[Tobes]

The Oppo looks like a fine value and interesting feature set. Someone in this thread has compared the Oppo with the m920 - don't think there was much in it sonically. If you're happy with the sound and features of the Oppo, then I'd stick with it (I haven't personally heard the Oppo).
In my case, I like the functionality of the m920 - specifically the ability to control 2 seperate power amps and the HP amp independently. In fact I don't know any other gear (outside pro circles perhaps) which offers this. I've found the m920 to be a quite neutral and revealing preamp. Oh yeah, I want balance control too - hardly any gear offers this feature - and the Grace implementation is elegant and, again, independent for both of the line and HP outs. 

 

[ViperGeek]

  Does it work via USB with Android / iOS mobile devices  without powered USB hub?

 
Yes, it works perfectly with my Galaxy S7 Edge and an OTG cable without a powered hub.  Android 6 (and IIRC, 5) supports the m920 natively, although I prefer driving it with USB Audio Player PRO.
 
- Dave

 

[Tomasz2D]

  Yes, it works perfectly with my Galaxy S7 Edge and an OTG cable without a powered hub.  Android 6 (and IIRC, 5) supports the m920 natively, although I prefer driving it with USB Audio Player PRO.

 
Very good news, thank you. So I hope m920 should also work with iPad without displaying “attached accessory uses too much power" alert.

 

[supabayes]

Doesn't work for both my iPad Air and iPhone 6 using the apple camera kit. Too much power protest.

 

[BobJS]

  So, this is a tough thread to break into, but with all due respect, what are you guys hearing in the Grace that I'm not in the Oppo HA-1? The HA-1 has a class A preamp section as well as XLR out and ins. It uses a balanced headphone output, and a power supply that appears (from photos on Google images) far more robust than the Grace. It seems that the Grace might be more comparable to my Teac UD-301, which is actually a complete giant killer IMO. I'm eyeballing the Grace on Massdrop because I'm a gear junkie, but I'm wondering if I've already reached the point of diminishing returns. Any Oppo HA-1 AND Grace 920 owners out there that have made a fair comparison? 

 
The Oppo is nice in the feature set all in one thrifty package.  I was never thrilled with the quality of the high frequencies on mine.  After I got the m920, I sold my Oppo.  An A/B test between the two crushed the Oppo sonically.  YMMV

 

[Xyrium]

Thanks guys. My system is a revolving door of equipment, so I'm always curious about the next big thing. The m920 is only a few hundred more than the Oppo, so selling the Oppo and the Teac would be fine with me if the the Grace truly crushes them. Now I have to check one out! Thanks for feeding the addiction!
 

   
The Oppo is nice in the feature set all in one thrifty package.  I was never thrilled with the quality of the high frequencies on mine.  After I got the m920, I sold my Oppo.  An A/B test between the two crushed the Oppo sonically.  YMMV

 
 

 
The Oppo looks like a fine value and interesting feature set. Someone in this thread has compared the Oppo with the m920 - don't think there was much in it sonically. If you're happy with the sound and features of the Oppo, then I'd stick with it (I haven't personally heard the Oppo).
In my case, I like the functionality of the m920 - specifically the ability to control 2 seperate power amps and the HP amp independently. In fact I don't know any other gear (outside pro circles perhaps) which offers this. I've found the m920 to be a quite neutral and revealing preamp. Oh yeah, I want balance control too - hardly any gear offers this feature - and the Grace implementation is elegant and, again, independent for both of the line and HP outs. 

 

[Dreaming Jester]

For all interested - there's a new firmware version (1.4) which fixes a bug with exclusive output mode (the setting is now maintained through power cycle).
 
http://www.gracedesign.com/products/m920/m920.htm

 

[Tobes]

For those wishing to extract the maximum potential from their m920, and using a computer for source, I highly recommend checking out HQPlayer.
HQP allows the user to experiment with numerous oversampling filters and dither methods etc (and much more). There's an awesome improvement in detail/focus/spaciousness compared to the standard m920 filter options - with just ordinary 16/44 material.

 

[Dreaming Jester]

  For those wishing to extract the maximum potential from their m920, and using a computer for source, I highly recommend checking out HQPlayer.
HQP allows the user to experiment with numerous oversampling filters and dither methods etc (and much more). There's an awesome improvement in detail/focus/spaciousness compared to the standard m920 filter options - with just ordinary 16/44 material.

HQPlayer is well known in the community. How do you manage your library though?

 

[Tobes]

 
HQPlayer is well known in the community. How do you manage your library though?

Yeah, I'm a bit late to the party - I really didn't expect a software player would make this much difference. Previously using A+ - which has proven better sounding than JRMC and Amarra for me - but filters in HQP have proven a revelation.
I'm currently using HQP with Roon - last few days of my trial. While I'm not exactly in love with Roon it's growing on me and appears to be the best option for integrating Tidal with HQP on a Mac. Do you have any other suggestions?

 

[Dreaming Jester]

 
Yeah, I'm a bit late to the party - I really didn't expect a software player would make this much difference. Previously using A+ - which has proven better sounding than JRMC and Amarra for me - but filters in HQP have proven a revelation.
I'm currently using HQP with Roon - last few days of my trial. While I'm not exactly in love with Roon it's growing on me and appears to be the best option for integrating Tidal with HQP on a Mac. Do you have any other suggestions?

Unfortunately not. I use neither. Sticking with Audirvana which is getting better, although I've tried HQP. Is there a way the sound benefits of HQP (if we assume it's better than A+) be paired with convenient library management but not necessarily subscription services?  

 

[Tobes]

 
Unfortunately not. I use neither. Sticking with Audirvana which is getting better, although I've tried HQP. Is there a way the sound benefits of HQP (if we assume it's better than A+) be paired with convenient library management but not necessarily subscription services?  

I was satisfied with A+......maybe I should never have listened to HQP(?).
BTW, it's definitely better than A+ with the m920 IMO.
 
Some prefer the tree type directory of the basic HQP window for lookup of locally stored music - it's easy to find albums, but not 'pretty' I guess. HQP also has a full screen GUI which some will prefer - though I find A+ much easier to use.
I know there are classical buffs with large collections that hate the tile structure of the Roon library and prefer the simple tree structure used by HQP for quick drilling down to individual albums.
I'm hooked on Tidal and Roon appears  to have the best sorted solution for Tidal with HQP.

 

[Tobes]

BTW, these are the settings I'm using with HQP and the m920 - it's the minimum phase x8 up sampling filter with optimised pre/post echo used with 5th order noise shaping. If you like finger style guitar, this setting sounds superb! The transient precision, immediacy and musicality are addictive.
***EDIT: I haven't found this setting to be optimal across genres. I didn't particularly care for it on rock for example. A better starting point for experimentation may be the 'poly-sinc' linear phase filter and the basic TPDF dither. Maybe its the NS5 noise shaping which may be bothersome, the TPDF dither with 'poly-sinc-shrt-mp' filter may be better. 

 

[Dreaming Jester]

  BTW, these are the settings I'm using with HQP and the m920 - it's the minimum phase x8 up sampling filter with optimised pre/post echo used with 5th order noise shaping. If you like finger style guitar, this setting sounds superb! The transient precision, immediacy and musicality are addictive.

 
Thanks, Tobes. I'll try them. Downloaded HQP and looking at the UI again with rather mixed feelings. But what about if someone is not so into this upsampling and filtering stuff? Is there any real advantage then compared to other players? BTW, using these software settings, your m920 hardware PCM filter is?

 

[Tobes]

   
Thanks, Tobes. I'll try them. Downloaded HQP and looking at the UI again with rather mixed feelings. But what about if someone is not so into this upsampling and filtering stuff? Is there any real advantage then compared to other players? BTW, using these software settings, your m920 hardware PCM filter is?

I have the minimum phase filter set with the m920 - that was my preference of the 3, I like clean transients. The HQP filter has a far more positive and dramatic effect than any of the hardware filter settings on the m920.
 
I also have the Schiit Yggdrasil which has a complex proprietary filter built on a Sharc processor. I initially used HQP with the Yggy with all the HQP filters/noise shaping turned off and compared to A+ - just straight 16/44 - I still found HQP more immediate and transparent. This surprised me and was not what I was expecting. 
 
FWIW, using HQP with the m920 makes it far more competitive with the Yggy in my system - on some music I prefer it, but I'm still comparing.

Spoiler: HQPlayer - OT

This is just some basic observations  - which will be old hat to many - but I thought it might be worthwhile providing some sort of explanation for the use of HQP with the m920. Obviously there are more in depth and better explanations elsewhere. I have no affiliation with HQPlayer other than being a customer.

Firstly the main rationale for using HQP is the filter options - but why use these with the m920 and what is the advantage?
Well, apparently Jussi at HQP has spent the best part of a decade optimising these filters for implementation with a computer - which usually has a lot more computational resources than commonly available on a dac or add-on DSP chip.

Of course the dac will still utilise a filter but, if HQP is set to the dac maximum processing frequency, only for the much higher (upsampled) data passed on to it.
In the case of the m920, the dac will get 352.8/384 so the basic filter used by the dac is much further out of the audio band than with common PCM files and should have less detrimental effect.

What this effectively means is that HQP is providing all the filtering for commonly available audio rates (I personally don't have any audio stored at 352.8/384 and the vast majority of what is available and what I listen to is 16/44).
HQP will also convert PCM and upsample to highest DSD frequency available with the dac, but since the m920 uses DoP this didn't seem to make much sense for my purposes - since practically everything I listen to is PCM (apart from a few DSD samples).