Grimm Audio MU2 "Major Dac"

[owen lawlor]

In my case the preamp is a big improvement. c10x Luxman into 2x M10X's. Bass and dynamics improve

 

[Hear Here]

In my case the preamp is a big improvement. c10x Luxman into 2x M10X's. Bass and dynamics improve

Do you mean a sound quality improvement or a features improvement? I'd be devastated if I spent the sort of money the MU2 costs only to find that its preamp was of under-par sound quality. I'd expect it to better any external preamp that requires the addition of an extra cable. We all know that cables can never improve sound quality!

 

[owen lawlor]

The pre section in MU2 is crazy good for an all in one. I’d reckon you have to be in the 15k plus range to notice any improvements. In my case I am using Dragon ICs so YMMV

 

[PYP]

The pre section in MU2 is crazy good for an all in one. I’d reckon you have to be in the 15k plus range to notice any improvements. In my case I am using Dragon ICs so YMMV

Agreed. And when you are using a preamp and amp from the same manufacturer, you are maximizing your chances of an ideal match. However I would lower your estimate to $12k (MM Makua in the "crazy good" category, IMO).

also agree with your choice of switch. Mine probably needs another week or so to settle in, but it is awesome. Lets the MU2 just do its thing.

 

[PYP]

Do you mean a sound quality improvement or a features improvement? I'd be devastated if I spent the sort of money the MU2 costs only to find that its preamp was of under-par sound quality. I'd expect it to better any external preamp that requires the addition of an extra cable. We all know that cables can never improve sound quality!

if you try one at home (with return privileges, of course), I suggest asking how many hours are on the demo (300 or so would be beneficial). Also suggest keeping it on for the entire demo period. Will take at least a day to warm up.

 

[gerihifi]

Thanks to all of those who provided feedback about using the MU2 into a seperate preamp. Now I have to get my hands on one to try out. My only reservation about the MU2 is that Roon Core is run on an i3 processor and might be sluggish on larger libraries or heavy duty processing. Any one have problems in this regard?

Big myth going on regards of CPU it depends how much you Interfere with down-/upsampling (Roon MUSE)! What is always an issue: too large local music library and therefore too many titel/album meta-infos needs to be loaded. Higher CPU: more power consumption, more noise, much more implementation efforts...look at Taiko & Co

Thats why I LOVE the core idea of Elco: use roon core only and not all those additional music services running on usual streamers! So thats why they are very careful with their next SW-release!

I played a lot with Gentooplayer and kernel tweaking and you would be surprised how much you get out of low-powered CPU (ARM) Boards. Its all about how you render fancy displays (keep it simpel like MU2, everyone using their Roon App!) and album arts, loading large libraries from external USB or even worse from external NAS.

Those prinicplals was followed closely by the Grimm Devs and MU2 roon implementation is pretty fast, the fastest I've owned so far!

Rgds
Gerald