Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

Waiting for the “I didn’t think it could get better but then I added the Grimm and new ICs” follow up :-)

If you scan the Grimm bar code with your phone, or manually plug in the address in a browser, you’ll get to an overview page. There you can see how much hard drive space remains and or if the hard drive is being recognized.

A couple observations here. It’s easy to get a home demo, look at Grimm’s website for the dealer list, a few will simply ship you the unit for trial if you are seriously interested and you can hear it yourself. Highly recommended approach…

1. I hesitate to use the word best and I’m not going to use it here. I will say however that certain dealers who sell more expensive streamers/server options use the Grimm in their own rig and not due to cost concerns. 

2. Lose the “linear power supply is best” stereotype. Grimm uses a very nice switching supply…just like Nagra, Mola Mola and others who have done the appropriate R&D.

Spoken by someone who frankly is skeptical of reviewers / gear polygamists, even those who gave the Grimm good marks…

@ghasley I expect I am not alone in thinking you one of the “best” assets on this forum, always appreciate your contributions and perspective. 
 

OP - I will at some point PM you some names that should help you home demo the Grimm, ultimately it comes down to your ears and preferences.

Reading about hifi is like watching a travel show. Occasionally entertaining but nothing like the real experience. Barely an experience at all really. And thinking you know Italy when you’ve been to a couple cities in Italy, when each and every place in Italy has its own unique history and sense of place, is pretty off the mark. 

OP, believe you have the contacts you need to home demo now. Have fun

Lo and behold, a used Grimm shows up on the other website. Folks are free to price things how they like, and folks are free to negotiate as they see fit, but I will say $9.5k for a used Grimm is a bold ask. You can buy one new with full warranty for much less than that. I did. I only say this because there’s a line of thinking, from folks who have never used the device, which goes something like: it’s only a NUC with some clocking and upsampling rigmarole, how could they charge $11k etc etc...

Just making the obvious point that there’s the named price, and then there’s the actual price. Just as a single data point, I do think it’s worth the full MSRP based on sonics alone (for me personally, with all the usual system dependent caveats).

@ghasley Didn't mean to create confusion, nor did I want to imply that you were in any way affiliated with that advertisement. You are clearly not. I'm not sure I even saw you post, before I posted.

In terms of pricing, a dealer would know best the current MSRP -- my point was simply that it's a little bizarre to see an ad for a used unit, priced above what a brand new unit would go for (after giving effect to a typical "frequent buyer" discount that some dealers will give).

Have fun listening to the different streamers in your system. It’s nice to see someone put their money where their mouth is and actually get first-hand listening impressions, at home in a familiar system, rather than armchair quarterback based on reviews, Youtube influencers, "price of parts" and amateur comments etc. (which is fine, as a starting point, the problem is when folks forget how compromised those impressions are...). Show/dealer experience is also far from ideal.

As far as separate DACs go, there are obviously a lot of good options to choose from. I would be wary of folks who strongly push you towards dac x or dac y, especially on this forum. So-and-so DAC is a giant killer, can compete with cost no object DACs, etc etc. With DACs in particular, there seems to be a competitiveness where folks want to validate that their value priced DAC is in the running among the best out there, frankly it’s a little silly and in my experience not based in reality (I have tried some of these flavor of the month DACs out of curiosity and quickly moved on. I’ll just leave it at that). At the risk of leading you to another rabbit hole, the best way to settle on a separate DAC is the same thing you’re doing with the server search...try a bunch in your system and see what you like. Have fun out there.

On the topic of Grimm and DAC pairings…pairing the Grimm with an nos R2R makes for a radically different (and in my mind more natural and engaging) sound. Grimm and totaldac? Home run.

I would not however be scared to pair the Grimm with DACs that do their own sampling or DSD conversion. Grimm and Tambaqui? Fantastic. Grimm and Meitner? Also fantastic (although less of a delta here vs the onboard Meitner renderer which is quite good, as compared with the Tambaqui, which has a so-so internal Ethernet renderer). As always, I speak from direct experience in my own system and not internet screenshots of what parts are under the hood. That said, YMMV.

The theory behind the above, according to Grimm, is that they think their precise clocking and sampling does the heavy lifting, making any digital sampling/conversion done by the DAC more straightforward and therefore less prone to error. That’s just their theory, but I’ve heard it in (my) practice as well.

Glad you’re enjoying it. The Tambaqui is a great piece. Some criticize it as bright. I think it’s even-handed across all frequencies — if it’s bright when added to a system, there’s something else wrong in the system, in my opinion.

My system building approach is to go after neutrality/balance in all components. Otherwise you’re forever spinning your wheels (x has hot treble, let me add this rolled off component etc…that’s a recipe for endless tinkering - which is maybe the goal for some folks)

The Grimm will be a slam dunk. Especially with the Tambaqui. Keep having fun, that’s what it’s all about.

That Hifi Advice review is interesting but doesn’t exactly track real world usage. He’s using a Grimm MU1 as a server only (taking advantage of the nice power supply and custom Roon coding by Grimm) and then uses PB as a pure renderer/streamer. That’s a $25k digital source…not entirely surprised that he prefers the separated components to the integrated solution — so it goes in hifi, more boxes and cables do usually sound better (but at what cost). Is anybody really buying a Grimm just to use it as a pimped out Roon Nucleus? :-)

Do you have a SPDIF cable? A new Grimm will sound good with that as well. No aes included.

Hard to find for unfortunate reasons, but the black cat tron AES is very much worth trying, if you can find one.

On the snapshot page, you clicked “Advanced” and don’t see anything? That’s my first reaction, defer to the Grimm folks for more detailed troubleshooting 

@peter_s The Grimm can serve to multiple endpoints. No need (in fact you shouldn't -- it would confuse the computers!) to have a NUC and Grimm on the same network.

@peter_s My Grimm dealer believes that the best way to feed the Grimm is a high-end CD transport. Of course that's not the typical use case and would defeat the goal for many folks.

Can't answer definitively, but I'd analogize it to DAC pairings. I've used the Grimm with budget ($1k range) DACs and the Grimm made them sound like $5-7k DACs...but I still prefer the Grimm with the "best" (for my taste) DAC possible.

On digital cable length -- I have used the same make of excellent AES cable, with different lengths (both 1.5m and less than 1.5m), in my rig and I cannot distinguish the difference. YMMV.

The [insert the name of the DAC you own and favor] (“Your Amazing DAC”) is a marvel of impeccable engineering, parts quality, and price-to-quality ratio. Your Amazing DAC slays better known DACs in head to head comparisons with one channel tied behind its back, at a fraction of the cost. Most audiophiles are not well-informed enough, or are too trusting of professional reviewers, to appreciate the quality of Your Amazing DAC, and that is their loss. Anyone who spends less than the cost of Your Amazing DAC doesn’t know what they’re missing, and anyone who spends more has more money than sense.

This is a great thread, let’s keep it focused on the Grimm and not DAC talk, which for whatever reason gets people overly worked up. 

@shkong78 I find those comments a little strange (Grimm doesn’t sound polite to me) but in any event, those two options are 2x the price of the Grimm.

If we’re talking about the same price class, the Playback Designs MPS-X is the interesting comparison. Having owned both Grimm and now PB, I have to say I prefer the latter, which takes nothing away from the Grimm which is an exceptional product.

Hi @nyev - I don’t have anything to add to the Hifi Advice comparison of the Grimm and Playback Designs piece, other than to say it’s consistent with my experience. I’ve been using the Playback with a stock Roon Nucleus and I’ve been very happy with it. Both the Grimm and Playback are excellent, I’m glad to hear you are having a good time!