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Interview Eelco Grimm – Grimm Audio MU-1

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Interview Eelco Grimm – Grimm Audio MU-1

Last year we saw a prototype at the High End Munich. We heard The Grimm Audio MU-1 play in 2019. Now it’s finally available. According to Eelco Grimm it is the biggest project Grimm has worked on. More work than the LS1. The ‘culprit’: software. Then what’s so special? Isn’t the MU-1 more than just a ROON server/player? Let’s talk to Eelco Grimm. 

Streaming audio… it’s a market that has rapidly saturated. Although the top of the market is fairly stable, a few brands – mostly new brands – have made it to the established order. Grimm Audio is best known for its hyper-accurate clocks and active speakers: the LS1 series.

Streamer with a twist

New in the assortment is the MU-1. A ROON server and endpoint. However, the MU-1 has a twist. Three twists if we look at the competitors. So we see not only a digital output, but also a few inputs. It is possible to connect other sources. Handy, because that’s how those sources also enjoy the super accurate clock. An FLL to be precise. Eelco Grimm explains the advantage of an FLL in the interview.

Thick FPGA

Finally, there is an FPGA that upsamples all signals to 24 bit / 176.4 or 192 kHz. This requires – in the way Grimm works – an enormous amount of computing power. Eelco reports that the FPGA is a very powerfull model, but that it is still very heavily loaded despite the considerable computing power.

The advantage of this accurate upsampling is that the dac that will be combined with the MU-1, doesn’t need to upsample all the data itself. That way, errors at a further stage will be reduced. As a result, more space and resolution can be heard. More insight into the music… Eelco explains the process further in the video.

Streaming, clocking and upsampling

At the bottom of the line, the MU-1 is more of a central hub rather than a streamer. Or ROON endpoint. The MU-2 is going to add a self-developed, discrete dac, the MU-3 even a few more power amplifiers. But that’s future music. Let’s start with the MU-1…

We’ve got him for testing. So expect a review soon!

Interview Eelco Grimm – Grimm MU-1 streamer