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November 20, 2011 - 3:15pm
#1
Grace m903
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Hi-
John has the m903, but I don't know in which issue his Follow-Up will appear.
As far as "not up to snuff," I am not sure what you meant. The m903 is not as good a DAC as Bricasti's M1, which costs more than 400% as much. $8000 versus under $2000. I don't think that equals "not up to snuff."
Of the HPA/DAC units I have auditioned, the m902 was my favorite and as I said, the m903 improved upon it in nearly every way.
So please stop worrying or obsessing. And "For the Love of God, Montresor," don't sell the m903. If you want to experiment with power cords and input cables and footers (such as Cardas or Ayre Myrtlewood blocks), feel free.
JM
John has sent me the Grace m903 for measurement and I will be publishing a Follow-Up in the New Year.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
I'll look forward to the follow up.
I considered that I might come across as obsessing or worrying, but that is really not the case. I just like thinking about how my gear choices compare to the the many other competing products, and since I don't get as many chances as I'd like to do my own comparisons, my first post was intended in part to spur other opinions .
BTW- I really missed attending the RMAF this year, because that event always gives me a lot to think about.
I went over to a friends house the other day, primarily to do some speaker/room response measurements for him. Since I was bringing my netbook with music files with me, I also brought the Grace m903 along. He has a much better sound system than I do (bi-amped heavily modified and fortified Magnapan 1.6's and Rythmik Subs with a three way active crossover unit), and it also includes a very nice turntable setup which he greatly prefers to his digital source, a Cambridge 840C CDP. We hooked up the Grace DAC and used it to compare the analog vs, digital versions of a few albums. The analog versions of the ones we tried seemed the winners for richness and texture, though a couple hi-rez files sounded great.
What I came away with was that I have some components of my system that I can clearly improve on, but the m903 is fine for now. I have a much better idea of what the Grace DAC is capable of after this.