Massdrop x Grace Design m9XX DAC/Amp Discussions | Drop

Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions

Free Standard Shipping in the US on orders over $99

Showing 1 of 1093 conversations about:

Massdrop x Grace Design m9XX DAC/Amp

Audiophile

FULL DISCUSSION

fuzzybaffy

Nov 3, 2015

I'm kind of where Neotribal is, as well. Everything subjective about the m9xx, I actually really like. I don't know if this will get one of the reviewers in trouble, but I actually got a chance to listen to it before the m9xx was announced, and before the reviews came in, and while it was a short listen, what I remember about it was that I actually liked it. My memory of it is exactly as other people have written about it: it's a clean, musical (but not overly warm or colored), and relaxed sound. All the physical aspects of the device, I like as well. It's built well, the knob seems great to use, and the display is quite frankly, pretty awesome (it doesn't look like it in the pics, but it looks really nice in the unboxing video from Hifi-guy).
My only hesitation is, of course, the measurements from Purrin. I don't understand how it measures worse than a cheaper Schiit Modi/Magni combo. But then again, these are just measurements, which don't always tell the whole story. In my past experience, my subjective liking of something has almost always trumped feature sets or data or spec sheets (I purchased a Canon G7x over the Sony RX100M3, for example, because I love Canon jpeg colors, and I couldn't be happier).
What I do know for sure, though, is that it isn't going to be a $500 piece of ****. Because basically every review for this so far has been positive, even though it hasn't been "OMG THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING PIECE OF EQUIPMENT EVER". And has anything ever lived up to that hype in the history of the world? Seriously... Whatever product that gets hyped on the internet (products with thousands of ratings averaging 4.5 stars on Amazon, for example) rarely lives up to the hype. So I'm fairly certain even if there are products out there with much more hype, this won't be that much far behind. Still have a couple of days to think about it, though...

Nov 3, 2015

Freets

Nov 3, 2015

fuzzybaffyNeo's comment was the best so far on the thread and represents my feelings exactly as well...this is going to a top line DAC/amp in this price range. My only hesitation is with dual HP performance and perceive lack of power to drive two fairly hungry HP's. I very likely will need to wait till this hits the street to get some more perspective (and I'm banking on this dropping again very shortly after the first shipment...I'm sure Grace needs 500 orders to make this worth their while).

Nov 3, 2015