Grimm MU2 Experience

@yowser Any preliminary impressions?  My Roon over the weekend was painfully slow sometimes buffering for >1 minute and hanging up.  Are you having that issue?

My early impression mimics yours and the multitude of the reviews out there.  Vocals are lifelike as you said, just as the music in general is more lifelike.  I remember one reviewer likened it to opening a window.  It sounded great right out of the box and continued to improve over the last 100 hours.  I've had it playing 24/7 with playlists and Radio Paradise, then listening in the evenings for 1-2 hours.  I'm impressed with the micro details in the music without being analytical.  I'm always a little skeptical of reviews, but they were so overwhelmingly positive on the MU2 that I had to listen in my home and I'm glad I did.  In answering your question, I did not have any buffering issues over the weekend.  As to your ground loop issue, I noticed on the last paragraph of page 7 of the supplied manual that Grimm states the MU2 "relies on safety earth in the mains cable to guarantee your safety. It also needs this connection as low impedance path for mains leakage current to prevent hum or sound quality degradation" and suggests consulting an electrician.

For those of you that have the MU2 how's it going?  I have a MU1/Weiss 501 DAC combo and love 'em. I don't know but image the streamer part of the MU2 is much the same as the MU2?  How to sort that one?  Am considering the MU2 in my other system that will replace a Lumin X1 (nothing to kick out of bed for eating crackers). Nothing beats the Grimm's 2x and 4x oversampling.

I have an integrated (KWM-88 MK2 Integrated Amplifier using KT170's )  I very much like but (the itch) was considering just using the MU2 as the pre into AGD The Audion MkIII Monoblocks or other monos.  I like separates but.......???????

you may want to check out a 432 Evo Master

the master has been compared next to the Grimm and found to sound as good with greater speed and clarity while being just as organic as the Grimm

ps://hifi.nl/artikel/30271/Review-432-EVO-Master-music-server-a-strong-challenger-in-the-top-segment.html

Unprecedented realism

Because at the same time, a phenomenom happens which I can best describe as “de-hasting”. The Grimm also masters this, but the 432 EVO Master even goes a little bit further. With “de-hasting” I mean the feeling that you get as listener with music, to even process very complex passages. With some, and mainly less performing products, the music can become overly bloated and prominent in certain areas, and the music is almost forced onto you. None of that with this Belgian music server who continues to act like a gallant gentlemen.

Even though the price is downright hefty, and a small minus is the fact that it only support USB connections towards a DAC, what we have here is a very special music server which within it’s price class, is among the best challengers today. Even though a top class CD transport still sounds substantially different in it’s own way and still is hard to beat on it’s own strong aspects, there is indeed a far-reaching analog sound. This makes the rendering smooth, airy, spacious and naturally realistic and moreover, also has exactly that right outlined and catchy character that is so typical of a good analog source. Nice work Frederic!

Dave and Troy

audio Intellect

432evo dealers

Just got my MU2 and I’m noticing clicking between tracks on Roon. I know the rotary volume dial clicks, but I hear that same kind of click between different tracks while I’m playing my Tidal playlists. Anyone encounter this, audible clicking between streaming tracks? I am running the MU2 and fixed volume to my preamplifier.

Secondly I’m having a really rough go of it with Roon. I can’t say that I’m a fan. I’m completely stifled as to how to link my NAS and be able to access my stored music, this seems to be a shared issue with people’s posts on the internet. I'm laughing reading that a previous MU2 owner ditched it because of Roon and all these UI issu that really have me head scratching as I read forums in bewilderment. Roon is not the egalitarian streaming I thought it would be.

Also I’m having issues just trying to figure out how to store music on my 8TB MU2. I haven’t connected an external hard drive yet, but it seems to defeat the purpose of my NAS since I can’t link up with it, and add folders.

I have a 8TB unit but I’m having some reservations about storing all my music on it because everything just seems a little stodgy and and unintuitive. The purpose of getting this unit was to be able to still rip CDs with my now Innuos Mini, and then be able to access them on my MU2 through NAS. This process seems to be very involved and techie which is a real turn off, thankfully I’ve already ripped my CDs to my Innuos statement but I really feel that transferring it over all of the edited tracks and album artwork is going to be a mess and future CD storage will be a "process".

Innuos is definitely more straightforward and user friendly and as for sound quality I know it’s not apples to apples but I’m comparing a Innuos Statement with mola mola tambaqui (MMT) up against the MU2. So early on at this point I don’t know how much of the statement that I’m hearing in the sound versus the MMT itself.

The MU2 upon early listening has amazing clarity and ease, in a very good way, but most of my listening is at low volume and I haven’t done anything above 65db. None the less this level of detail that is absolutely without any harshness or digital sheen is impressive. This a a audiophiles neutral DAC delight and side by side to the MMT this will be overtly noted as more detailed, but maybe more forward and linear (to my ears). I do feel as far as size and depth of soundstage the MMT and statement present things in a different way that is more holographic, but I do immediately notice that some things seem recessed or even muddled with the MMT and statement (high praises MU2!). But I would agree with people who have said that the MMT may be a more romantic and expressive DAC (which is weird to say that about the MMT).

The MU2 is it impressive, and should everything come together where it can be a Roon server with ample storage and have everything working smoothly yes this is an amazing one box system. But I am going to go out on a limb here and agree with Bill Parrish GTT audio who said that separates will yield you a better sound, but obviously at a higher cost.

I’m keeping my MMT and MU2, I have two higher end systems, and this was more of an exercise and replacing my Innuos statement, however I do not feel that the overall experience will be just that "a replacement" of Innuos (which I love). Luckily an Innuos unit could be had in the SSD ZenMini S version which I picked up fully well realizing I would not abandon Innuos or CD ripping. I know in US does have a experimental Innuous running Roon setting which I have yet to try, but then again maybe I should?

Again this is very early on in my impressions and there are many kinks that need to be worked out and features that need to be refined and learned on my end. As a side note I do feel the MU2 screen is a little less than useful along with web based Grim app, and the overall ergonomics of this spinning dial to be somewhat less than what I expected.

My system is all shunyata power cables and tellurium black interconnects, and my Ethernet is etherRegen, to Fiber, to cybershaft clock to MU2.

Yamaha C5000 pre, Luxman M10X Monoblocks, dual D12 perlisten subs, Focal Sopra 3.

I’ll be sure to post again with my further thoughts and experiences, obviously everyone elses input is welcomed and appreciated