Massdrop x Grace Design m9XX DAC/Amp Discussions | Drop

Sep 22, 2016

lazeruscentrance uses the same dac as the m9xx. Having not heard the dacport I can't say much but I doubt its implementation is as nice as the m9xx's. Regardless you should go with the schiit stack. If you get the modi make sure it is the multibit and enjoy the best dac for the price made, period. Now I own the m9xx but I can testify for the schiit. Honestly the schiit stack is a much better value imo and the magni will amp ANYthing you need at all. Honestly I'm using my m9xx now just as a dac for my schiit amp, lmao. And I want to sell it for the bifrost multibit. m9xx is great though for someone who likes a small form factor and isn't driving sennheiser or beyerdynamic headphones.

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Sep 22, 2016

WaahJotunheim is on par with the m9xx in terms of sound quality and use the akm 4490 chip. The Jotunheim though offers so much more. Balanced and single end. Can power absolutely anything and the m9xx can only power half the cans worth owning on the market. Just read the specs, the Jotunheim should ideally blow the m9xx out of the water. No they do, and I haven't even heard it. But I've heard enough schiit to know, it's good.

Waah

390

Sep 22, 2016

UzuzuGreat, definitely on my list if I get around to selling my Magni 2U and SMSL M8.

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Sep 22, 2016

UzuzuWith all due respect and your kindness for trying to give helpful advice, it's unfair to everyone for giving advice on products you never heard before.
"magni will amp ANYthing you need at all." Technically, all amplifier well, amplify anything. I think what you're trying to say is that it will drive everything you need. Even that it is not true. It definitely cannot drive Hifiman HE-6 for example. Driving it is one thing, driving them well is entirely different thing.
"isn't driving sennheiser or beyerdynamic headphones." Those two headphones are not very hard to drive in the sense that they require a lot of power. A Mojo(which is less powerful than M9xx) will power them sufficiently.
FYI, depending on the headphones in use, Magni is not much more powerful than M9XX, For example, into 32ohm load, Magni outputs 1.2W RMS per channel  while M9XX output 950 mW @ 32 Ω. Not a big difference. If 950 is not enough to drive a particular headphone, 1200 will not change much.
Again, we all know you're trying to be helpful and we thank you for that but be more careful about giving accurate advice. It's unfair to the product and to potential buyer.

MassEDU

182

Sep 23, 2016

ZhiwenUzuzu does that a lot. I've mentioned it to him before but he doesn't seem to care. He doesn't realize that some of his comments can be very misleading and baseless. Well replied.

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Sep 23, 2016

ZhiwenWith all due respect your examples make no objective sense.
magni will amp anything you need. Ok, and it will! If you're running an he-6 out of a magni you've lost your marbles! If an amp will amplify anything, than just use your smartphone. That is the logic you are using here.
While I'm at it the m9xx won't amp the he-6 well either, as well as most Sennheiser/Beyer cans and the like. We know that different headphones will receive either proper power or not from an amp or not. And what about the m9xx's power output compared to the magni at 300 Ohms, the magni puts out 260mw @ 300 Ohms and the m9xx 115mw @ 300? I'm merely pointing out the fact the m9xx doesn't have enough power to fully drive a lot of headphones on the market that are worth owning. That's it. You seem keen to point out flaws in what I'm saying despite the fact I'm sitting here looking at my schiit amp and my m9xx right next to it. I love my m9xx. I listen to IEMs and some headphone out of it. But for the rest I use a schiit amp for obvious reasons, the m9xx simply lacks I'll send dated pictures if you'd like.
And my advice is what I would call the most objective when it comes to wanting the best amp matching for your specific pair of headphone(s).
Either way the magni and the m9xx pale to that new Jotunheim. Cheaper than the m9xx yet more power than either and it can even drive those he-6's everyone has. Amazing. And it's even cleaner than the magni. If they had options for integrated multibit I would drop 800 dollars one one instantly. Maybe even a thousand because schiit deserves all my money.

Sep 23, 2016

Uzuzu"If an amp will amplify anything, than just use your smartphone. That is the logic you are using here." Read my whole point. I was saying magni can't drive all headphones. There are quite a number of planars that it can't drive properly.
"And what about the m9xx's power output compared to the magni at 300 Ohms, the magni puts out 260mw @ 300 Ohms and the m9xx 115mw @ 300?" I totally understand this. Yes M9xx is 2x more powerful @ 300ohms. But it's not fair to say that 115mw is not enough to drive. it's a good amount of power. Chord Mojo has less power but it can still drive 300 ohms headphones quite well. Also i was quoting at 32 ohms to point out that it's not fair to say that "m9xx doesn't have enough power to fully drive a lot of headphones on the market that are worth owning.". For those that have planars, M9XX power is not too far off a Magni. Unless you don't consider planars "worth owning." Even then, most people think planars are fantastic. I actually am not a big fan of planars.
I'm not agree or disagree with your other comments as they are your opinion and i respect that. I own Schiit products before and many other amplifiers so i do like them. My issue is mainly with some of your claims that are technical and objective. I think a more fair comment would be that M9XX is sufficiently powerful for most cases but if you like more dynamics, go for a desktop amp (whether it's magni or jotunheim or whatever else).
As a side note, power is not everything. Asgard 2 has a lot of power but very poor transparency and noise level. Mojo has way less power but it's many levels clearer. Try it for yourself. The main reason why very expensive amps are recommended is because of transparency and clarity that they give. As you mentioned, magni can drive almost anything so there's little reason so get anything more powerful.

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Sep 23, 2016

ZhiwenNot really talking about planars but the other 95 percent of headphones. For those purposes I think the magni even is better in terms of amplification than the m9xx. No actually, it is. I'm merely saying if you're running high impedance cans it isn't worth it out of the m9xx, that's all. And either way manufacturers seem to be making more sensitive headphones than not so the grace is going to be good enough for most headphones most of the time for most people. I'm just letting them know that yes their hd650s won't sound that good out of them.
Still the magni is cheap and the modi multibit is only 249 dollars and uses the same chip. Schiit is really stepping up here. I think the schiit stack is a much better value than the m9xx, and it's modular which is a plus. M9xx isn't that portable anyway and realistically is just going to be sitting on a desk 90 percent of the time. Might as well go for the schiit stack. But even then why not the Jotunheim. It can power any ortho, any iem, any dynamic, has a low noise floor and defeat the entire purpose of this conversation. Which is what is best value for the money.

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Sep 25, 2016

Uzuzu"Not really talking about planars but the other 95 percent of headphones." Planars are very popular. As popular as high impedance sennheisers.
"For those purposes I think the magni even is better in terms of amplification than the m9xx. No actually, it is. I'm merely saying if you're running high impedance cans it isn't worth it out of the m9xx, that's all." Okay. If you're saying that M9XX power is not sufficient for performance level of your taste, i'm not going to argue with that. That's your opinion. I personally enjoy that too. But a lot of people will disagree and are willing to accept less dynamic sound. That's the reality. It does't mean that they are less discerning user but they might be more sensitive to things like transparency and detail. So i think it's not fair to say that m9xx is not good enough. I think it's fairer to say that you like more power but you understand that most people are satisfied with less power.
"modi multibit is only 249 dollars and uses the same chip." Same chip as what? definitely not same as m9xx or jotunheim. The DAC chip used is not a good indicator of performance. Putting a ferarri engine in a corolla makes it a nightmare car.
"M9xx isn't that portable anyway and realistically is just going to be sitting on a desk 90 percent of the time. Might as well go for the schiit stack." Good point.
"But even then why not the Jotunheim. It can power any ortho, any iem, any dynamic, has a low noise floor and defeat the entire purpose of this conversation." Jotunheim DAC is not as good. You could use it with modi multibit but it takes a up significantly more space, and cost a lot more than m9xx. I think at the end of the day, they are all good options. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.

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Sep 25, 2016

Zhiwenjotunheim dac is an akm 4490 i believe. can't speak for it though but as an amp at least it's amazing. I would point out though the magni can run most planars anyhow.
modi multibit uses same chip as the m9xx but with better implementation hence the multibit. I really want a multibit dac, but I'm going to go for the bifrost multibit. I have so many headphones that need to be sold off, though.
really I want to keep my m9xx but currently if I use it to feed my lyr 2, so much electrical noise bleeds out in high or low power mode. My computer isn't that noisy I shouldn't need to buy something to clean up that power supply because the unit itself sucks. I'll note though that using the m9xx alone there is a very low noise floor and not much noise at all :p. But as a dac.... rip. Even worse is I've tried several cables so that isn't the issue. It's just bad at cleaning up that signal. Even my much cheaper odac outputs MUCH less noise as a usb dac. Honestly they don't sound far off between each other either.

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Stinkytofus

Sep 25, 2016

Zhiwenso what has an excellent amp, an excellent dac, at a sub $1500 price?

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Sep 25, 2016

UzuzuYup. Jotunheim uses dual AKM4490 for balance.
From the schitt website, these are the following DAC chip that they use. Modi 2: AKM AK4396 Modi 2 Uber: AKM AK4490 Modi Multibit: Analog Devices AD5547
It does't sound right that your m9xx is that noisy. i can't assist you in this since i do not have m9xx. Do note that if the DAC line out is too loud, the amp will clip produce a lot of distortion. It will sound broken.

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Sep 25, 2016

StinkytofusDefine 'excellent dac' ? What kind of performance are you expecting?
There are lots of good choices. Also, how much power do you need?
For that budget, i like Burson Audio Conductor V2+ and Marantz HD-DAC1 USB DAC Headphone Amplifier. They both have very good transparency and will do justice to the best headphones. There are obviously even better amps but the law of diminishing returns starts to hit hard at this point.

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Sep 25, 2016

Zhiwendac line out is a gain of 1. you also can't hear that noise much if at all unless i crank up my lyr 2 on high gain way past comfortable listening levels. Still it's disturbing, when even an ODAC revA puts out almost 0 noise under the same conditions.

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Stinkytofus

Sep 26, 2016

Zhiweni am using 250 ohms beyerdynamic dt770 and akg k7xx, from here, i have thought of getting the creative x7 for 300-400 but the qc issues worries me, i dont wish to use it for an year or two and it dies, my other solution was getting an internal sound card, but after listening to razer surround on vs off, i think i will like amp/dacs overall, the surround sounded bad on the akg k7xx, my question is which amp/dac is the best value for the buck, has an very good amp and dac, or is this it? and need to look no further at this price point for now?

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Sep 26, 2016

StinkytofusThe headphone you own are medium in power requirement. Look for amps that output at least about 500mw @32ohms. Anything more will improve the sound but nothing too significant. I personally like Chord Mojo. M9xx seems good too from reviews. Schitt Magni and Modi are good too. The m9xx and Mojo are a class or more above the schiit in terms of detail but not as powerful. If you don't plan to upgrade your headphones, i think the magni and modi are good options. I'm hesitant to recommend better and higher price options as i think more budget should be allocated to headphones. There is definitely improvements to be made with better source but bigger difference can be heard with headphones.

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Sep 26, 2016

ZhiwenI think he'd be better off with an asgard, it offers variable gain and allows him a lot more headphone pairing especially if he ever bought sennheisers, and both his headphones are a tad power hungry. Also if he gets more hard to drive headphones It's gonna amp ever so slightly better. that and a modi 2 multibit

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Michael_Grace

432

Grace Design

Oct 13, 2016

UzuzuSome thoughts on DACs I think it is instructive to think of a DAC as a mixer. The sound that comes out of it is a MIX of several inputs: Digital audio data at the serial input (your music) Artifacts from the digital filter Noise from the power supplies Noise from clock jitter on the master clock Distortion and noise from the analog output circuitry
Modern DAC ICs are extremely transparent. The biggest differences you will hear between various designs are a result of the circuits surrounding the DAC and not the IC itself.
As for headphone power levels and the m9XX... I am puzzled by the comments that the m9XX is not capable of driving high impedance phones. I use the HD600 and HD800 more than any other phones and spent plenty of hours listening to them during the development of the m9XX. I normally listen at levels between 85-90dB but sometimes will turn it up in to the mid 90s for limited periods. This still leaves more than 25dB of dynamic headroom for faithful transient and dynamics rendering. (in the rare case of a recording with that much dynamic range!)
I get that there will be folks who listen louder but to be pushing the limit of the m9XX on these phones certainly puts the listener in to permanent hearing damage territory. REMEMBER: There is plenty of medical evidence that sustained exposure to sound over 85dB will cause permanent hearing damage. At 1mW of output power the HD600 is already playing at 97dB, a level that will cause hearing damage in 30 minutes time. At 115mW that is 117dB
I guess there is a propensity for people to dwell on amplifier power specifications as a measure of quality. That may be true to a point, but I think the conversations really needs to be about protecting your ears for a lifetime of music enjoyment. The m9XX with HD600/HD650/HD800s greatly exceeds what is safe for your ears. Happy listening! -Michael

Oct 15, 2016

Michael_GraceNo, it has nothing to do with volume. I only listen at 65db or less usually. 70+ is rare for me. But there is something lacking in the fullness, most easily observed with the hd650. They just don't sound right having the m9xx drive them alone. I can volume match them vs my lyr 2 and that's fine, but even when I found a sub-50 dollar SMSL amp to drive my hd650s better than the m9xx I realize it has nothing to do with price at all. Nothing I didn't expect, of course. For low-impedance cans though of course it stomps the cheap chinese amp. And my m9xx picks up usb noise like it's going out of style, something even my odac at a fraction of the price doesn't. I wanted to use it as a source for my lyr 2 but it's looking like there's going to be a bifrost multibit sitting there soon. I just can't use the m9xx as a source when it's picking up so much noise from my pc. Thanks for the time.

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Michael_Grace

432

Grace Design

Oct 17, 2016

UzuzuHi Uzuzu, I can totally understand that the combination of the m9XX and HD650 may not be for everybody. My personal opinion is that the HD650 is a bit hyped on the high end and is less fun to listen to on a really accurate amplifier. I much prefer the HD600. But, from a technical stand point, I do not think it is an "inability to drive" issue. A 300 Ohm load is very easy for the m9XX unless you require high volume levels. As for the USB noise, can you elaborate? What is your setup? Is this when using the line outputs? Thanks! Michael

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