Frame it. If you're in the frame, you're likely guilty. Framed against my Laiv Harmony at just €200 extra, MU was initially more meh than meow. It lacked communicative conviction. It felt energetically homogenized so more gentrified than gung-ho. Mind you, everything was there. No notes were amiss. Nothing had fallen off the wagon, just a subtext of spunk and swagger. At first I thought that given its extra functionality of streamer + server with onboard SSD storage, I perhaps asked too much against a machine at virtual £ parity which does D/A conversion but naught else. Didn't something have to give? The suspicion seemed reasonable enough. Because I could and you'd want to know, I then doubled our outlay by clocking MU with its companion GX clock. Given its prior showing on the Z1+, I felt cynical at best but had nada to lose. Et voilà, the digital deities decided to dress down your crusty critic. In this connection GX clearly earnt its keep. Now worth €5'798 so double what the Laiv commands but also doing twice as much, Silent Angel's D/A conversion had levelled up. I still fancied the Singaporean for its particular combination of fruitiness, earthiness and detail but no longer felt deprived when switching over to the Taiwanese. That's not damning with faint praise. At this level in this category, distinctions are narrow. They don't erase preferences but those can easily fall through the cracks without direct A/B. I'll still say that MU is tuned for a somewhat mellower demeanour than the more rambunctious Harmony DAC. Invigorated by GX, this difference simply no longer telegraphed per se, just by contrast. There's also the implication of any status quo as that which we're intimately attuned to. It's this familiarity that's so keen to notice offset and label it less. But the same familiarity can quickly skip bail to set up shop elsewhere as long as it's close enough. Another MU factor was constant power. When it didn't turn off for days on end, it performed better than power cycling it daily.

Framed against our flagships from Denafrips, iFi and Cen.Grand, MU+GX wasn't as dense and soft. It expressed a more detail-first tuning that played closer to our Sonnet Pasithea or COS D1. Against them, Silent Angel's combo pricing was head-on competitive yet again added network streaming beyond my residents' pure D/A conversion. And, that lot drives linear power exclusively. This spoke loudly to team Taiwan's expertise with switching supplies of ultra-low noise. Whilst their SMPS puts significantly less stuff in the box to look rather emptier than my crammed-like-sardines kit, there's no arguing the results without having Silent Angel's external linear supply. I suspect that might shift the more speed/detail-first balance deeper into mass and warmth. Again, the uptick delta with the external 10MHz clock was unexpected. I heard more microdynamic twitch, image focus and pace, rhythm 'n' timing. My inner cheapskate was admittedly constipated over ponying up for four independent master clocks whilst only using one. 'Whatever works' felt rather more lenient. What its sonics had levelled up to caused no invoice disputes, just endless arguments over which micro flavour wins our nod on any given day. Picking from many proximate sideways moves can be that capricious. Think bio rhythm and phases of the moon. It's nothing to hang a review conclusion on.

Arriving at that now, our household's WiFi allergy loudly applauds Silent Angel's implementation of zero-hassle UPnP out of the box. After the roundabout work to enable the Rhein Z1+ which had arrived insisting on wireless networking, their engineers had quickly responded to my minority report. The Munich MU thus delivered with UPnP functionality built in. It showed up instantly on our LAN and proved rock stable. Cue the Ode of Joy for hardwired fossils. Hi-res fans will applaud 768/1'024 support of PCM and DSD. Those with large local libraries have the USB host ports. Upgrade strategists have the USB-Audio port to connect to an external DAC and convert MU to a pure digital transport with built-in storage. Stylists and fashionistas should appreciate the sleek form factor and flawless finishing. The Munich MU is a suave ambassador for modern minimalist hifi. That does more with less but still amuses traditional high-enders with its built-in expansion potential for external clocks, external storage and external D/A conversion. We can keep it simple. We can play it more complex. The choice is ours.

This being my first contact with the brand albeit three models deep in one go, they've clearly been quick to not just expand their portfolio from a single network switch but to step up to their wider region's competition. Silent Angel by Thunder Data Co. Ltd. have cleverly leveraged their in-house expertise in network engineering and code writing to contribute to our consumer audio market with attractive options and a complete hardware infrastructure for streaming listeners. Whilst educated members of the legacy PCfi brigade can achieve equivalent performance with audio-grade LAN distributors and a USB bridge bracketing their dedicated Mac or Windows machine with an Audirvana-type software player, such scenarios are diehard holdouts from when physical media first transitioned to ripped files. Today streaming services are the backbone of music playback. Most of its consumers began with Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Qobuz, Tidal & Bros. on a mobile device. To them the whole notion of involving a stationary PC is so terribly last century. Hence most suppliers in this category no longer really bother to account for it; or require kludgy 3rd-party software. By integrating the four-letter word UPnP, Silent Angel now even accommodate the rare lecagy PCfi user. That's premium service. In closing, the Asian streamer triumvirate of Aurender, Hifi Rose and Lumin now stands four-square strong with Silent Angel. With so many choices just from that corner of the globe and HzProject around the bend, the consumer really is treated like royalty. Would Your Lordships care for some afternoon tea and scones now; and with gooseberry or rhubarb/plum jam, apricot/ginger or bitter orange marmalade?