Michael Lavorgna of online audiophile magazine Twittering Machines reviewed our MU2 and was totally blown away. He checked it in various setups and concluded that this was the best sounding digital source he ever heard. We could not resist to copy some excerpts below, but please read his full review here.
“If you want to hear the best digital music reproduction I’ve heard by an obvious and distinct margin, you’ll need to find a Grimm MU2 to listen through. That’s it, that’s my conclusion—the Grimm MU2 acting as Roon server, Roon endpoint, and DAC made music sound at once less processed and more fully fleshed out than other digital solution(s) I’ve had the pleasure of hearing. What’s more, the MU2’s analog volume control and line level inputs turned it into a wonderful sounding preamplifier to boot. All in one.
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I usually end the consolidating before a preamplifier and have said on many occasions how I prefer a preamp, or integrated amp, in my system. In my experience, using a digital source to control volume and eliminating or bypassing a preamp or integrated amp’s own preamp section generally made music sound thinner and less fully formed. Kinda bleached or undernourished generally speaking. Nearly anemic in the worst of cases. But the Grimm MU2 has proven my generalization wrong. I let its internal analog preamp take over for the internal preamps in the review Triode Evolution 300 and my beloved Leben CS600 and I didn’t feel as if I, or the music, lost anything. In fact there was an added clarity and transient speed that I preferred with the MU2 in charge.
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While the initial intent was to ‘test’ the Grimm as analog preamp with an analog source, I never got to the ‘test’ bit as the MU2 passed with flying colors a few notes in as I was once again taken away by the music in play where the MU2’s delicate precision was readily apparent even when run as preamp playing the infinitely lovely music of Alice Coltrane on vinyl. Bravo!
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One the biggest of the MU2’s many surprises was just how expert it was at getting out of music’s way while leaving behind the most finely refined and revealing re-production in its wake. The music contained on Natural Wonder Beauty Concept stutters, stops and starts as if made by some elaborate soulful automaton with electronic sounds emerging from silence in reach out and touch it dimensional form feeling as real as bubbles floating in air.
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It was in listening to the familiar that highlighted the Grimm MU2’s exceptional performance as I heard more deeply and more fully into the sounds of familiar music than I’ve ever experienced in Barn. And the degree to which the Grimm’s ultra-clarity, dimensional wholeness, and superlative resolution had me cursing in delight and shaking my head in wonder at the new sounds from familiar music even after more than a month of listening. That, in and of itself, is remarkable as the ‘new’ sounds of a review component typically fade after days.”
Michael offered the MU2 his ‘Favorite Digital ‘ award.
“It was in listening to the familiar that highlighted the Grimm MU2’s exceptional performance as I heard more deeply and more fully into the sounds of familiar music than I’ve ever experienced in Barn.”
Michael Lavorgna, Twittering Machines.
