@nyev Do you have any hypotheses about why you are hearing a lower midrange dip in the frequency response of your Innuos server/streamer? Is this a dip in a measured frequency response curve or a perceived dip based on your experience with your room and other equipment? Are there any room or gear interactions that could account for it? I do not hear a midrange dip with my Innuos Zen Mk3, and I have not heard that characteristic described by other Innuos users.
Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?
I've recently become interested in the Grimm MU1. While reviews of top end players from Innuos, Aurender and Antipodes and others are typically all very positive, the tone of the many pro reviews of the Grimm MU1 go far, far beyond, with some reviews resorting to using superlatives and gushing of positive system transformation and not being able to stop listening to material, etc.. HiFi Advice and Steve Huff (actually calls it "magic") have such reviews.
Given the delay in availability of the Innuos Pulsar which I'm told will be better than my current Zenith Mk3 + PhoenixUSB reclocker, I am interested in replacing my streaming setup with a one-box solution that includes a high-precision clock. The new streamer will continue to feed my Gryphon Diablo 300's DAC module, which I have no interest in replacing.
I'm actually a fan of Innuos, after they improved the sound of my Zenith with firmware updates and after I added their PhoenixUSB reclocker. I appreciate this commitment to improving sound quality which is why I was so interested in the Pulsar.
The trigger for considering an upgrade is not for improved sound, but rather, to solve some issues I have with too many Audioquest power cords coiled and clumped together. I will get to lose one of them and one of my USB cords with a one-box streamer. I've noticed my sound is very sensitive to positioning of my AC cords and find I often need to re-adjust the PC feeding my amp to get proper sounding vocals at center stage. One of my subs also seems to be picking up AC noise when the crossover is set above 60Hz. The second trigger is simply system simplification, removing one box. All that said I don't really have any complaints regarding sound, and the PhoenixUSB reclocker truly did improve the sound of my Zenith.
While the Grimm MU1 has it's 4X upsampling up it's sleeve with reviewers absolutely glowing over this feature and it's extreme ability to separate tones to the left, right, front, and back far better than the rest, I don't see that Grimm has gone to any lengths with regard to power supply management in the way other brands do including Innuos. The MU1's ultra-simplistic interior doesn't bug me, but the lack of transformers and power management makes me wonder....
Are there any updates from folks who have directly compared the MU1 vs similarly classed streamers from the competition? Did you find it to be as revelatory as the pro reviewers found it? And, how does it compare to other streamers with it's 4X upsampling disabled? Does it sound like it suffers from it's lack of power management? I do see that the clock should be very good...
Showing 2 responses by sdl4
@nyev Thanks for the additional comments on the perceived midrange dip with your Innuos setup. When I think of what makes a system sound warm, I think particularly about some emphasis in how it is handling upper bass and lower mids. So if an Innuos server/streamer (like the Statement) is described as warm by a reviewer, then I don't immediately think of a dip in the lower mids. Also, when you describe your Innuos gear as sounding pleasantly smooth, I think of a lack of emphasis in the upper mids or highs to the point where brightness or harshness is de-emphasized. Associated with this smoothness may be some deemphasis of higher frequency detail, including the harmonics of instruments (like guitar) that produce their fundamental tones in the upper bass and lower mids. Having said this, I wouldn't be at all surprised if both the MU1 and the Innuos gear have a fairly flat frequency response overall, even though they don't sound exactly the same in tonal balance and soundstaging. And speaking of tonal balance, @fastfreight makes a good point about how cables can affect the sound of any of the gear we're discussing here. There is certainly the obvious difference that Innuos uses USB to connect to a DAC, while the MU1 uses a different DAC input and a different type of cable. In my own system, I use primarily Cardas cables, which are known to support a full and rich midrange, so my system may sound a little different than yours even when I'm using much the same Innuos gear.
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