon Switch, Audioquest Vodka ethernet cable to Grimm MU1, Shunyata Sigma V2 AES cable to DCS Bartok Apex. I also have another Vodka ethernet from switch to Bartok. I once had Muon filter, Muon Pro filter and the Grimm seemed to my ears to be agnostic with those in the chain. If I were to arbitrairly score the Grimm AES feed vs the Bartok’s own streamer over ethernet it would be something like a 92 for the Grimm via AES and an 89 for the Bartok over ethernet. The Bartok streamer is very good but there is perhaps another level of refinement with the Grimm. I have some HDTT DSD recordings so I stream those directly to the Bartok since the Grimm is 24/192. Ironically, many of the downconverted DSD sound better when fed through the Grimm at 24/96 than the DSD version. The Grimm’s clocking and 4fs must have some advantage in that regard. The Taiko would be something like a 95-96 in my system but at the end of the day, there just is no way for me to justify a 3x price differential for a very minor subjective difference.

I really, really believe that the clocking in the server is a very real thing with the Grimm. USB users who have focused on their dac’s own clocking might not understand why high end server/streamer A sounds so similar to high end server/streamer B…its because in many cases they may. If you happen to have the opportunity to hear a well done AES stream versus a well done USB stream you may come to the conclusion that the maturity of the AES stream has some advantages depending on the rest of the audio chain. Something else that is very enlightening…connecting some older dacs to the Grimm, perhaps well regarded back in the day, will yield jaw dropping results. For instance, I recently connected a mk1 version of a Merason DAC1 to the the Grimm…made me wonder why I spent the extra money on the DCS….(spoiler alert, its because I already own it LOL)