Christopher Hildebrand of our Richmond (US) dealer Fern & Roby wrote a beautiful blog post called “Learning to Listen to Digital Music Again”. He takes the reader on his personal music listening journey. It started with focussed music listening at home as a kid but he stopped active listening completely after being subjected to MP3 files on an iPod and computer speakers for too long.
“Music became something that played around me rather than something I actively chose to engage with. At a certain point, the convenience stopped mattering. The quality was so compromised that the experience itself disappeared.“
A decade ago he realized what he had lost and turned to vinyl. “Analog listening restored something I didn’t realize I’d lost: intention. Choosing a record. Sitting down. Paying attention.”
In recent years he checked out digital streaming for himself and his customers but was disappointed. “For digital to earn a place in my listening life—and in the systems we recommend and represent—it needed to meet a few basic standards:
- A user experience that encouraged exploration rather than friction and frustration.
- Sound quality that could stand alongside my analog systems.
- Straightforward setup and day-to-day use.
- Long-term stability and reliability.
And then he came across our MU2. “The Grimm MU2 is the first experience I had with a digital component that I felt fully delivered on the promise of digital streaming in terms of overall convenience and quality. What stood out to me immediately was not a feature list, but the overall approach. By integrating the music server, DAC, and preamp into a single, purpose-built component, much of the complexity that had previously distracted me from listening basically disappeared. (…)
For me, my system had become reliable and predictable. I found I could move easily between streamed music and my owned library without thinking about software, networking, or background processes. More importantly, I found myself listening longer and with more intention. I was noticing I was more attentive.
Timing, coherence, and tonal balance—qualities that matter deeply in analog playback—were showing up in a way I hadn’t previously experienced with digital. The Grimm didn’t ask me to choose between convenience and musical engagement. It handled both quietly and effectively.“
We were deeply touched by Christophers’ blog since what he describes is exactly what we aimed for in the design of the MU1 and MU2. We all love to listen to music in an attentive way and so we develop our products with the hope that they will invite our customers to do so too. Please read the full text in the original blog on Fern & Roby’s website.
“The Grimm didn’t ask me to choose between convenience and musical engagement. It handled both quietly and effectively.“ – Christopher Hildebrand, Fern & Roby, Richmond
