Products of the Year

Grimm MU2 streaming preamplifier
($17,500; reviewed by Kalman Rubinson in Vol.47 No.8, August 2024 review)

Weiss Engineering Helios D/A processor
($21,995; reviewed by John Atkinson in Vol.47 No.3, March 2024 review)

FINALISTS (in alphabetical order)
Cambridge Audio MXN10 streaming D/A processor
($499; reviewed by Tom Fine in Vol.47 No.5, May 2024 review)
dCS Lina D/A processor
($13,500; reviewed by Herb Reichert in Vol.47 No.5, May 2024 review)
TEAC VRDS-701T CD transport
($2699.99; reviewed by Herb Reichert in Vol.47 No.9, September 2024 review)
Totaldac d1-unity D/A processor
(€11,500; reviewed by Alex Halberstadt in Vol.46 No.12, December 2023 review)

The joint winners are from European companies headed by engineers with notable records in designing high-performance digital products: Daniel Weiss and Eelco Grimm.

The Roon-Ready Helios is similar in appearance to the company's 502 processor, which JA reviewed in 2020, but the Helios uses Weiss's proprietary discrete operational amplifiers in the analog output stage to enable it to drive headphones as well as preamplifiers and power amplifiers. (A headphone adapter cable is necessary.) The comprehensive DSP options now include settings for use with headphones. Using a variety of amplifiers, loudspeakers, and headphones, with USB, Ethernet, and S/ PDIF input data, JA noted that the Helios echoed the DAC502's extraordinary clarity but with an enhanced sense of involvement with the music. The measured performance was also superb.

Three decades ago, JA chaired a seminar at a show entitled "Accuracy or Musicality?" Choosing a product that favored one or the other may have been necessary back then, he wrote in the conclusion to his review, but in 2024, it isn't necessary to choose: "The Weiss Helios shows you can have both."

Packaged in the same chassis as Grimm's MU1 file server, which was a Joint Digital Product of 2021, the MU2 adds a DAC and an analog "preamp" with balanced and unbalanced inputs and outputs, as well as a headphone output and a volume control. The MU2 can also be used as a Roon Core/server. Kalman Rubinson auditioned almost every combination of inputs and outputs and concluded that the Grimm MU2 "is a bang-up success. It combines cutting-edge digital processing and digital-to-analog conversion with a Roon Core and a remarkably transparent volume control and input/output selector. It would be an ideal central element in a sophisticated stereo system in which streaming and file playback are the most important music sources but where other sources, analog or digital, are supported without compromise. The MU2 is not inexpensive, but it offers completely satisfying sound and flawless ergonomics."

Notes on the vote
Two products from England and one each from Japan, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands went head to head in this category. The final two, the Weiss and Grimm, scored the same number of votes, with the dCS and TEAC not far behind. It was gratifying to see the high-value Cambridge streaming D/A processor make it through to the second round of voting.