Grimm Audio MU1 and MU2 Music Players

[Dandou]

27 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The MU1 arrives here any day :~)

Are you going to write a review about it? 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, Dandou said:

Are you going to write a review about it? 

Yes

[bluebeat]

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Yes

Looking forward to your review, Chris!

[soupcon]

4 hours ago, Mike123 said:

2nd week with MU1-- still a tad bright with Shunyata AES cable but not as shrill from first few days. However, like most, I'm re-evaluating songs I thought I knew well! 

 

Question, not able to play local files through Roon. Open to suggestions on creating Roon file path for both NAS and locally stored? 

thanks so much 

 

Mike

local files meaning file versions of an album that are local vs Tidal or Qobuz?

[TheAttorney]

18 hours ago, Mike123 said:

Question, not able to play local files through Roon. Open to suggestions on creating Roon file path for both NAS and locally stored? 

thanks so much

I don't know about NAS, but for local files my MU1 arrived with Roon already set up to watch a local folder on the SSD for any new music files. In Settings>Storage, the path is something like... Grimm MU1>Heap>Grimm Storage Music. If this doesn't exist, you can create a new path after the following step.

 

From my Windows laptop, I have the MU1 as a networked drive. I follow the above path (not presented in exactly the same way when viewed from Windows (e.g. there's no "Heap")) to end up at same above folder. Then I copy the music files from my Windows master folder to the MU1 folder. Then Roon automatically adds these to its library. I should also be able to create additional folders on this networked MU1 drive and then get Roon to additionally watch that new folder - but it's not something I've needed to do so far.

[FredM]

On 9/16/2022 at 7:19 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

The MU1 arrives here any day :~)

 

Great that you’ll review the MU1 😀

 

Next to the stereo channel playback, perhaps you can also try the surround setup? The MU1 can also be used as a source for surround playback, various surround configurations are possible: link to software manual. (On page 14 the setup with third party DAC’s/speakers is covered).

 

In your awesome surround room it could be an interesting item to cover (I believe there are not that many digital front ends/hubs on the market which support surround playback).

 

Ps. To add/share a simple surround playback use case with the MU1: 

Where stereo playback is priority, my listening room also has a screen and modest in wall / ceiling surround speakers for movies/games (<5%). MU1’s Toslink input appears to be very convenient for AV purposes, this optical (isolated) connection allows to (re)use the MU1 and its stereo setup for the front L/R channels, where an AV receiver is used for the surround channels. With a small RCA-2-Toslink Converter at the AV receiver side, the RCA Pre-Outs for the front L/R channels can easily be connected with the MU1. In practice, just select the Toslink input on the MU1 for movies/games and adjust the volume, job done 👍

[Stevem324]

I just ordered a MU1 to replace my ancient Bryston BDP-2.  I'll be using it my Bricasti M1SE.  I had my Bryston connected with an ethernet cable directly to my Netgear Mesh wifi booster.  I was thinking of getting a network switch to put between the wifi booster and the MU1.  Would it be beneficial to get a network switch for this application?  I was thinking of getting a Innous PhoenixNet, Melco, or SOTM switch but I don't want to waste my money if it's not going to make a major impact due the MU1's excellent noise rejection.  Would I be better off going direct from the wifi booster to the MU1 and putting my money into a very good AES cable and power cords?  Also I'm looking for suggestions for a good AES cable without breaking the bank.  I was thinking of getting a Triode Wire Labs AES cable.  Anyone have experience with that cable.  I've also had good experience with Revelation Audio Labs digital cables.

 

I'm not new to network switches and the audio SQ benefits that they provide.  In my basement system, I have a Etherregen, external After Dark OCXO clock, and Sonore Optical Module Deluxe with LPS for all of these components.  My streamer in this system is an Aurender W20SE connected to a May KTE. In this system, I have my main router ethernet wired to the Sonore OMD and fiber optic to the ER.

Thanks in advance for advice!

 

 

 

[PYP]

1 hour ago, Stevem324 said:

I just ordered a MU1 to replace my ancient Bryston BDP-2.  I'll be using it my Bricasti M1SE.  I had my Bryston connected with an ethernet cable directly to my Netgear Mesh wifi booster.  I was thinking of getting a network switch to put between the wifi booster and the MU1.  Would it be beneficial to get a network switch for this application?  I was thinking of getting a Innous PhoenixNet, Melco, or SOTM switch but I don't want to waste my money if it's not going to make a major impact due the MU1's excellent noise rejection.  Would I be better off going direct from the wifi booster to the MU1 and putting my money into a very good AES cable and power cords?  Also I'm looking for suggestions for a good AES cable without breaking the bank.  I was thinking of getting a Triode Wire Labs AES cable.  Anyone have experience with that cable.  I've also had good experience with Revelation Audio Labs digital cables.

 

I'm not new to network switches and the audio SQ benefits that they provide.  In my basement system, I have a Etherregen, external After Dark OCXO clock, and Sonore Optical Module Deluxe with LPS for all of these components.  My streamer in this system is an Aurender W20SE connected to a May KTE. In this system, I have my main router ethernet wired to the Sonore OMD and fiber optic to the ER.

Thanks in advance for advice!

 

 

 

Congratulations!  Bryston makes excellent equipment, but the Grimm MU1 is on a different level.  Since you asked, I would suggest leaving the Grimm on and in place for two months and then deciding about any gear preceding it.  I had quite a few ethernet "cleaners" and found that none were needed after getting the Grimm (in my setup and to my ears/preferences).  

 

The AES cable is more important than the power cable or LAN that feeds the Grimm (IMO).   Having recently tried Shunyata products (power cable + power distributor) and been very impressed with quality and performance for the price, I suggest you check out their AES cables.  They have a prices ranging from $350 to more than $4,000 for AES cables.   Some dealers, including online dealers, will allow an in-home trial, which is what I would recommend.  

 

Enjoy!  I think you will find that the Grimm is a very musical and unique piece of gear.   

[Mike123]

On 9/17/2022 at 5:04 AM, TheAttorney said:

I don't know about NAS, but for local files my MU1 arrived with Roon already set up to watch a local folder on the SSD for any new music files. In Settings>Storage, the path is something like... Grimm MU1>Heap>Grimm Storage Music. If this doesn't exist, you can create a new path after the following step.

 

From my Windows laptop, I have the MU1 as a networked drive. I follow the above path (not presented in exactly the same way when viewed from Windows (e.g. there's no "Heap")) to end up at same above folder. Then I copy the music files from my Windows master folder to the MU1 folder. Then Roon automatically adds these to its library. I should also be able to create additional folders on this networked MU1 drive and then get Roon to additionally watch that new folder - but it's not something I've needed to do so far.

this is what I needed --thanks!

[Stevem324]

1 hour ago, PYP said:

Congratulations!  Bryston makes excellent equipment, but the Grimm MU1 is on a different level.  Since you asked, I would suggest leaving the Grimm on and in place for two months and then deciding about any gear preceding it.  I had quite a few ethernet "cleaners" and found that none were needed after getting the Grimm (in my setup and to my ears/preferences).  

 

The AES cable is more important than the power cable or LAN that feeds the Grimm (IMO).   Having recently tried Shunyata products (power cable + power distributor) and been very impressed with quality and performance for the price, I suggest you check out their AES cables.  They have a prices ranging from $350 to more than $4,000 for AES cables.   Some dealers, including online dealers, will allow an in-home trial, which is what I would recommend.  

 

Enjoy!  I think you will find that the Grimm is a very musical and unique piece of gear.   

Good advice!  Thanks!

[soupcon]

fwiw, i heard an improvement when i put my ether regen in the game. that said, i will be trying the aforementioned TPlink wifi router, just to see what it does. 

 

i've had all of the BDP's and I think the Mu1 will be a monumental improvement. 

enjoy!!

[aangen]

Please tell us what you find. I am using an EtherREGEN plus the AfterDark clock. I want to see what happens if I remove it but that would require something to replace it with. The Nordost Qnet and Qsource have my attention.

[FredM]

4 hours ago, aangen said:

 The Nordost Qnet and Qsource have my attention.

I also noticed the Nordost Qnet, wonder what this switch and PSU can bring at a whopping $6.000 😬. Normally I would have walked past, but there is a Qnet demo at the Dutch Audio Event (8/9 oct, NL) in a set with a Grimm MU1. I’ll try to have a listen out of curiosity.
 

(Dutch language link)

https://dutchaudioevent.nl/nordost-2/

[Nicholas Dong]

Hi everyone, it's been two weeks since my MU1 arrived at my house, it took me two days to read all 21 pages on this topic, I'm very satisfied with the sound of the Mu1, and compared it with my dCS NB, I found that the DCS has a mid-low frequency  A bit fat and lacks some clarity, dCS NB is better for vocals, not well rounded for other music, Mu1 is more linear overall, better resolution, I've sold the dCS NB, but I still have an Antipodes  S40+S60, I tried to use S40+S60 as a server (built-in SSD 8T) and MU1 as a server (built-in SSD 8T) + Roon endpoint comparison, their built-in SSDs are Samsung's QVO, the other thing I am surprised is the MU1 server  The sound is more neutral when used as a server, and the sound is fuller and softer when the S40+S60 is used as a server. I think it is only a difference in style, and I can't say who is good and who is bad. In addition, I found that the MU1 is not so immune to the front end, including the infrared device (  No longer used), Roon's Extension authorization plugin that displays song information will also change the sound. When I remove the song plugin, the sound becomes fuller, but the treble will be lost. I don't know which is the original sound of Mu1.  . Regarding the MU1 volume control, Grimm's Eelco once again stated that regardless of whether a preamp is used, Roon's volume control must select "Device Volume" instead of "Fixed Volume", and select "Multichannel Mixing" in the Roon Surround Sound Settings  Channel mapping "instead of downmixing", I hope these settings are helpful to you, the AES cable I am using now is BELDEN 1696A, will it be a big improvement if I replace it with Jorma AES? Or do you have a better one?  Recommend? I don't have a dealer in China who can provide audition service, so I would like to hear everyone's opinions and recommendations, thank you

[Nicholas Dong]

For the two check sections below the library, I also think it should be better to close, you need to wait a night after opening, and these waveform displays will not help SQ

[TheAttorney]

10 hours ago, Nicholas Dong said:

I found that the MU1 is not so immune to the front end, including the infrared device (  No longer used), Roon's Extension authorization plugin that displays song information will also change the sound. When I remove the song plugin, the sound becomes fuller, but the treble will be lost. I don't know which is the original sound of Mu1...  Regarding the MU1 volume control, Grimm's Eelco once again stated that regardless of whether a preamp is used, Roon's volume control must select "Device Volume" instead of "Fixed Volume" .... the AES cable I am using now is BELDEN 1696A, will it be a big improvement if I replace it with Jorma AES? Or do you have a better one?  Recommend? I don't have a dealer in China who can provide audition service, so I would like to hear everyone's opinions and recommendations, thank you

Hi Nicholas, I found it difficult to follow your comments about DCS and Antipodes, and I don't use surround sound, but I'll respond to some of your other points.

 

Volume Control.

I set Roon's volume to Fixed, and set MU1 volume control to maximum (0.0dB). And use DAVE's volume control as this is more transparent than MU1's and much more transparent than Roon's. Eelco recommends Device Volume as a precaution against accidentally pushing full power to your amplifier. But this is not a risk if you take sensible precautions with your downstream volume control. My recommendation stands if your downstream volume control is better than MU1's. If it isn't better, then you may as well stick with Eelco's recommendations.

 

IR control

Yes, it degrades SQ as I've previously posted. Hopefully Grimm will look into this when they get round to it.

 

AES cable

If you've read all of this thread then you'll know I recommend the Sablon cable. (from UK). I don't know how this compares to the Jorma. One important point is that I don't know Sablon's returns policy if you end up not liking it. Others have made other recommendations in this thread.

 

Roon's Extension Authorisation

It's not clear what you actually changed here to "remove the song plugin". Is the change reversible? I'm wary of changing anything that loses MU1 functionality such as the song status on MU1's screen.

 

9 hours ago, Nicholas Dong said:

For the two check sections below the library, I also think it should be better to close, you need to wait a night after opening, and these waveform displays will not help SQ

This unchecking of Roon's Audio analysis has been recommended in the Taiko Extreme guidelines.

But it's not clear to me if the SQ degradation is only during the analysis of a new music file, or occurs forever after once the analysis has finished.

 

What do you mean by "you need to wait a night after opening"? I did try a quick test by unchecking these two analysis boxes and importing a music file. Listened, then enabled analysis and the listened again. I couldn't reliably tell any difference between the analysed and non-analysed versions, but it was only a brief test.

All my current files have already been analysed, so this would be a major exercise to undo all that.

[Nicholas Dong]

Hi TheAttorney, nice to meet you, sorry for my bad english, hope you can understand what I'm saying. Although you don't use surround sound, the surround sound setting in Roon will still affect the performance of the stereo, so I  I also asked Eelco, he said that it is still necessary to select "Channel mapping only" for Multichannel mixing in stereo.
 

volume control

It's also stated in the MU1 manual that the Roon's volume control needs to be set to "device volume" anyway, not a fixed volume, and for the first two days of the MU1's arrival in my house, I did use a fixed volume, fixed volume sound  It is fuller and feels closer to me, while the sound of the device volume, especially the sound between the two speakers, is a bit thin, the sound is a bit empty and the vocals in the song feel far away from me, I don't know how you feel  How is it, I will do another comparison today to decide which option to use.

 

Infrared control

The influence of infrared control on SQ I think is that the power supply is interfered by infrared control, just like using MU1's USB power supply, it will also affect SQ

 

AES Cable

Regarding the Sablon cable, there is no distributor in China, I can hardly hear it, can you tell me more about the sound characteristics of the Sablon AES cable, as far as I know it is made of sterling silver.
 

Roon extensions

Roon's song display plugin can be deleted and added freely, you can freely choose to display the song information or not, obviously their sounds are different, but through comparison, I found that I prefer the sound performance under the song information display.

 

Roon Music Analysis

I think Roon music analysis affects SQ both during analysis and after analysis, Roon generates some files per album after analysis to show song waveform and volume alignment

 

If there are thousands or tens of thousands of music albums, the analysis needs to wait for one night to complete

[PYP]

I updated to Roon 2.0, but didn't download the new Roon ARC app.  Has anyone tried ARC with the MU1?

 

 

[pvanosta]

@PYP I did try ARC, but, like the vast majority of users (based on the posts on this subject in the Roon support forum), I have a Router - mesh network across my house over 3 floors AND I have a router provided by my ISP, connected to the outside world. ARC will not work across more than one NAT, even though eveything else other than Roon will work fine under this setup. One of the two NATs needs to be switched off. This is done by switching one of the routers to bridge mode / access point only. If I switch my ZenWiFi to access point, I lose half the devices on my mesh LAN. As I do not have access to my ISP's router to change that one to bridge mode, I will not be able to use ARC. Of the 300-plus posts in Roon support since ARC was released, 290 of them are on this precise subject. It sounds like Roon devs did not think this through.

[FredM]

42 minutes ago, PYP said:

I updated to Roon 2.0, but didn't download the new Roon ARC app.  Has anyone tried ARC with the MU1?

 

 

Yes, works like a charm. At this moment -while travelling to work- I’m actually listening via Roon 🎉. Feels like being at home (favourites, recommendations, local tracks, playlist, etc), just awesome. Like an early Christmas present 😀

 

While setting up the Arc app at home on a mobile device I only had to switch from the wifi to the 4G network briefly to resume the process. 

[Vincent des Champs]

BREAKING: next Monday the Grimm Audio MU2 will be announced - dealers will be informed and planning will be discussed.

The MU2 features DAC functionality together with other goodies. Upgrading the MU1 is possible - approx 5k eur.

[The Computer Audiophile]

12 hours ago, Vincent des Champs said:

BREAKING: next Monday the Grimm Audio MU2 will be announced - dealers will be informed and planning will be discussed.

The MU2 features DAC functionality together with other goodies. Upgrading the MU1 is possible - approx 5k eur.

I’m not so sure this is entirely true. That’s all I can say for now. 

[Vincent des Champs]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I’m not so sure this is entirely true. That’s all I can say for now. 

Source: direct connection who will attent the announcement.

[TheAttorney]

On 9/22/2022 at 12:15 AM, Nicholas Dong said:

Although you don't use surround sound, the surround sound setting in Roon will still affect the performance of the stereo, so I  I also asked Eelco, he said that it is still necessary to select "Channel mapping only" for Multichannel mixing in stereo.
 

AES Cable

Regarding the Sablon cable, there is no distributor in China, I can hardly hear it, can you tell me more about the sound characteristics of the Sablon AES cable, as far as I know it is made of sterling silver.
 

I tried the "Channel mapping only" change... and I really like it (for my stereo headphone listening). So thank you for sharing that.

I don't have the patience to go back and compare it to previous Roon tweak suggestions, but from memory, I would say that, if Roon users have the time/inclination to do only one Roon tweak, then make it this one! I was surprised at the difference and, as usual with Roon, it makes no sense that such a change should impact SQ.

 

BTW, I upgraded to Roon 2.0. Completely painless, but I haven't tried ARC yet. SQ of 2.0 is fine as far as I can tell.

 

The characteristic of the Sablon AES (with Bocchino connectors) is that it has the ability to improve both clarity/detail/dynamics and an organic/full-bodied/effortless presentation - compared to the other AES cables I tried. The other cables tended to major on one style at the expense of the other. But I haven't compared it to any of the other AES cables that others have recommended in this thread.

 

Mark at Sablon is a one-man-band that sells direct to customers. So there is no shopping basket facility on his website. You need to email him with your requirements and take it from there.

 

 

[Mike123]

12 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

I tried the "Channel mapping only" change... and I really like it (for my stereo headphone listening). So thank you for sharing that.

 

 

 

I wasn't able to access Channel Mapping -- I get as far as Mu1>Audio>Device Setup> and Advanced Settings -- but cannot go further ..where do you find this setting to disable?