Grimm Audio

Grimm Audio occupy a curious position in the world of hi-fi: a small Dutch company, founded by a mastering engineer, whose products began life as studio reference instruments and have since been quietly adopted by listeners who simply want what those engineers were using. The clock generators on which much of the recorded music of the last two decades has been timed — the CC1 and the CC2 — were Grimm products, used in mastering rooms from Sterling Sound in New York to Abbey Road in London. The same engineering discipline now informs the consumer line.

The MU1 — and its current successor the MU2 — is a Linux-based streamer and digital preamplifier that, in a system where the streamer is the source of everything, behaves with extraordinary calm. Roon endpoint, full digital preamp, optional internal DAC. There is no front panel screen because there is no need for one; the playing software *is* the front panel. Grimm products are designed by people who have spent careers reducing the number of things that can go wrong between the recording and the room.

The LS1be is the company’s three-way active loudspeaker, with internal DSP, sealed cabinet, and an unusually wide horizontal dispersion. Each driver has its own dedicated amplifier; the speaker is, in essence, a complete playback system from the digital input outward. In rooms where it is correctly placed, it disappears into a kind of accurate quiet.

Grimm is the brand we recommend to listeners who care less about the look of the equipment than about what is happening to the signal inside it. There is very little Grimm gear in the world. It does not need to be sold loudly.