I bet you saw this one coming from a mile away.
The Grimm MU2 is “the best digital music reproduction I’ve heard by an obvious and distinct margin.” That’s what I said in my review and based on the reaction of two older, older than me, gentlemen sitting in front of me in the Grimm Audio room at Axpona 2024, they think so too.
This stunning and simple system saw the MU2 doing its full monty acting as server, streamer, DAC, and analog preamp feeding the Linear Tube Audio ZOTL Ultralinear+ stereo amplifier driving a pair of Zellaton Emotion EVO 2-way loudspeakers. Pretending as we’re want to do at hifi shows that I could hear past the room, more F-bombs being dropped by those two enthusiastic older men—”Holy F&*@k!”—in response to what they were hearing, and the unfamiliar system setting, I coulda sworn I could hear the Grimm MU2 doing its thing of allowing me to hear deeper and deeper still into the recording in an uncanny yet highly music-serving manner. Stunning.
Grimm’s John-Paul Lizars always spins great tunes and he treated me to a track from Nick Cave’s Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace that nearly had me misting up if not for those two dudes who nearly made this NJ guy blush.
Sitting silently on spot-lit display was the nearly equally impressive Grimm MU1 Music Player (review) that I’d love to find in my X-Mas stocking (as if my family reads TM ;-).
System Details:
Grimm Audio MU2 Music Player: starts at $17,500
Linear Tube Audio ZOTL Ultralinear+ Amplifier: $6800
Zellaton Emotion EVO Loudspeakers: $44,750
Harmonic Resolution Systems EXR Audio Stand System
Schnerzinger Cables
