Need an amp and DAC for Grado's, $1000 budget for both.

hmm, how bout the dacmini? its a dac and amp all in one box. has grain free, neutral sound and the extension is very good both ways.

lol, thats weird actually, a friend told me that tube amps generally don't work as well for grado cause of the low impedance...

I use Musical Fidelity M1 HPA(approx. ~US$1000) for my grado. It has build in DAC aswell, via USB.

Very low output impedance, less than 1 ohm. And has lots of power so if you get a harder-to-drive pair in the future it will suffice.

Good luck.

I know, it's pretty unknown. Think it's kind of wierd actually.

Think this is the only review I ever found.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio-visual/hi-fi-and-audio/amplifiers/musical-fidelity-m1-hpa-720752/review

You should really see if you could have a listen to it before you buy though. I did, and I loved it, still do.

Here's a picture of the inside:

http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/5511/dsc7658copy.jpg

Don't recommend this to anyone who really belives in "the more you put in a box the better" :)

The DAC is 16 bit I think. Some might think that's not enough. I think it's but if you don't, look elsewere.

The MAD Ear+ is a very good choice for the Grado/Alessandro headphone and a lot of other brand like Sennheiser HD-6xx. It's a transformer coupled so it has no problem driving low impedance phone. I also own the Dacmini with the 1 Ohm output option and pair very well with the MAD but sound very good by himself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deniall 

Looked at that and was considering it. However, I have read that tube amps are a lot more suited to Grado's so I was looking at maybe getting a MAD Ear+ HD and a dedicated DAC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tme110 


That's a blanket statement that is not true at all. Generally you would need a tube amp with an output tranformer (though that's not 100% the case either). Besides the MAD and grado are probable the most famous pairing here at head-fi.
I'd look into the MAD and though overkill power-wise I also very much like my grados with the nfb-10

Agreed.  I love my tube hybrid with Grados (Cavalli CTH in my case, though that's DIY so you'd have to build it or find a builder).

Also, unless someone is actually a design engineer who understands entire circuits, blanket statements made about "this is bad because of X design criteria" should be taken with a grain of salt.

Reminds me of a funny quote from RMAF last year.  Two actual electronic engineer PHDs were having a conversation about audio magazines and one said "Yeah, it's great to read critiques of my circuit topology from a guy who can't line up 2 AA batteries".

Oh, as far as DACs and amps, some of my absolute favorite DACs under $500 are the ones by iBasso.  The D12 is a great DAC that just happens to also have a good amp attached.  (Well, I haven't heard the D12, but have the D10 which is its predecessor and love it.)