Grace m902: Headphone synergy?
Oct 21, 2008 at 11:37 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 18

xenithon

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Hi all. I had a brief question to anyone who owns, has owned, or has had experience with the Grace Design m902. I'd like to gauge how well it did with various different types of headphones. From what I have read it does particularly well with the SA5000, but I'm keen to find out what other headphones people have found to have synergy with the m902.

Of particular interest are the following (though any other impressions would be most welcome:
- Denon (D5000/D7000)
- Audio Technica (ATH-AD2000, ATH-W11JPN, ATH-W2002)
- Grado (GS-1000)
- JVC (DX1000)
- Sennheiser (HD650)

Cheers,
X
 
Oct 22, 2008 at 6:56 AM Post #3 of 18
Thanks Danny - did you use that combo strictly for rock, or did it perform well with more gentle/fragile material like classic and vocal?
 
Oct 22, 2008 at 7:52 AM Post #4 of 18
From my personal experiences, m902 was designed for HD650 and it works very well with it, followed by GS1000 which also has good synergy.

However, since m902 was originally from studio production company, it comes with panasonic caps, smd opa2134 which I greatly recommend to modify grace m902 for audiophile listening. For starter, you should at least change opamps for optimal sonic amplification like this:

i/iv opamps: opa2604 but would be best for opa627bp but needs a lot of work (from opa2134)
output opamps for pre-out and headphone: ad8620 (from opa2134...again)

Furthermore, maybe better caps:

analog/supply caps: blackgate (maybe mixed nichicon, elna and wima if sold out)
digital caps: sanyo oscon

Lastly, separated power supply, superclock mod, re-wiring, etc. as as you wish
smily_headphones1.gif
 
Oct 22, 2008 at 10:29 AM Post #6 of 18
Fellow member "Soundnista" has the above Dac and the Dx1000 and D5000 phones, so Pm him as he has direct experience.
 
Oct 22, 2008 at 3:53 PM Post #8 of 18
That's surprising to read. Everything has read has been the opposite - the DAC being good but perhaps not outstanding, but the HP amp truly excellent.
 
Oct 26, 2008 at 12:12 PM Post #9 of 18
i tend to have a very different taste than the majority of head-fi. for example, benchmark dac-1 i found it quite sterile and not very enjoyable where as a lot of people swear by it as 'high end'. perhaps my finding should be taken with a grain of salt. i found the grace dac to have a nice flow and coherence. the amp section sounded slow with weak mids which really threw things off for me.
 
Oct 27, 2008 at 8:28 AM Post #10 of 18
Did you perhaps get to try them independantly? That is, analog signal to the amp section alone; and DAC section out to external amp?

I too found the DAC-1 sterile and lifeless.
 
Oct 27, 2008 at 12:13 PM Post #11 of 18
yes because when i plugged the fones directly into the grace it was mediocre at best, then i tried the analog out to a ppa and got good result. so i got curious and plugged in a wadia 301 and i pretty much lost interest in the grace at that point.
 
Oct 27, 2008 at 4:36 PM Post #12 of 18
Quote:

when i plugged the fones directly into the grace it was mediocre at best


Hmmmm, not very promising, though it certainly is the first time I have come across such negative impressions. What headphones were you using at the time?
 
Oct 28, 2008 at 6:36 AM Post #15 of 18
That depends on the system configuration as well, like different CDPs or DAP, cables, DAC, power cords, power conditioning, etc.
 

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