Fee for home audition

“5% of purchase price is what the folks over at The Cable Co charge and will apply the rental fee towards any future cable purchase. Quite a good deal all in all.”

Not in my opinion, 5% retention means now you’re obligated to make a purchase from Cable Co. This is not the same thing as no obligation trial or audition which many dealers offers to their customers. I won’t conduct any transaction with a dealer who charges a fee for in-house audition. I will gladly pay shipping charges if we don’t end up doing business together.

Thanks for the heads up on Todd the Vinyl Junkie! 

5% of purchase price is what the folks over at The Cable Co charge and will apply the rental fee towards any future cable purchase. Quite a good deal all in all.

On the other side of the fair pricing spectrum is Todd the Vinyl Junkie who charges an obscenely high $1000 charge for a two week rental of either an Esoteric NX05 or Weiss 502.

An hour is a very short period of time to even get an idea of what it can or can't do? I purchased and hooked up a streamer almost a month ago and I'm still finding new features. A fee to audition is ridiculous in my opinion, sounds more like a rental shop than a retailer? I rent large power tools by the hour that I only need infrequently, not audio gear that I use frequently.

Thank you @badgerdms, that is exactly what I did.

Find another dealer.  There are lots of other options out there.  Before I bought an integrated from Linear Tube Audio, I tested all three of their integrated amps in my house, with no charge or deposit.  Same with a Naim Uniti Atom, HiFi Rose 150b, Merason DAC1, Backert Labs Rhumba Extreme, Ideon Iyazi, NAD M33, Technics SU-R1000, and Matrix Audio M2--which represent four different dealers and none of whom charged for an in-house audition.  When all else fails you can pay for the unit with an online vendor and take advantage of their 30 or 60-day return period.  Audio Advice and Crutchfield are two who do it with no hassle returns.

Dump Mr. 5%.

I want to add a couple of details. As far as availability and pricing goes, Grimm Mu1 is starting to become more available and they have caught up on the back log. I never paid MSRP for any audio purchase. The Grimm Mu1 had a recent price increase but there are dealers willing to offer it at the previous price. I got a further discount so I think I got a great deal. I will not add any details regarding dealers or price on this thread. I will reply with more details if you PM me.

Just an update, I now have the Nordost Odin AES/EBU coming later this week. I already have the Shunyata Omega and Mogame cables. I will also get the Sablon soon. I am trying to get the Jorma cable too. I am unable to get the Ansuz. I know there may be others but these are the ones I am interested in. My goal is to see if there is a significant difference between these cables. If so, how much of a difference and how do they change the sound character. I will post the findings in a separate thread. I am not sure if these cables will sound the same in your system but at the very least you can get a general idea.

@svenjosh Congrats. 

@samureyex I appreciate your input. I was just trying to find the norm in these situations rather than decide who is right. I actually now purchased the Grimm Mu1 from another dealer. So all good

Just fyi, there are a good number of dealers who send in a demo to your home for 2 weeks with only return shipping paid by the potential buyer. This will be waived if you end up buying the product. Most are in the west coast or Midwest. If anyone is interested, PM me.

You have to ask yourself. What would you do if there was no dealer? You buy from a place that hopefully has a free trial and you pay back and forth shipping. Which one is better? That or the 5% fee in the story where he brings it to your room?

Full transparency, I only side with the dealer based on what you initially said. I'm not a fan of the 15% restocking fee or whatever hidden fee awaits me. 

@svenjosh I don't think you should've told a story like this. You should've just asked about the industry standard and keep it simple. 

While I appreciate good courtesy of dealers going out of their way to accommodate. I would not put anyone on the spot like this. He's spending his time, his gas, and his effort on you. He should get something in return. This is at the end of the day, a business meeting, not a casual friend meeting. 

I side with the dealer. There's no such thing as a free lunch. I go out to eat and I get charged 20% tip. That's why I don't go out to eat anymore. 

@ghasley I did not name my current dealer as he requested me not to. He is aware of this thread. The Grimm dealer network is small and he is shipping from another region, he does not want to seem like stepping on someone’s shoes.

If anyone is interested in buying the Grimm Mu1, PM me, I can get you in touch with couple of very good dealers. 

@svenjosh 

Looking forward to your impressions on different AES cables. I have been out of conventional digital (AES/Coax and USB) cable pursuits but still like to keep up. 

@svenjosh You misunderstand…not the dealer with whom you had a misunderstanding, please share the name of the dealer from whom you evenutaly purchased. The community benefits when we patronize better dealers.

I received a lot of help from our members in this process. I can try giving back with information regarding Grimm. I am obtaining the Sablon and Nordost AES cables. I have a Shunyata omega that I borrowed from a friend. So I will post my impressions on the comparison.

I have the Grimm Mu1 and my friend has a Taiko extreme server. He came over to my home and was very impressed by the Grimm. He may borrow the Grimm and we may try comparing the two in his system. Ideally we would also want to try both in my system. But moving the Taiko is not an easy task. If we get the time to accomplish this, I will post my impressions.

@ghasley As I said earlier I don’t want to disparage anyone. I don’t think he deserves a very negative review because of this one interaction. He otherwise has good reviews. Moreover he is not here to share his reasons on why he did it. I achieved my goal of auditioning and purchasing the Grimm Mu1. I am very satisfied with the outcome 

@svenjosh glad to have been of assistance (ie:PLL lock). With some streamer/servers where great care hasn’t been taken (like most most computers and consumer grade products) the PLL lock can be a useful feature. In your case, it is detrimental and based upon your observations, quite audible.

I assume at some point in this process you are going to share the dealer’s name from whom you purchased? Others on this forum could benefit.

Happy listening.

That's disgraceful.  My dealer in the UK drove an hour and a half to drop off demo speakers (ATC SCM40), despite me being a new customer to him.

Not only that.  Once I'd placed my order for them, he loaned me a pair of SCM19s to tide me over for the entire 3 month lead time.

@ghasley, i am lucky to have a direct fiber optic outlet in my audio room. I am connecting my router to Intel NUC server and to my Grimm Mu1. I also have local music on Grimm. All Ethernet cables are Sablon 2020. Grimm mu1 is connected to Holo May using Shunyata Omega AES/EBU. Holo May to preamp. All upstream cables from May are Nordost Odin. 

so far everything is working great! One of the best tips you gave was to disable PLL. It got rid of the annoying locking time but also greatly improved SQ. Yesterday I updated the Holo May. After the update everything sounded worse than before. I was not sure what went wrong and started checking everything. I finally realized that the update turned on PLL. I turned it off and everything is back to amazing again. Never thought that PLL was making such a big difference. Not sure why they even have this setting as default. 

In my 30 yrs plus audiophile samureyex? In Illinois there are only 2 dealers that I be friended and trust , Mick from Quintessence and John from Van L Speakers.and also Rob from music direct.

@svenjosh 

How are things progressing? Please share with us your chain from ethernet cable to Grimm to aes cable, etc. 

There are 2 different kinds of dealers

Dealers #1) Here to make money.

Dealers #2) Here to make money that you've befriended. 

In your story, the dealer is #1

@lalitk 

+1

Get it broken in… maybe optimize the interconnect and power cord,.. then start looking.

I agree Berkeley and I would add Audio Research. I have had both in my system and slightly preferred the Audio Research… and it was less expensive… more musical.

@lalitk sensible advice. I will enjoy the Grimm/Halo combo for now. I am happy with this setup and sounds awesome!
 

I will keep a short list of DACs for the future. Aqua, Berkeley, Mola Mola, TotalDac based on current Grimm owners and experienced audiophile recommendations. 

“Now what’s next?”
@svenjosh

Just follow your instincts. Personally, I would wait until you’re fully acclimated with MU1. Holo May is pretty darn good, having said that; I would look at DAC’s that would handsomely compliment MU1 AES output. Two names comes to mind, AQUA HiFi and Berkeley Audio Designs. There maybe more out there :-)

Everything is now set! Working great and that special Grimm special recipe for AES/EBU is working its magic!

Now what’s next? Upgrade Holo May to something better? Do it now or wait? Upgrade in steps or jump straight to Wadax reference? Just kidding. First world problems 

@svenjosh was just speculating on the situation, didn’t mean to imply you were taking advantage 😉

glad you found something and it all worked out

turn the music up!!

@dhite71 It is not a new unit. It is a demo unit which is more than a year old. I would not ask a dealer to open a new unit for audition purpose.
 

Anyway I have moved on and just received my Grimm MU1. I just connected everything. Unit is getting warmed up. Very simple to set up and so far no issues. I selected 1.6 TB of music to be transferred to internal drive. I will do the transfer overnight. Once again appreciate all of the responses in this thread. 

In the past when I had a local dealer anything that was demo or used, I was able to do like others have mentioned to take home over the weekend. I would never of expected to take a new product home out of the box because then they can’t get retail for it anymore

it sounds like this dealer is letting you demo a new piece of equipment so he’s going to take a hit if you don’t like it

one of my strategies is to shop the online market from places like Crutchfield, and upscale audio and look for a demo unit because they’ve already discounted it from being new that way if you return it they don’t lose anything

OP,

You should be fine accessing your NAS. No additional connections required. When a connected mt streamers, they automatically found my NAS and asked if I wanted to import it. So, you should be good. I’m sure there is a setting to just access. Although I just stream no… no point in access in my local files except if there is network problems… about once every two years.

I don’t know if it’s as much rubbing it in versus maybe giving him a clue that charging $650 for a one-hour demo is insulting and patently absurd, and maybe it will have him re-evaluate what I’ll call his “going-out-of-business” strategy.  He probably left on the order of $4000 of profit on the table for no good reason other than laziness and greed.  He deserved exactly what he got — zip, nothing, nada.  We reap what we sow, and goodonya for not rewarding his ridiculous business practice. 

@svenjosh 

I do have a router in the room so that’s not an issue. I need to access my NAS and I am thinking of wireless as there is only one Ethernet input.

Josh, you may want to rethink if you have alot of data. If convenient, maybe a high quality switch and direct ethernet connection? Glad you will be receiving yours in a few short days.

@soix Thank you! I will receive mine tomorrow or on Wednesday. I don’t know if I should rub it in, he knew he lost the sale when I informed him that I will not be using his services for home demo or purchase. Hopefully he just had a bad day and will offer better customer experience in future

@ghdprentice Thank you! I do have a router in the room so that’s not an issue. I need to access my NAS and I am thinking of wireless as there is only one Ethernet input.

Congratulations on your purchase. Sounds like a great component.

Using a WiFi extender with a high end streamer solves the problem of running Ethernet lines. I know of more than one high end audio system running on a WiFi extender…. And yes the Ethernet cable between the extender and streamer makes a difference.

@gents 

“you might not be anything more than a wishful tire kicking twit.“

it may have been an oversight, but it looks like you may have missed “doddering dunderhead?”

Congrats!  You should go back to your dealer and tell him how happy you are with your purchase and how wonderful your buying experience was.  He should know. 

Gents do you know this dealer? maybe He is just having a busy day when He dealt with the OP, 

Gents nothing wrong giving good tips it’s honorable, in fact if we don’t share our blessings we are just as good as broke? I applaud you. But OP situation is so different from the dealer? Will I pay $650 . No.

svenjosh

You made me laugh. In retrospect, I would’ve just negotiated that price down because that was way too much. No need for a slap. There’s nothing wrong with paying/tipping someone to help you out. The way I see it, I save a lot of money getting it right with an honest home audition. I paid 2 restocking fees this year on DACs and it was pretty well worth it because I paid a little less than what I was going to lose on reselling a full priced mistake (most of us have done that) and reduced my suffering time.

@gents its going to be ok. Exhale….Reminds me of when I was in college and someone jumps in the middle of a bar fight without knowing which side did what or why. I still can imagine there was simply a miscommunication/misunderstanding. 

@svenjosh I’ve had mixed results with dongles…from bad to mediocre to “I guess thats ok for when we have company” but I havent tried many.  

Gents Iam sorry sir , the OP is not talking entitlement. Me myself I’ve been Audiophile for 30 plus yrs , I only give my credit card to the dealer when I loan gear unknown to the dealer though , no relationship as well .He disagree on the fee that’s it. He found onother dealer and done. Life goes on , enjoy this hobby and the music.

@ghasley Again thank you sharing in detail. I have Ethernet wiring from my main to the audio room as it doubles as my home theater room. So I am connecting my router directly to Grimm. I may try the USB dongle for wireless. 

@nyev I noticed that when I listen to classical, especially Piano or Violin (any E concerto), the sound is a bit bright in the 4fs mode. I change to original (the NOS mode is called original in Grimm) and the slight tinge of brightness is gone. The NOS mode sounds amazing in these types of music. This may also be due of my system. The quality of recordings also plays a role. So it’s not universally bright with these types of music.
Any acoustic music (think jazz) sounds phenomenal in 4fs mode. In fact, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I would say that if Jazz is your primary genre of choice, Grimm with 4fs is outstanding and I cannot imagine anything regardless of price sounding better. 

@svenjosh 

@ghasley, do you use almpifi alien meshwork as Wi-Fi extender and connect to Ethernet or do you use usb dongle?

I have three Aliens in my home and use them as a wifi extender. The “main” alien is connected at my main router via an ethernet cable, the others connect to the main alien via wifi.  Next, ethernet cables from the other aliens to a component in each of those rooms. In one system, I have an audiophile switch between the wifi connected alien and the component. Im pleased, YMMV

I think gents forgot his pills or anger management meeting this morning

Also, we live in a post-slap world; Don Corleone was not the correct standard to reference for all slapping related matters…

@svenjosh  lol… “are you a dealer? You sound nice”

Congrats on your MU1!  Should maybe have mine next week if I’m lucky.  Could be a few days later.

Just curious, is there a type of music you find that it sounds better in NOS mode vs 4X OS mode?  And in the cases where NOS mode was better, are you able to describe why?

@gents are you a dealer? You sound nice