Grimm MU1 Streamer - Really "The Best"?

Just bought a LinkUp Ethernet cable because at that price, why not….  Will see how it compares with my Audioquest Diamond cable which costs more than 10X more…

I spent a couple of hours this Saturday testing the effect of Herbie’s Audio Lab Tenderfeet with the MU1.  I find these don’t work well with all components, but when they work, they REALLY work…  More separation, cleaner vocals, more coherent high frequencies.  But the thing I find you have to be careful of, is that while they almost add positive benefits, sometimes they also can take away something from a particular component.

With the MU1 I’m confident that the benefit of Herbie’s Tenderfeet is unequivocally an all-positive tweak - and a big one too.  With my Tambaqui, I think they are not so good.  I think the sound becomes a bit less muscular and loses some of its charm.  The Tambaqui doesn’t even have feet of its own, just two metal rails on the left and right sides.

With Herbie’s Tenderfeet I find you must be very careful to place them under your gear very evenly, and a bit of experimentation is needed in the optimal placement to get the best degree of transparency.  It’s crazy that even moving the Tenderfeet just half an inch changes the presentation.

@nyev 

Herbie’s Tender feet’s are good and offers a great value. When it comes to components Isolation and vibration control, sky is the limit. Over the years, I went through so many of these type of devices. While they work to a degree, nothing is more profound as installing your components in an audio rack that addresses all the airborne and floor borne vibrations effectively. There is an obvious upfront high cost but once you make the commitment, you’re done messing around. 

@nyev 

@lalitk 

Interesting posts, thanks for sharing.

@lalitk , what you say makes a lot of sense, as the rack impacts every component at once. In fact, by far the biggest boost was when I installed four of Herbie’s “Giant Fat Dots” under my current heavy wooden shelf. There was a sudden boost that was far larger than when installing Herbie’s Tenderfeet under each individual component, as it improved all components at once.

However - I first installed the Giant Fat Dots under my shelf, I didn’t do it right. I let the shelf’s four plastic feet rest on the Fat Dots. Herbie’s says these are only for applications where you are interfacing two broad, flat surfaces. When I corrected this fairly recently and moved the fat dots to another location under the shelf away from the shelf’s feet (which raises the shelf’s feet off the floor as the Fat Dots are taller than the shelf’s feet), I couldn’t believe how much stability and solidity was added to the image. Prior to correcting this, the image was always every so slightly “skewing” in one direction or another, especially after I moved a component on my shelf which I guess slightly changed how the shelf’s feet were digging into the fat dots.  The curse of a revealing system.

I expect a high end audio rack would go even farther as you say. The trouble is for me, most tend to look more like science equipment than a welcoming presentation of your system, at least from what I’ve seen.

I’ve just ordered from Herbie’s those discs that you rest on top of your gear. I did this after I experimented by placing a small square piece of granite on top of each component in my system and realizing that it helps. Not to the degree that the Tenderfeet help but still a boost. Unfortunately you can’t really do this with the MU1 because of its chassis design and the big button wheel on top (there I made this at least a bit on-topic :) ). I was able to do it with the Tambaqui despite its curved top. For all components I found the sound became a bit more crisp and sweet in the upper mids and up top.

@nyev I agree with using 1.5m cables for any digital connections. Nordost makes only 1.5m or more for digital cables. Unfortunately the only Sablon AES cable I could get was 1 m but still I could get an idea of how it sounds. I do have the Sablon 1.5m Spdif so I can compare the two. Grimm Mu1 outputs both AES and SPDIF simultaneously so I can go back and forth with a flip of a switch. So far the Sablon is holding on its own. I will make a decision once I get the Jorma to try.