Weekly Q&A Answers | 4/10/2023

Greetings!

Q: I have a Roon Nucleus based system that feeds a dCS Bartók via the built-in ethernet Bridge. Is there any benefit to switch out the Nucleus with a Grimm MU1?

-Vince

A: Great question! Generally we would think adding the Grimm (or similar) will not help because most of the timing of the system happens in your Bartok. But to check if we were missing something about the Bartok architecture, we asked dCS for their input. Here’s what they say:

“Systems such as the Grimm are not network end points like the Roon. Since the Bartok is a music server and streamer, and operates even without Roon or any server via Mosaic, products like the Grimm really don’t serve a very good technical purpose in a dCS system. 

Worse, they introduce jitter because they cannot be referenced to a master word clock. 

That said, music servers such as the Grimm do sound different, and some people like the sound.

We prefer the immediacy, transparency, and honesty of the simple approach of using the Bartok as a n…