AXPONA 2025

It was good to catch up with Eelco Grimm and John-Paul Lizars before sitting down to hear the Grimm Audio LS1c two-way active speaker system with SB1 motion-feedback subwoofer ($38,000–$44,150/pair, depending on finish and tariffs).

In the April issue of Stereophile, Rogier van Bakel praised these actives as among the least boxy speakers he’d had in his listening room. He noted their excellent off-axis response and transparency, and wrote that “there’s not a genre the Grimms couldn’t do justice to with their panache and lack of coloration . . . the whole painting is there, each brushstroke exposed if you care to look . . . If I didn’t often have to swap amplifiers, preamps, source components, and cables for a living, I’d hold on to these exceptional monitors and enjoy the hell out of them for the rest of my days.”

Some readers, however, prefer measurements over subjective analysis. While many sonically distinct speakers measure similarly these days, John Atkinson called the Grimm Audio LS1c “the best-measuring loudspeaker I have encountered!”

In my too-brief time in the room, I heard beautiful, smooth timbres via a 32-bit/352.8kHz file of Patricia Barber’s “Trouble Is a Man,” from Clique! Bass was excellent, and the midrange was articulate and natural. Frequencies in the tricky 20–70Hz range sounded well controlled. On another track, from Todd Garfinkle’s fabled Será Una Noche, the system again delivered deeply refined, immersive sound—focused, uncolored, and rewarding enough to quiet the mind.

The LS1c system includes an excellent Grimm DAC. I didn’t get to hear Grimm’s PW1 solid-state phono preamp ($4900), which Eelco Grimm holds in the photo. Designed by company co-founder Peter van Willenswaard, it includes MC and MM cartridge inputs, RCA and XLR outputs, gain and load settings under the bottom plate, and copper-plated interior shielding. The turntable was a Dr. Feickert Volare fitted with an EMT HSD 006. Cabling between the PW1 and LS1c was Grimm’s own SQM XLR.