[mbirand]

Also, MMT does upsample everything internally prior to PWM and thus any upsampling in the preceding chain probably won't have the desired effect as one would expect.

reading about MU1 thats exactly what i thought.

therefore, in my case, i think auralic aries could fit the bill. its wifi + ssd + streamer. i just want to understand what advantage this box will have over a usb connected laptop…

 

[alxw0w]

reading about MU1 thats exactly what i thought.

therefore, in my case, i think auralis aries could fit the bill. its wifi + ssd + streamer. i just want to understand what advantage this box will have over a usb connected laptop…

If you conduct proper A/B blind test the advantage would probably not be there.

 

[coldbru]

reading about MU1 thats exactly what i thought.

therefore, in my case, i think auralic aries could fit the bill. its wifi + ssd + streamer. i just want to understand what advantage this box will have over a usb connected laptop…

Well, there is a pretty broad consensus that the MU1 is an extremely good-sounding source for the MMT. It’s worth noting that the FPGA in the MU1 is actually performing digital filtering / resampling. This makes it fundamentally different than most/all other options in that it is not bit-perfect. They are using their expertise in digital filtering. Anyway, better to hear these things than to idly talk about them.

 

[RustyGates]

That's why you cannot trust any word he is saying.
For them price = performance....
It's sad state of our industry.

ps. yes Tambaqui (owned it liked it very very much) is one marvelous dac. But this guy... forget abut him or any other 'reviewer', you will be happier.

Yeah, he does cater very much to the old gen, cashed up, retired, insane audiophiles out there. His "low" price con was for the perspective of both that demographic and the manufacturers and dealers, not for the average audiophile (for which it is expensive as hell).

But I do like hearing his subjective perspective on things, as he's had experience with a lot of ultra expensive stuff, and all things he actually buys with his own money upon request, reviews it and sells it. Same thing goes with the MMT.

 

[HONEYBOY]

@mbirand I do understand your point. If I will follow MMT path one day, I want it to be as simple as possible. In fact MMT can be used without dedicated headphone amp (ok, who am I kidding, I love my Envy ). As for MU1/2 I would be very careful: after close inspection of MU1 internals from below the picture reveal rather poor build quality with internal usb connections. Looks more like a DYI project than 10k product to me. Can't discuss the sound but IMHO the best DACs does not require upsampling - they sound amazing out of the box without any tweaking and the more simple signal path is the better.

Here is the original source of the pictures I'm talking about: https://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2022/07/24/the-grimm-mu1-review-the-magic-audiophile-streamer/

Yeah, truthfully the internals of the MU1 is uninspiring. When I received my unit, it was super light and did not instill any confidence. However, once I played music all doubts were taken away. Guido Tent and Eelco Grimm along with the folks at Grimm Audio really know their stuff. They're cut from the same cloth as Bruno Putzeys. They have found some secret sauce that allows your DAC to simply shine. It removes something you didn't know existed as a barrier to your engagement of the music. Particularly with the Tambaqui it is a really epic combo of refinement, resolution, and. engagement. This is why I have had great interest in the MU2.

I briefly auditioned the MU2's headphone out and it is actually really good as an AIO. The amplifier is a bit better than the one in the Tambaqui. It sounds more spacious and greater depth. As DACs MU2 is very neutral in tone with an unprecedented realism in the midrange. I find it quite dynamic, but overall a tad laidback. Tambaqui to me seems more dynamic and corporeal. Tambaqui especially in a two channel system has this unique capacity to provide 3-dimensionality and heft to each instrument in a recording. I don't quite think MU2 out does the MU1 + Tambaqui. They sound more different than I expected actually. I'd need to have the MU2 in for an extended period of time before I even dream of parting ways with the MU1 + Tambaqui duo.

 

[technomagus]

reading about MU1 thats exactly what i thought.

therefore, in my case, i think auralic aries could fit the bill. its wifi + ssd + streamer. i just want to understand what advantage this box will have over a usb connected laptop…

You’re right, it doesn’t: having extensively used HQP with my previous DAC, and found that it made a big difference, I found that HQP with the MMT made effectively no difference to the sound. Jussi the developer of HQP also suggests that the architecture of the MMT is highly invariant to resampling earlier in the chain

 

[plumpudding2]

Yeah, truthfully the internals of the MU1 is uninspiring. When I received my unit, it was super light and did not instill any confidence. However, once I played music all doubts were taken away. Guido Tent and Eelco Grimm along with the folks at Grimm Audio really know their stuff. They're cut from the same cloth as Bruno Putzeys. They have found some secret sauce that allows your DAC to simply shine. It removes something you didn't know existed as a barrier to your engagement of the music. Particularly with the Tambaqui it is a really epic combo of refinement, resolution, and. engagement. This is why I have had great interest in the MU2.

I briefly auditioned the MU2's headphone out and it is actually really good as an AIO. The amplifier is a bit better than the one in the Tambaqui. It sounds more spacious and greater depth. As DACs MU2 is very neutral in tone with an unprecedented realism in the midrange. I find it quite dynamic, but overall a tad laidback. Tambaqui to me seems more dynamic and corporeal. Tambaqui especially in a two channel system has this unique capacity to provide 3-dimensionality and heft to each instrument in a recording. I don't quite think MU2 out does the MU1 + Tambaqui. They sound more different than I expected actually. I'd need to have the MU2 in for an extended period of time before I even dream of parting ways with the MU1 + Tambaqui duo.

What I find really interesting is that Grimm and Putzeys are polar opposites when it comes to digital filter preferences. The MU1 uses "true sinc" upsampling with long filters and high tap counts a la Chord, while Bruno decided after listening tests the most transparent filter for the Tambaqui is a short one that gently rolls off between 20 and 25khz. Both guys really know their stuff so I guess I'm wondering who is "right".

 

[mbirand]

You’re right, it doesn’t: having extensively used HQP with my previous DAC, and found that it made a big difference, I found that HQP with the MMT made effectively no difference to the sound. Jussi the developer of HQP also suggests that the architecture of the MMT is highly invariant to resampling earlier in the chain

sorry for my ignorance, by HQP you mean the player running from your computer ?

i think pairing with MMT as the source my best options for my need are either auralic aires 2.2 or good old macbookpro with intona in between. my source has to have wifi therefore not many options.

i looked into aurender as well, but again no wifi.

 

[RustyGates]

What I find really interesting is that Grimm and Putzeys are polar opposites when it comes to digital filter preferences. The MU1 uses "true sinc" upsampling with long filters and high tap counts a la Chord, while Bruno decided after listening tests the most transparent filter for the Tambaqui is a short one that gently rolls off between 20 and 25khz. Both guys really know their stuff so I guess I'm wondering who is "right".

The slow roll-off filter is better for eliminating Gibbs phenomenon at the cut-off point (pass band ripple) and maybe better for high frequency extension. The shorter filter is also fast allowing the Tambaqui to have a perfect impulse response. On top of that, the DAC itself is a FIR Moving Average filter, then there are various analogue filters at the output stage. This allows the DAC to have a slow roll-off digital filter, yet somehow the analogue section design denies aliasing frequencies past the audible spectrum to intermodulation with the audio band and create distortions at all, you can see how well it measures in all aspects (all IMD components <-130dBFs).

 

[plumpudding2]

The slow roll-off filter is better for eliminating Gibbs phenomenon at the cut-off point (pass band ripple) and maybe better for high frequency extension. The shorter filter is also fast allowing the Tambaqui to have a perfect impulse response. On top of that, the DAC itself is a FIR Moving Average filter, then there are various analogue filters at the output stage. This allows the DAC to have a slow roll-off digital filter, yet somehow the analogue section design denies aliasing frequencies past the audible spectrum to intermodulation with the audio band and create distortions at all, you can see how well it measures in all aspects (all IMD components <-130dBFs).

Thanks for the explanation! I agree that's exactly what makes the MMT so unique. The MMT strategy is similar to that of my Holo May, focus on eliminating IMD instead of eliminating aliasing. I only recently realized NOS dac would be perfectly accurate if you were able to eliminate all IMD (and also in your amplifiers/speakers.)

Saw a good deal on a Tambaqui last week and I was tempted for a minute.. but I just can't see myself parting with the May and i'm too poor to own both at the same time

 

[technomagus]

sorry for my ignorance, by HQP you mean the player running from your computer ?

i think pairing with MMT as the source my best options for my need are either auralic aires 2.2 or good old macbookpro with intona in between. my source has to have wifi therefore not many options.

i looked into aurender as well, but again no wifi.

Apologies for my gratuitous use of acronyms: HQP is HQ Player, very highly regarded upsampling/filtering software that runs either discretely on Mac/Win/Linux or as an embedded tool on Linux. It can either run a DAC directly if that DAC supports it (look for NAA in the spec) or via Roon (which is what I do). It provides a huge range of tools for optimising playback and, with chip-based DACs, can make a huge difference. My point was that (I assume) because the Tambaqui upsamples everything to PWM anyway before dealing with it, HQ Player's manipulation has very little effect on the final outcome. I used to spend far too much time playing with the HQ Player settings, in search of the 'golden moment'. Now, I just listen to the music.

 

[RustyGates]

Thanks for the explanation! I agree that's exactly what makes the MMT so unique. The MMT strategy is similar to that of my Holo May, focus on eliminating IMD instead of eliminating aliasing. I only recently realized NOS dac would be perfectly accurate if you were able to eliminate all IMD (and also in your amplifiers/speakers.)

Saw a good deal on a Tambaqui last week and I was tempted for a minute.. but I just can't see myself parting with the May and i'm too poor to own both at the same time

So, the May doesn't actually have any filters at all unless you engage those Cirus Logic min phase digital filters (no one uses those).

 

[plumpudding2]

So, the May doesn't actually have any filters at all unless you engage those Cirus Logic min phase digital filters (no one uses those).

I know! It just has is still very clean in the audible band because it has low IMD. Compare these Stereophile measurements:

Holo May

Mola Mola Tambaqui

Sonnet Morpheus (R2R)

What I meant by focus on reducing IMD, The MMT doesn't have a "perfect" frequency domain filter, the first alias of the 19k test tone is only 37db down. However since the MMT has extremely low IMD we see only a little blip at 10k. The May has no reconstuction filter and thus a bit more grass in the audio band, but still very low especially comparing it to another R2R dac like the Sonnet Morpheus for example.
I just felt like the MMT and the May had similar strategies but maybe it's a bit thin as they use completely different tech.

 

[TheR0v3r]

Today I had the opportunity to audition the MMT (connected to a Grimm MU1) in my seemingly never-ending quest for the ”perfect” DAC.

The MMT is an easy top three for me - what a brilliant piece of engineering. Usually able to point at some strengths and weaknesses but the only issue was that the built-in streamer wasn’t nearly as good as the MU1. Otherwise excellent technicalities AND musicality. It has this wonderful directness/presence that’s so rare below the super expensive stuff.

My top three:

1. MSB Reference
2. Mola Mola Tambaqui
3. Ideon Absolute Epsilon

For the first time in years I’m unsure about the number 1 spot... Congrats to all of you owning the wonderful MMT!

P.S. Didn’t try the headphone out.

 

[technomagus]

Today I had the opportunity to audition the MMT (connected to a Grimm MU1) in my seemingly never-ending quest for the ”perfect” DAC.

The MMT is an easy top three for me - what a brilliant piece of engineering. Usually able to point at some strengths and weaknesses but the only issue was that the built-in streamer wasn’t nearly as good as the MU1. Otherwise excellent technicalities AND musicality. It has this wonderful directness/presence that’s so rare below the super expensive stuff.

My top three:

1. MSB Reference
2. Mola Mola Tambaqui
3. Ideon Absolute Epsilon

For the first time in years I’m unsure about the number 1 spot... Congrats to all of you owning the wonderful MMT!

P.S. Didn’t try the headphone out.

Interesting - I haven't auditioned either your #1 or #3 dacs (and, having just checked their prices, I know why!). The MMT does appear to hold up well against ANY competition, which is good to see. My own rating (against not inexpensive, but more peer-priced and lower) currently goes something like:

1. Mola Mola Tambaqui
2. DcS Bartok (when coupled with a decent streamer such as the Auralic Aries)
3. Chord DAVE (streamer as above)
4. Teac UD701N (cheaper but a remarkably good DAC - I auditioned this and the Gustard A26 to see how spendy I needed to get to meet my perceptions)

One thing I've noticed is just how resistant the MMT is to being 'improved' with external streamers, resamplers etc. That to me is the mark of good engineering.