The bonus: CDs
Contents
We tested the digital SPDIF input for the original review, but it did not make the review. You use the SPDIF input to connect a CD transport, for example. The incoming SPDIF signal is completely re-clocked, just like with the MU1. It makes playing CDs a revelation.
Simply Red’s CD “Picture Book” no longer sounds so harsh and glassy. It swings, the timing is perfect, and the soundstage and precision in the soundstage of what the engineer has placed at the front and rear is clearly audible, such as the horns in “Sad Old Red.”
The album took me back in time, to endless listening sessions on my Walkman. I had transferred this album from CD to cassette tape, carefully making sure I stayed just within the saturation limit of the tape. I had taught myself to perfection how far I could push the recording levels to get a dynamic sound with as little tape noise as possible. Yes, the audio craze started early.
I must have played “Picture Book” hundreds of times. In 1985, the year the album was released and “Holding Back the Years” was played a lot on the radio, I was 14 years old. My Walkman was an extension of my body. Mick Hucknall’s lyrics appealed to us; those were the days of high youth unemployment.
That music stays with you for the rest of your life. And when you hear it so unimpeded — I can’t find a better word for it — then 40 years fall away as if they have never been there. That is what music can do when it hits you this way. And that is what it’s all about: the equipment in service of the music. The Grimm MU2 does that on all fronts.