Massdrop x Grace Design Standard DAC SDAC

I was interested in this until I got to that final bit at the end.

I am not going to wait 9-10 months for this product. Even at $150.

 

I find it best to just buy used when first units ship and people decide they don't want them.

 

I haven't minded long Massdrop lead times up to now, but 9 months does seem a tad ridiculous. It's almost like an experiment in lead time elasticity.

 

This is exactly what I did with USB-powered DACs in my recent past. Chord Qutest is not quite the same because it has separate USB-power and USB-source. Meridian Director is the same concept, using USB for both power and source (and was quite sensitive to USB noise) so the Wyrd worked flawlessly.

 

This would seem especially so in light of the rate of change in dac technology that appears to be continuing apace, though the time-value of the low purchase price mitigates this a bit.

 

Agreed. I was about to pull the trigger when I saw the shipping times. This isn't a video game pre-order. :/

 

I might join. Wait doesn't bother me that much. If they were keeping stock instead of a pre-order it would cost +$200 and last I checked my savings account doesn't have a 44% APR.

 

From the AK4452 datasheet, the DAC chip has differential outputs. So the output stage is not doing SE -> BAL conversion. It doesn't have a mono mode like other chips so you can't really do 1 chip/channel like with the AK4490.

 

You quit the payday loan business?

 

Read the Massdrop discussion for whatever reason and the top complaint seems to be that they wish it was bigger (like the RDAC) so they can stack it with the CTH and Liquid Carbon. Ugh.

I don't think these numbnuts realize that the enclosure is usually the most expensive part

 

Just got mine... is it bad driving non-demanding headphones straight out of these? Using the HE400S and Pinnacle P1, these sound groovy, but not as refined as, say, a Saber DAC.

I am a bit worried how these will sound out of a tube/hybrid. Let's see on Monday when I have it together with the Aune B1.

There's one day shipping on these now.

 

You don't want to do that. It is designed to use with an amp.

Output says 150ohms.

 

I picked this up just for the hell of it. Have the SDAC and my Modi Multibit hooked up playing music at the same time to my Gilmore Lite mk2. Flicking a switch to go between both.

The SDAC sounds more detailed and holographic/3D to my ears. Can't find a single song or genre where it doesn't sound like that. Going back to the multibit just sounds a bit muffled. Not bad for $80, not bad at all.

 

For what it's worth, I have two Modi 3s and via USB from a Mac, I was surprised to prefer the SDAC. The highs on the SDAC are noticeably "sweeter" and more natural IMHO, and there's absolutely no sense of digital glare from the SDAC. The Modi 3 is quite good too, but it's only via S/PDIF that the Modi 3 loses a certain amount of digital glare in my system. The Modi 3 is also slightly more dry sounding in either configuration, and the SDAC slightly warmer/fuller, but that's a matter of taste. There's also a modest difference in the bass rendering of the Modi 3 and the SDAC which is hard to put into words, but I find the SDAC more natural in that area. Low level details are neck-and-neck. For $80, this is a phenomenal value IMHO. If anyone would have told me you could get this kind of natural playback for $80 a decade ago I'd be really skeptical; it easily outclasses the Benchmark DAC1 in terms of naturalness (not that the DAC1 was ever particularly natural sounding, but it did some things right -- I've never heard later iterations of the Benchmark lineup).