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Comparison of 3 creme de la crème streamer/DAC combos

Heckyman

pfm Member

Just watched this, fascinating to compare live and reproduced music on MSB, Grimm/Mola Mola and Naim systems.

All sounded awesome, but then when you compare the 3, you realize that even at £15-25K there are still compromises. The MSB and Naim were more fluid and engaging, whilst the Grimm/Mola Mola had the most detail and (perhaps) "neutrality'.

All are out of my price range, but it did reaffirm my personal preference for R2R / multibit DACs.
 
I like Alpha Audio's shoot-outs with the usual 'what you are listening on/YouTube compressions' etc caveats.

Thoroughly enjoyable channel.
 
Indeed. The digital front end is certainly where I'd spend the least amount on in a system nowadays.

Having said that, if you want a bit of coloration/distortion, manufacturers generally charge quite a bit more for that ... .
 
Indeed. The digital front end is certainly where I'd spend the least amount on in a system nowadays.

Having said that, if you want a bit of coloration/distortion, manufacturers generally charge quite a bit more for that ... .

When you put it that way, it sounds a bit disparaging.

The Mola Mola was the most detailed, ostensibly the least coloured and is probably the better measuring.

Yet I found it (relatively) uninvolving. I preferred the Naim or MSB as they sounded more like real music to my ears. The musician had the same opinion, that these systems were the ones that sounded closest to his live performance.

There's more going on here than just pure accuracy / resolution. Which system you might prefer would depend on what aspects of music most engage you, there is not a right / wrong answer...
 
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Hi,

A while back a friend and I managed to get the complete range of streamers from Klimax, Akurate, Majik and Sneaky for just over two weeks.

My friend owned a Sneaky I have the Majik DS/K

We played them both on his system and on two of my systems.

He is a classical lover, we heard each streamer a number of times playing both classical and my type of music, blues, female vocal and various groups.

The cheap Sneaky was best on his system for giving a presence and feel to the sound, yes the Klimax did give more information, but not as much as you would have thought, the Klimax was also very cold and lifeless.

When we used my systems the same basic outcome happened, I did prefer my Majik DS, only really because it has a display, it is a cracking piece of kit, I did like the way the Sneaky gave a feeling of what Naim users would call PRAT. It's hard to discribe until you have heard it, but for whatever reason the less detail and electronics the more enjoyable the music.

It is a bit like a new LP12 against a 1980 LP12, the newer version might give more detail but a 1980 LP12 gives life to the music.

I am about to get a Sneaky as I liked it that much.

I tend now to agree with the above that money can be better spent on other items for the HiFi, like speakers and the amplification to drive them.

I am sure many will disgree, however as I say often, I prefer listening to music rather than very accurate HiFi.

Cheers

John
 
Hang on. If you can hear the quality of the sound via youtube video streamed over the internet?....
I was certainly skeptical, and clearly what I heard with my Sony phone and £100 AKG headphones would have been nothing like what the panel heard in the studio. But still I could hear the broad differences in presentation between the 3 set ups.
 
So what is going on, then? Has any manufacturer explained it?
I think the idea is to listen, like I did with the video and John did above with the Linn streamers. No manufacturer is going to explain to you why you prefer what you do.
 
What no Rpi and cheap DAC. I thought that was all you needed. :rolleyes:
You don't even need a DAC, if you have a properly engineered phone, you can use the DAC in that. You don't need to waste money on the RPi either ;-) as long as you're prepared to get up to change the track...oh and turn off your alerts and notifications...
 
Sorry to butt in lazily- but I didn't have 2.5 hours to listen to whole thing. Are they comparign all those digital systems into a Grimm Ls-1? and doesn't that digitise the inputs?
 
Sorry to butt in lazily- but I didn't have 2.5 hours to listen to whole thing. Are they comparign all those digital sytems into a Grimm Ls-1? and doesn't that digitise the inputs?

Don't blame you, I started watching it live on a lazy Sunday morning. Found it hard to stop watching and suddenly 2.5 hours had gone!

They compared analogue in to the LS-1 in all cases. The idea was to test the analogue outputs of the streamer/DAC combos. Your question did crop up and the presenter hinted that digital input from the Grimm streamer to the LS-1 "might be even better but they didn't want to turn it into a commercial for Grimm".
 
The problem is that you're listening to the Grimm's A/D and D/A either way.

The set up is bonkers. Either the Grimm's dac is transparent, in which case you don't need to buy a dac at all, or it isn't in which case you can't fairly test other dacs playing through it. The problem is for the dealer trying to sell both.

Of course for the viewer on youtube, that is by the by. I would love to know though how many people there are who buy a 20k dac to put its analogue outputs into a Grimm.

This is nothing to do with whether all you need is an "rpi and a cheap dac" (sorry Colin) -it's whether you need anything more than an rpi.
 
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Ah, I had not read up on the Grimm active speakers, you're right that it would be stupid to use them like that. They probably used them because they were the most revealing speakers they had.

Anyhow, you can still hear the relative differences between the 3 streamer/DACs.

What would be really interesting would be to get some phones, RPi's, PCs, and expensive servers etc and feed these into the Grimm ;-)
 
I think the idea is to listen, like I did with the video and John did above with the Linn streamers. No manufacturer is going to explain to you why you prefer what you do.
So there is not physical explanation, just my subjective opinion?
Must be bollocks then
 
I was certainly skeptical, and clearly what I heard with my Sony phone and £100 AKG headphones would have been nothing like what the panel heard in the studio. But still I could hear the broad differences in presentation between the 3 set ups.

I'm sorry but this is bullshit.

You need to spend squillions of pounds on Hi-Fi to get a decent sound but you can draw meaningful conclusions about these systems over your phone? Feck off!
 


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