Journalist Philipp Schneckenburger of the German online Lite Magazin reviews the MU2 and gets excited. He offers it ‘100 out of 100’ points for both Sound and Use… Philipp first goes into detail about the virtues of Roon Labs’ user interface, that we also like a lot. And then he starts writing about the MU2’s sound, searching for words to show his admiration. We copy some excerpts below, but there is a Google Translate button on the review page, so please read the full review here.
“Against a very dark background, the MU2 creates a wonderfully open and spacious stage. Elements like the full bass on Mac DeMarco’s cover of “Enter Sandman” receive all the space they need to develop. Its sonorous murmur is rendered pleasantly complex, three-dimensional and rich. The guitar playing in Juane’s version of the same song also benefits from the open sound of the server and DAC. The sparse plucking of the strings appears with dynamic attacks, clearly floating in space, and then stops with high precision. All pieces receive a three-dimensional and spatial rendering, with fine nuances and details. But the MU2 never enforces this on you. It presents all the subtleties of the pieces in such a balanced way, that as a listener you can decide for yourself how deeply you want to immerse yourself in the sound.
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Equally amazing is the long-term enjoyability of Grimm Audio’s music server. Typically, devices with a very large dynamic range, good transparency and an immense amount of detail quickly lead to symptoms of fatigue. Our brains often simply have difficulty processing so many different impressions. This isn’t the case with the MU2. Instead of bombarding the listener with flocks of details, it presents them in a rather relaxed manner. It’s up to you how much attention you give them and how deep you go. Do you like to completely immerse yourself in the action, absorb the fine overtones of strings and percussions, enjoy the powerful bass and clear vocals? Or do you allow yourself to be surrounded by the arrangement and follow the good flow of the music, the beautiful plasticity and the naturalness that the MU2 draws from the recordings? You can switch between these two listening attitudes on the fly, and always the server sounds clear, spatial and somehow “right”.
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“The long-term enjoyability of Grimm Audio’s music server is amazing.”
Philipp Schneckenburger, Lite Magazin, Germany
With the MU2, Grimm Audio has an exceptionally good-sounding streaming system on offer. It can be used as a server, player, DAC and preamplifier, so it can become the center piece in numerous system concepts. The minimalist but elegant design looks great in both living rooms and listening room setups. Thanks to Roon, the MU2 is always easy to use and offers functions that you won’t want to be without after a short time. But the star of the show is clearly Grimm’s sophisticated upsampling and the high performance DAC platform, which seemingly effortlessly creates excellent sound experiences, regardless of whether you use HiRes or CD rips. Whether as a digital preamplifier for an existing system or as the heart of a new high-end system, the Grimm MU2 is always an excellent choice.”
