Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

I think I am going to stick to the plan and acquire a K50. I have an opportunity to acquire one for a deal.

BUT I am also going to follow @ghasley’s advice as well; will get a demo DAC in house AFTER the K50 is good and burnt in. Steps:

1. Acquire a K50 and start burning in while continuing to live with and focus on the N20
2. Acquire a demo of a respected DAC like a Bartok/Lina/Meitner (go Canada…)
3. Spend time with all of the variables possibly even a year
4. Wait for the impending recession to end (who knows how long, but hopefully not long)
5. Sell what I don’t need anymore and possibly buy a DAC, if I feel like it. I have no idea why, but I truly enjoy selling my old gear to people who are very excited to receive it. It makes me happy. I even got carried away and sold my beloved Clarus Crimson Biwire cables just because I wanted to sell them to an eager buyer - and regretted it. The manager at the post office knows me now, and always asks about what audio component I’ve sold this time….

This approach just gives me a bit wider experience, with three premium servers instead of two, to trial with two DACs. Could still fit the MU1 in this mix but it may not be necessary depending on how things go - I’ll have a whole lot of great stuff to trial in different configurations, that I can relax and take my time with. At that point I’ll have a very informed take on the three great servers, used with multiple DACs, and with both USB and AES. Sounds like a plan to me.

The fact is, the parameters I’m working with, shipping and duty wise, demo-access wise, and where I live plays a huge part in how I proceed with something like this.  For someone in the US, I am guessing you have far more flexibility with a plethora of dealers and US-based distributors, for almost any audio component you might want to try.  This journey may be unusual, but it’s going to be fun, informative, and relaxed. Discovering the very blatantly obvious sonic traits of the N20 vs the Innuos has already been informative. Best of all, the net expenditure will not be too crazy after all is said and done.

I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of trying this earlier with the N20 but I totally forgot to try changing my Gryphon DAC module’s filter from the default slow setting to fast. With the Innuos setup, a long time ago I concluded that “fast” produced an overly sharp and thin sound, and just changed back to slow and left it alone since. But with the N20, the effect is really pleasing. Given the overall rich tonal density I’ve been getting with the N20, with the DAC set to “Fast”, the top end is now more naturally crisp, but not sharp like it was with this setting on the Innuos. Vocals are also freed up a bit, are a touch less veiled, and are just a touch more 3D. It’s REALLY quite nice now. Still nowhere near the level of high frequency detail and transparency as the Innuos, but I find so far, I’m not as constantly aware of missing upper detail with the N20 as much as before. This is good! Very enjoyable sound now.

I thought maybe now I’d hear a difference between AES and USB, but nope! Maybe something is capping the AES performance, or my DAC’s USB and clock implementation is so good it makes no difference. I know, extremely unlikely…  I thought I’d hear a difference by now, at the very least simply from the brand new cable burning in vs the well-used equivalent Diamond USB cable.

I read once that changing from slow to fast filters, you gain something (higher upper frequency response) but you also lose something (less stable frequency response due to the more aggressive response). Not sure I have that right. Anyways if I lost anything, I haven’t noticed yet, and I gained more with “Fast” engaged.

Grimm Audio MU1 owner here, and truly like how it fits sonically in my system. Came from Lumin streamers and sigma dacs. Decided to separate things out a bit and having a great time with the journey…Buy what fits your requirements and whatever sounds good to you.

Bluesound Node 2i with an outboard DAC like the Pontus 2. its the DAC that counts.

@nyev 

Sounds like you are having fun!

You've mentioned dCS and just thought I'd mention, if you are not already aware, the Bartok will be upgraded to APEX in March, so it'll have the same upgrade, in name at least, as the Rossini and the Vivaldi got a year ago. Hoping that'll make it a much better proposition. My experience with the Mosiac streamer is that it can do a lot of what Conductor can do, but it isn't as sophisticated - keep in mind that I just used if for a few hours because I might consider doing a home demo of the Bartok later this year. In the end, I have an N10, so if I don't like the Mosaic streamer, I could just use the N10.

Very interesting to read about you switching the Gryphon module to "fast". Hoping that works out for you.