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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...

 

 

nyev
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woots
284 posts
 

Appreciate feedback @macdude still demoing the Grimm.but leaning towards a purchase.  One major item that The Grimm MU1 offers is that there is significant simplification in the set up. Ethernet to the Grimm then AES to my Nagra Tube Dac. With other solutions I needed a NUC or Nucleus+ then through Lumin as Streamer and then to Nagra.  It was set up with out the Nagra initially but I wanted a better dac and landed here with the Power Supply. Before adding the Nagra it was just my Nucleus + and Lumin. But there is no comparison in SQ, soundstage, bass on and on with the Grimm.  Total game changer and much simpler set up. I will also add that I have had 0 issues with Roon since I started demoing the Grimm. Not exactly sure why but that’s another discussion in another forum. 
 

Woots

fastfreight
677 posts
 

+1 @woots I went from Nucleus+ (with a HDPEX), Auralic Aries G2.1 (with a Sean Jacobs Power supply) to the Grimm mu1.  So that is 4 boxes down to one!  To me the Grimm sounds better and so far has run Roon core without issue.  I have 4 endpoints total.  When Grimm upgrades their software later this year (I am told), then the mu1 can be Core like now or an Certified Roon endpoint alone.  This means for me with two systems, one mu1 can be Roon core / streamer  and the other is streamer (endpoint) only.

chopandchange
44 posts
 

I haven’t read this all the way through - but maybe try a Gustard R26 Streamer / DAC combo - reviews on it are stunning especially by dacman.

I haven’t heard the R26 but I have heard the MU1 - the MU1 made my low cost Metrum Octave DAC sound far better than it should have done.

However I get the impression the R26 for a quarter the price of the MU1 may provide stiff competition.

You could also consider the dCS Bartok Apex streamer / DAC - however - again - the R26 even in this company should not be sniffed at I feel.

svenjosh
76 posts
 

I am not sure if the above post is Sarcasm, Joke or for real….

nyev OP
1,023 posts
 

Once in a blue moon a low cost product seems to rival far more expensive ones.  I had considered trying out the inexpensive Musetec DAC that many say beats much more expensive DACs, including some who say it beats the Tambaqui at a fraction of the cost.  Seems to be a lot of people who love that DAC.  The thing that made me not include the Mustec in my journey was the fact that in every instance where people claimed it beat the Tambaqui or similar more expensive DACs, the poster was feeding the DAC with a very basic and inexpensive streaming source.  My hypothesis is that the better DACs were simply better at exposing flaws of the source and therefore people concluded the cheaper DAC was best.  I’m not saying that’s what happened, it’s just a hypothesis as I said, given that I couldn’t seem to find one of these comparisons where a higher end source was used.  HiFi can be misleading like that, it’s even happed to me in this thread were I’ve attributed sonic qualities to one component only to find later that it was a different component responsible for the sonic trait.

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