m920

About the m920

The Grace Design m920 is a high-resolution monitoring system that combines a DAC, headphone amplifier, and stereo preamplifier for professional and audiophile use. It employs a 32-bit/384 kHz Sabre ES9018-2M DAC (Grace's M-Series implementation) and accepts stereo digital inputs via USB, AES3, S/PDIF, and TOSLINK, with automatic sample-rate detection and de-emphasis filtering. USB playback supports up to 384 kHz/32-bit PCM and DSD64/DSD128 via DoP, while AES3 and S/PDIF support up to 192 kHz/24-bit PCM and DSD64 via DoP. User-selectable DAC filter responses are provided for PCM and DSD, typically including fast, slow, and minimum-phase options. The analog section offers stereo analog inputs on balanced XLR (+4 dBu) and unbalanced RCA (-10 dBV), plus line outputs on RCA (unbalanced) and TRS phone jacks (balanced). The built-in headphone amplifier is a low-impedance design (approximately 1.2 ohm output, not 0.08 ohm as previously stated) capable of driving a wide range of headphones with very low distortion. The m920 uses a precision relay-based analog attenuator controlled by an encoder, with excellent channel matching (typically under 0.05 dB) and an attenuator range around 97.5 dB. Housed in a compact desktop chassis (1.7" H x 8.5" W x 8.25" D, about 5 lb / 2.2 kg), the m920 runs on 100-120V / 220-240V, 50-60Hz AC mains. It is regarded as a transparent, low-distortion, non-fatiguing monitoring solution suitable as a standalone DAC, headphone amplifier, or monitoring preamp.