After last year’s Munich High End show, journalist Joël Chevassus of the French online Audiophile Magazine offered the system we used to introduce the MU2 a “best sound of show” award. In his latest edition he reviewed the MU2 and his high expectations were fully satisfied. Joël offered the MU2 his ‘Supreme Award’, “because of its excellent quality/price ratio, rarely matched at these budgets.”
“What immediately impressed me was the stereo image. It is surgically precise, opening up the soundstage enormously – very wide and deep. When a device offers such a large and three-dimensional image, you often loose focus in the image. But for the MU2 that’s clearly not the case. Instruments are very precisely in focus. It’s quite incredible how the Grimm Audio streamer-DAC manages to achieve such stability. Usually one works meticulously on loudspeaker placement to achieve this level of imaging performance, but the MU2 makes clear that the source also has its share.
Along the same line the micro-dynamics are excellent with the MU2: each percussion stroke is of an absolute clarity, each plucked string is well defined, and the rendering of the reverb (either of the recording room acoustics or artificially added reverb in post-production) is particularly impressive. I heard little ambient details that I never heard before, on recordings that I know very well.
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Although it is probably not the primary focus of a potential MU2 customer, I curiously tested the analog balanced input of the Grimm player. And I was positively surprised by the sound quality of my playback system with my Esoteric K03 SACD player connected to the XLR inputs of the Grimm MU2. I didn’t notice any loss of resolution or distortion in the stereo image.
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Conclusion
The first positive point: the Grimm MU2 keeps all the promises I anticipated after my previous (excellent) evaluation of the MU1 digital source, and the demonstration that I witnessed in the Grimm Audio room at last year’s Munich High End show.
The second positive point: the MU2 goes beyond what one could expect by integrating a converter into the MU1 case, thanks to an innovative and high-performance DAC with very ambitious and cutting-edge FPGA processing.
The third positive point: this device demonstrates real versatility, combining a server, a streamer and a preamplifier for digital and even (thanks to a very good volume control) analog sources.
Finally, the fourth crucial point: the price! One would expect a particularly hefty bill considering all this gathered quality, but Grimm Audio stays within a very reasonable budget if you look at the functionality that the MU2 offers.”
“The Grimm MU2 is a real magnifying glass, that brings you even closer to the truth of the recording.“
Joël Chevassus, Audiophile Magazine
