Grimm Audio

01/06/2026

June 4-7 we exhibit at the High End Society Vienna High End show, the successor of the Munich High End show. The Munich show was world famous, attracting visitors from all continents, and we had exceptionally great succes there. But the M,O,C, hall went out of business and High End Society moved to Vienna. Like everyone in the industry, we will need to reinvent ourselves a bit in the new venue. But we look forward to that a lot and have prepared some great surprises for our audience, so make sure to give us a visit at our booth & large sound cabin M01 in Hall X4.

Our main introduction at this show is the PA1 mono-block amplifier. It just received its own web page, with lots of background information. This amplifier is truly sensational in every sense. Most importantly, its sound clearly carries the Grimm Audio signature. Our engineers managed “to blend authority with grace”.

The PA1 can drive very complex loads and has fabulous bass control. At the same time it sounds delicate and smooth in the mids and highs, with a naturalness often only experienced with the best tube based designs. As always, we wanted the looks of the product to match the sound quality level. In our opinion industrial designer Michiel Uylings really surpassed himself with his PA1 design…

Don’t forget to give us a visit. No doubt you will be amazed by the PA1, the MU2 as its source, and more…

Continue reading about the PA1 on our website: https://www.grimmaudio.com/news/grimm-audio-at-vienna-high-end/

18/05/2026

With only a few weeks to go before the High End Society Vienna High-End show, our team is working very hard to get everything fully prepared. At this show, we introduce our new mono block Power Amplifier, aptly named “PA1”, and it’s time to lift a corner of the veil.

An early prototype of the PA1 was secretly used when we presented the MU2 streaming DAC & pre-amp, three years ago in Munich. At the time we searched for an amplifier that was transparent enough to demonstrate the unique qualities of the MU2. Many amps we auditioned disappointed us. Eventually we decided to bring the prototypes of our own design that we had used during the development of the MU2. And we knew what our next big project would be…

The unusual setup in Munich impressed many visitors and we were even rewarded with a "Best Sound of Show" award. For the PA1 amplifier design we took the concept of our prototype even further. Numerous listening tests were performed and various improvements found their way into the schematics. The PA1 is now a serious step up in sound quality from our prototype, so you can imagine at what level it plays…

Of course the industrial design had to become something special too. We asked Michiel Uylings of MU1, MU2 and PW1 fame to draw his ‘mono block’ statement and it’s become a real gem.

This time the MU2 will take the servant role and be the source and pre-amp for our PA1. Needless to say that the aspects that make the MU2 such a unique musically and emotionally involving piece of equipment are also taken into account in the PA1 design. Imagine a full signal chain where all these aspects add-up in bringing the music to your ears…

Stay tuned as we will reveal some more details in a later post.

Continue reading in the blog: https://www.grimmaudio.com/news/pa1-premiere-at-the-vienna-high-end-show/

01/05/2026

Peter’s vinyl corner - Famous Blue Raincoat

It may be a record you never heard of. Or you've got it in your collection but didn't play it for a long time. It was issued in 1987. If you don't have it or if you can't find it, don't worry: there are over 500 on Discogs.

I am talking about Jennifer Warnes' LP “Famous Blue Raincoat”. A beautiful record in more than one sense. First, it is beautifully recorded, absolute top quality. The LP version is slightly warmer and more 'alive' than the digital ones. It's a joy to play it, every time.

Then the tracks. All these songs were written by Leonard Cohen. I admire his work and many of his later performances are impressive, moving. But I love the interpretations by Jennifer Warnes on this record. She sings full of emotion and devotion. Which is not surprising as she sang backing vocals on quite a few of Cohen's own recordings so she knows him and his songs well.

I'll name a few songs. “First We Take Manhattan” reflects the optimism of the seventies and early eighties of last century for a better world. However, that hope started to collapse rapidly by 1986 when the song was written, so it sounds ironic, a bit cynical even. But the text is funny.

“Famous Blue Raincoat” is about a three-cornered relationship devoid of any reproach. On the contrary: the I-person is grateful to the third person in the relationship for helping his girlfriend getting back on her feet.

Then “Joan Of Arc”. To me this is the masterpiece on this record. It is beautiful, it is confusing, it is deeply moving. And Cohen joins Warnes here in a duet. The story goes that when Cohen learned that Warnes was recording this album, he got a bit restless and went to the studio to check for himself how it was going. And joined Warnes in this one song. He takes the role of the fire in the funeral pyre that is to be Jeanne d'Arc's fate but also destiny.

Enchanting record. A must-have.

Peter van Willenswaard

Read about the PW1 phono stage: https://www.grimmaudio.com/hifi-products/amplifiers/pw1/

24/04/2026

The press covered the large shows in the US and Canada AXPONA Audio Expo North America and Montréal Audiofest extensively and they also visited our demo rooms. Robert Harley of The Absolute Sound for sure was deeply impressed. He offered the LS1c & MU1 the Axpona ‘Best sound (for the money)’ award: “Grimm Audio LS1c loudspeaker and Grimm MU1 streamer system, noted for elegance and musicality”. We feel truly enormously honored by this.

Michael Lavorgna of Twittering Machines writes: “Eelco Grimm of Grimm Audio played a number of carefully curated tracks, I’m guessing one for Robert Harley from The Absolute Sound who was seated next to me including a 1980’s recording of José Carreras performing Ariel Ramirez’s Misa Criolla that was breathtaking through this relaxed yet highly resolving simple yet complex system.”

At the Montreal Audio Fest, Robert Schryer of Stereophile Magazine did a nice video interview with our local dealer François Lemay of Lemay Audio. Robert described his listening experience like this:

“The Grimm Audio system in this room at Montreal Audiofest 2026 was all about seamlessness, coherence, and balance—all that, and a big rich sound within a spacious, many-layered soundstage that was deep and stable with realistic tone and well-defined imaging throughout. There was also a virility to its presentation that made the music sound confident, solidly anchored, and rhythmically spry.”

Continue reading in the blog: https://www.grimmaudio.com/news/robert-harley-axponas-best-sound-award/

07/04/2026

We exhibit at the well known AXPONA Audio Expo North America in Chicago, April 10-12. Eelco Grimm and our sales director North America John-Paul Lizars will make sure you get a great demo in room 1530. Experience the elegance and unparalleled performance of the LS1c digitally controlled loudspeaker with SB1 motion feedback subwoofer and MU1 digital audio streamer, an ‘all-in-one’ high end audio system.

Grimm Audio’s MU2 and MU1 streamers will also be featured in multiple partner rooms throughout the show:
1. Angie's Audio Corner/American Sound of Canada, Room 1615 / 1620
2. Bliss HiFi, Room 1526
3. 2WA Group, Room 480 / 484
4. Fern & Roby, Room 584
5. Harmonia Distribution, Room 402 / 404
6. Kubala-Sosna, Room 1540
7. Mon Acoustic, Room 1533
8. Upscale Audio, Schaumburg H
9. VAC / Acora Acoustics, Room 2 – Euphoria

02/04/2026

Peter’s vinyl corner - Wild Things Run Fast

While I was working on the design of the PW1 phono stage there were a few particular LPs that I used a lot to evaluate my progress. One of them was “Wild Things Run Fast” (GEF 25102) by Joni Mitchell, it came out way back in 1982. This LP is more accessible than many of her other records. Most songs are lessons for life, lessons from life. The music is mostly calm, even relaxing, with Larry Klein on bass and Wayne Shorter on soprano sax. One song is based on an epistle written by Paul 2000 years ago: 1 Corinthians 13, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud”.

The opening song of side 1 is Chinese Cafe / Unchained Melody. It is moving, Joni looks back on her life. While working on the PW1 I listened to this song quite a few times, as well as to Be Cool. The recording quality of the entire LP is beautiful, really excellent, and the songs never fatigue. Which makes it absolutely no punishment to listen to them multiple times.

During the design I had to decide which components to use. 50 years of experience is an important factor here, but also just looking at specs. And I measure quite a bit to see if a component technically does what I want it to do. But listening to resistors, capacitors, field effect transistor and what have you is the final and most critical step. And while listening to different capacitor options it suddenly struck me that the instrumental intro of Chinese Cafe is uncannily revealing. It's the first 31 seconds, before Joni's voice comes in. It starts with a piano, in an eery atmosphere, followed by electric guitars and percussion. Most capacitors just passed the signal but some made the music sing in an enchanting way. Those found their way into the PW1 phono…

Peter van Willenswaard

Read about the PW1: https://www.grimmaudio.com/hifi-products/amplifiers/pw1/

29/03/2026

Ola Björling of the Ukiro Music Youtube channel got so deeply impressed by the amazing resolution of the LS1c/SB1/MU1 system that he invited Eelco Grimm for a (long) video interview. Together, they delved deep into the backgrounds of the LS1c design and of other Grimm Audio products. Please enjoy the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Eue2ORVum4

28/03/2026

Recently Ola Björling of the Ukiro Music Youtube channel published a series of active loudspeaker reviews and since Ola loves our MU2 so much he was eager to check out the LS1c with SB1 subs and MU1 source. He soon got deeply impressed by the amazing resolution of this system. Check out the review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynVHvRKaSI8. Some excerpts of his unique presentation:

“The Grimm LS1c's are in many ways an assault on compromise, an effort to do away with as many performance glass ceilings as research and engineering allows. (…)

There is a degree of resolution here, not artificial sharpening and not spectral tilt and not distortions masquerading as texture, but true sonic information from the recording that makes me think of like videos of kids getting corrective glasses that lets them see their parents clearly for the first time. (…)

The reverb retrieval is exponentially better than anything else I have ever heard. Yes, that is a bold sentence, but I stand by it. It's not just like the amount and the length of reverb, but its color and texture and dimensionality. It's like an entirely new layer of the music has been made available. (…)

The thing about these is that the glass ceiling of performance potential isn't just lifted, it's shattered. It's gone. (…)

With the very best recordings, something happens here that I don't quite know how I can go through the rest of my life not having access to. I've only had this feeling once before in my life, and that's when I got into high-end in the first place.”

Continue reading in the blog: https://www.grimmaudio.com/reviews/ukiro-music-ls1c-shatters-the-glass-ceiling/

In the past months Ola Björling achieved great succes with his Ukiro Music Youtube channel. Recently he published a series of active loudspeaker reviews and since Ola loves our MU2 so much he was eager to check out the LS1c with SB1 subs and MU1 source. He soon got deeply impressed by the amazing r...

18/03/2026

We team up with our Montreal dealer Lemay Audio to present our products at the great Montreal Audiofest show on March 20-22. Grimm Audio’s sales director North America John-Paul Lizars welcomes you to a wonderful demo of our active LS1c, SB1 and MU1 system. And in a second demo room the MU2 and PW1 take center stage in a system with Tenor amplification and Dayton Wright loudspeakers. So don’t forget to check out rooms 1216 and 1218 of Hotel Bonaventure at the Montreal Audiofest in Canada!

Continue reading in the blog: https://www.grimmaudio.com/events/grimm-audio-at-montreal-audiofest-2026/

13/03/2026

Martijn ten Napel and Yung Lie of the web magazine Alpha Audio in The Netherlands loved to review the MU2 a second time to check out its new firmware that offers both UPnP and Tidal Connect functionality. They then took the chance to also test the MU2’s performance with CD transports and headphones.

Martijn was seriously surprised by the sound quality of our Tidal Connect implementation (which is coded in house by our software team). He also enjoyed himself using our free Polder Sunrise album, to test whether his sources offered a bit-perfect transfer. We copy some excerpts of the review by Martijn and Yung below, but don’t forget to read the full article at the Alpha Audio website.

“The hallmark of the Grimm MU2 is its completely effortless, transparent sound. Everything you can imagine about the sound of a DAC or CD player does not apply to the MU2. The player does not sound ‘digital’, but it also sounds different from a turntable. It is reminiscent of listening to a live concert broadcast through a very good FM receiver from the last millennium. That also sounded so effortless and close, as if the orchestra was plucked from the air. (…)

With headphones:

“We experience a naturalness in the music reproduction that turns out not to be so natural at all when we connect a different headphone amplifier. The MU2’s control over the Yamaha YH5000 is evident in the bass reproduction, something that planar headphones do not excel at. The timing is so good that it is not noticeable. Only when we listen to other DACs and amplifiers do we hear that the MU2 creates so much space between the notes. Between the instruments. Between silence and non-silence. We are really there. (…)”

“Lucky owners of a Grimm MU2 can rejoice with this new firmware, which makes their music player even better and more versatile. It also shows potential buyers that purchasing Grimm Audio equipment is sustainable, even in the digital age.”

Continue reading in the blog: https://www.grimmaudio.com/reviews/alpha-audio-mu2-has-completely-effortless-transparent-sound/