Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

@nyev 

Catching up….I see that you’re now open to trying out an external DAC. Which is great and you owe yourself to do so if you want to hear ultimate performance out of ultra high-end streamers. Now that you’ve opened this door, my suggestion would be to let N20 break-in and shift your focus on auditioning DAC’s before buying another streamer. I would only consider buying K50 if you have unlimited funds to simultaneously compare K50, N20, MK3 with your choice of 2 to 3 DAC’s. You know what this would entail, tying up lots of money over a long period of time and patience to access what’s sounds best to your ears. The path to ultimate nirvana also entails multiple boxes and cable web, take a look at my ‘digital’ system under my user ID. I am well on my way to a five boxes digital front end from a once two box pretty darn good digital system (EMM Labs DA2 + N20) 

I can say from experience, finding the right DAC won’t be as easy as snapping your fingers. I went through painful yet equally enjoyable journey of owning 6+ DAC’s over last fours years before I finally found my ultimate DAC. Not to mention so many auditions at dealers and audio shows. Since you only stream, your DAC is the next most important piece of the puzzle after your Integrated. Truth be told, your onboard DAC is going to be a bottle neck for streamers like N20, K50 and Statement. You won’t truly know what these ultra high end streamers are capable of until you pair them with a really good DAC. 

During my DAC journey, Aurender remained my rock. I did hear offerings top offerings from Auralic, Innuos and Lumin but always returned to Aurender. And now I am pursuing Aurender N30SA as the ultimate companion to my DAC. Another huge plus with Aurender is their seamless integration with quite a few ultra high end DAC like MSB, Merging over Ethernet (RAVENNA). With this integration, you can opt to remove USB, AES and SPDIF cabling out of the equation. 

@lalitk , thanks for sharing, and for the advice.

I may be able to get demos of DACs in simultaneously with the next server, and, depending on the value of the DAC, purchase it too. That might be doable with a DAC like the Holo May KTE (although I won’t be able to get a demo of that one - but this is the level of DAC I could purchase alongside the next server).

The DACs mentioned by others above like the Bartok are more expensive, but are combo streaming DACs. So would a lower cost DAC-only, at the level of the Holo, be reasonable to trial? I see Musetec could also be interesting at an even lower price. But these DACs are a lower cost than the cost of my current Gryphon Diablo 300’s DAC module. So do I actually need to go higher? I know cost isn’t the deciding factor in performance but I’m just trying to plan at what level to engage. I can do another server + a Holo level DAC, but not another server plus a Bartok (which I could demo first but would only do so if I could potentially buy).

Also, somewhere above I changed my go-forward approach to require server capabilities. This is because I discovered for the first time that my system has become revealing enough to make the difference in quality matter to me. Once I settle in on a solution, my plan is to build a library of files but limited only to my absolute favorite material. The rest I will stream.

To be clear, I’d still be considering the K50 (or the MU1 despite that the K50 is more flexible) in conjunction with getting some DACs in as demos, at let’s say the $7k level or lower. Might be too limiting at that level?  While I’m unable to get home demos of the servers I’m interested in here, there are a few other dealers who are more demo friendly that I might be able to borrow interesting DACs from.

I can recommend the Musetec as purchase piece, Holo May KTE great choice as well. I've seen both of these compared to much more expensive dacs, held their own or were preferred in some cases. KTE may be highest resolving R2R dac, and the Sabre 9038 pro chips in 005 are extremely revealing, transparent, both are musical dacs to boot. Both excel with usb input, some have used other inputs to good effect. Both of these dacs not out of place with any system at any price.

Thanks @sns. Evaluating that class of DAC, my thought is to go with the MU1 first, despite the emphasis on AES. My thinking is that the MU1 has a reputation for neutrality and precision, and not injecting a strong character of it’s own. While this is counterintuitive, considering I enjoy a mildly richer sound, there are other factors more important to me than this warmth, and I do feel that between the Innuos and the N20, the N20 has a bit of warmth and smoothness to it. The K50 is also known to be fuller sounding. In really isolating the sound of any DAC’s I’m testing, including my current Gryphon DAC, I feel like the MU1 might be best positioned to maximize the precision and neutrality giving me a good baseline to gauge DACs by. Not only in their character, but also by their performance, assuming that the MU1 is as accurate and precise as people (not just reviewers) say it is. The N20 and K50 can remain options if I want to reintroduce a touch of richness to the sound once I get a feel for the DACs.  That’s my current thinking…

I think my most recent thoughts on the N20 in my current system have pretty much stabilized for the near future, knowing that long term use can change things.  While I still think I hear a slight improvement with AES over USB, it’s so close that I wonder if I only hear it because I expect to.  I will get around to subjecting myself to a blind test, but I am expecting not to pass it.  I’ve also gone back and forth a few times with tiny speaker adjustments - my speakers with the N20 really want to be toed in a lot.  Tried backing off on that slightly for a few days, and just went back to the more toed in marker position.  Immediately it was like “ah, that’s a bit better.”
 

Either way,