The Best Ears on Earth
We put the imersiv D-1 DAC to the ultimate test in the studios of over forty classical recording engineers, acoustic music producers, top mastering engineers, and film score composers — renowned experts with the finest listening acuity in the industry.
The result?
I must warn you — once you experience the D-1 DAC, going back to whatever you are currently using, no matter how much you paid for it, is going to be difficult.
Honestly, I can’t confidently identify any real differences in the sound quality of today’s professional high-end DACs. That opinion changed when I dropped the D-1 into my studio playback system. It’s not hype; this D/A is a game-changer. Its ability to provide depth and separation is breathtakingly 3D. I urge professionals and hi-fi enthusiasts to take a listen to the D-1.
John Cuniberti, Multi-Grammy awarded, countless platinum and gold record producer. Inventor of REAMP audio processing. Joe Satriani, Tracy Chapman, Sammy Hagar, Thomas Dolby, Paul Gilbert, Mickey Hart.
WOW!! Man, what a difference in dimension and resolution. Really incredible. Congratulations!!
Dennis Sands, Multi-Grammy awarded, Oscar-nominated film and music mixer with over 400 credited films, including Avengers: Endgame (2019, $2.8B) and Shawshank Redemption (IMDB #1 film).
This converter is like no other I have heard other than my M** DAC. But! Your converter takes it to another level. It combines all the elements of what we love about analog and what we love about digital. It’s truly the future. Sub bass clarity, top end quality, attack (punch/definition) and of course resolution are A+++. I could go on about my observations and benefits BUT the truth is as follows:
When the converter left my room and I went back to my Hot Rod System, I went into shock at how my chain was not as good as I thought. Beautiful Job!
Jack Joseph Puig, Multi-platinum, Multi-Grammy award winner — Green Day, Stones, Counting Crows, Diana Ross, Chaka Kahn, Clapton, Dire Straits, U2, etc.. https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jack-joseph-puig-mn0000117563#credits
It really is an insanely rare time that a piece of gear changes the landscape.
It’s in the detail and higher transients that I notice how good it is. A snare may sound nice on my B** convertor but with the imersiv I hear a clearer image of the edge of the attack. Cymbal crashes sound less harsh. Electric bass seems more defined. Wow! And acoustic guitar clarity; once again the edge of the note/string attack is more detailed and opens the sound up more.
Today, I mixed 3 songs through the D-1. Electronic-based darker pop music. I felt I was better equipped to place deep low synth parts. Mostly I was able to work faster, especially in iZotope RX11 where I was cleaning up vocals and some parts. Imersiv opens up the sound so much! I’m shitting bricks up here! This is stellar!
Larry Crane, Engineer / Producer. Founder and Editor, Tape Op Magazine
https://tapeop.com/issues/
Just wanted to let you know this DAC is astonishing. I’m working on a remaster of the classic Albert King/Stevie Ray Vaughn live album, “In Session.” Source was 30 IPS, 1/2 -inch 2-Trk mix masters. I’ve level matched outputs on your DAC to the M****** DAC and I can select on the Maselec monitor control. The difference is truly amazing. The best way I can describe the difference is the M** DAC is like 35 mm film – beautiful in its own way. Your DAC is like switching to IMAX. The color, depth, and low-level detail is breathtaking. The M** sounds very muffled and lacking low level detail like room reverb and “air” around the vocal and sound in general.
This DAC is amazing, really, and I think you have breathed a whole new life into PCM! It’s mind blowing to me that this detail is actually already preserved in the PCM recording and this DAC is capable of retrieving it.
Paul Blakemore | multi-Grammy winning chief mastering engineer, Concord Music (a $5B music company)
We have dozens of DACs here, some of which are considered to be “the world’s finest”. Frankly, the sonic differences near the top of the line can be considered “incremental”. But that just changed. The imersiv D1 is exponentially better than all of those. My best recordings sound like good recordings on all those other DACs, but on the D1 they feel like live performances! The musicians are transparently right in front of me! The D1 somehow captures the dynamics, ambience, impact, transients and three-dimensionality of real life. You’ve spoiled me. It’s a new listening standard which has reset all my expectations.
Then I measured the D1 with my Spectraplus analysis system, just to see the numbers. The D1 noise floor and distortion is so low that I had to use special techniques to measure it. It exceeds the performance of “standard” DACs by orders of magnitude, so my ears definitely weren’t fooling me!
Bob Katz, Recording, mixing, mastering engineer on hundreds of records, including three Grammy winners, author “Mastering Audio: The Art and Science” (in 3rd printing), Paquito D’Rivera, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Livingston Taylor… Inventor of the K-System and the K-Stereo process
I am completely blown away. This is how recordings should sound. It’s like the artists are here in my studio with me. All the passion and breath I remember from the sessions. The Imersiv is not going back!
Cookie Marenco, Five-time Grammy Producer nominee (Windham Hill), musician / producer / engineer. CEO, Blue Coast Records. Tony Furtado, Charlie Haden, Tony Levin, Ralph Towner, Paul McCandless, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Art Lande, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Mark Isham.
https://bluecoastrecords.com/
This is a great accomplishment. Congratulations. I’ve yet to hear anything, including in cost no object audiophile setups, that offer this much clarity and detail while maintaining the proper tonal balance.
I’ve attached some tracks that I’ve been using for auditioning. All things that I recorded and have heard 1000 times. Where I hear the biggest difference is at the beginning of notes. Whether it’s the vibration of a bassoon reed, the attack of a harp or the silvery sound of gut on strings, the detail is amazing yet natural. The same thing can be said about the depth and imaging — amazing! Yet entirely natural.
My most dramatic ‘Wow’ moment was listening to the first DSD track. It’s a very simple song with two sops and two altos, a male voice joining for the chorus. Again, it’s in the stark realism and depth of attack. My “big3” = G**, C** and M** all sound slightly foggy in comparison.
Brad Michel, multi-Grammy, multi-every-audio-award-winning engineer/producer https://www.bradmichel.com/about
The imersiv D-1 DAC is, in a word, outstanding — it’s truly in a league of its own. On first audition, the space, depth, and width are all immediately stunning, but what is really beautiful about this converter is how it sounds on a deep and lengthier listen — the clarity is terrific, it’s not over-hyped, artificial, or fatiguing, it’s very natural. Overall, this unit handles every genre with ease and has already rightfully earned its place in my arsenal.
Emily Lazar, Grammy awarded mastering engineer, The Lodge, with over 4,000 mastering credits, including 3 Album of the Year nominations in the same year.
I’m stunned at how incredible this converter is. I am mixing a Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) record on it at the moment. I am trading off between it and my H** and S**. I have been mixing for about an hour on each converter and then switching to see if I notice. D-1 has more clarity with very dense material and does not get colored when driven hard. Hey, I don’t want to let this thing go.
The other day I had the live and studio engineer from Megadeth at the studio for some mastering. We ran the master through my normal DAC and then compared it with the Imersiv. The difference was obvious, not just with reverb tails but with the overall sound. Again, I feel like the converter works magic with metal. Dense material. It maintains realistic clarity whereas my other two converters get a tad more closed.
Brendan Duffey, multi-Grammy winning, multi-platinum mastering and mixing engineer. http://www.brendanduffeyaudio.com/about.html
Quick note to say imersiv D-1 is in rotation at Sterling. Layers of detail in familiar songs kind of shocked me and one of my junior engineers that I grabbed to listen. I’m shocked and a bit baffled that it’s able to resolve the extra timbral and spatial detail considering the rather compromised source I was using from my DAW. But holy smokes it’s doing something that’s really impressive. The D-1 is mostly living in Greg Calbi’s room where he’s enjoying the wide-open view into the better mixes he receives.
Phillip Sztenderowicz, Chief Technical Engineer, Sterling Sound, NJ (world’s largest mastering house) https://sterling-sound.com/
I’ve got no shortage of very high-quality converters here, and was always happy working with our P** and Pacific Microsonics units; but the D1 is on an entirely other level.
The atmospheric clarity and total absence of coloration is stunning. Low end definition is excellent, and the top end is transparent and revealing. Monitoring through the D1 has made EQ decisions faster and more definitive, and the results transfer beautifully. Across a wide range of projects — bluegrass, jazz, acapella vocal, Americana, hard rock, and good old Grateful Dead, the D1 has made my job easier—and remarkably—more fun. Kudos!
David Glasser, Multi-Grammy winning, multi-platinum Chief Engineer, Airshow Mastering, Grateful Dead, Dave Alvin, Sturgill Simpson, Robert Hunter, Yonder Mountain String Band, Robben Ford, Sam Bush https://airshowmastering.com/
I need to write this down. The Imersiv is like hearing my music library for the first time. It’s beyond astonishing.
Simon Franglen, multi-Grammy-winning composer with over 400 record and film credits, including six of the best-selling albums of all time and four films on the all-time top-20 grossing list, including Avatar: The Way of Water ($2.3B).
Just wanted to chime in here and say that, having listened to the DAC for several weeks on all kinds of material, I love what you’ve done here. My main criteria in evaluating new gear is “does this make it easier/more fun to get a great sound?” and “do clients notice an improvement?”. In this case it definitely makes working more fun and easier and the more discerning of my clients can definitely hear it! I work on a wide variety of music, mostly pop, R&B and so on, and it seems to work well on all genres. Describing sound is difficult of course but I would say the sound is elegant and beautiful. It’s a bit wider than the other options in the rig, I suppose because the ambient information is clearer. In general, I almost feel as though it “repairs” poorly recorded vocals, guitars and so on, bringing them back to life as it were. Bass is clearer too. I think this is a winner!!
John Greenham, 7-time Grammy-awarded engineer. Billie Eilish, Finneas, Sigrid, Lady Gaga, Bo Burnham, Ice Cube, Anson Seabra, Bono, Mazie, Billy Idol, Sam Smith, Tinashem, Curtis Waters, Omar Sosa
We’ve been listening through the D-1 at the studio and are THRILLED with it! A few moments of listening through the D-1 makes it very apparent that this will be the industry standard before too long. It’s amazing how the D-1 pulls the listener deeper into the music.
Dan Shea, multi-platinum engineer / producer / composer, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Santana, Jessica Simpson, Boyz II Men, Ricky Martin, Bono, Phil Collins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Shea_(producer)
The D-1 is just incredible! I’m listening to voice/piano and trumpet/piano projects I recorded at Skywalker, as well as a recent Bach oratorio I recorded at a church in Berkeley. All of the projects have much smoother transients in the high range; the low range sounds transparent without undue emphasis. In addition, ambience sounds much more natural (no “swoosh” or graininess). A client was over for a listening session, and actually thought he was hearing a 3D mix!!
David Bowles, multi-award winning producer/engineer,
https://swineshead.com/releases/award-winners
I’m not a stranger to great DACs, having had designs by D**, M**, M**, D**, and products from d** and M** in use at one time or another at the studio, most recently the d**.
Surprisingly, the audible resolution of the D-1 does stand out in this stellar roster. The inner details of the inner details of the sound appear without effort by the listener. It’s easier to discern, feel, and appreciate the separation of lines and rhythms in complex recordings. The revealed details come without any sense of hype or elevated highs.
With a recent recording of three Spanish classical guitars, for example, the sound of a fingertip plucking a string tells a whole new story. You can hear the harmonics, overtones and transients changing over the brief duration of the touch. The sound of the skin brushing over the top of the string has a realism that is novel in my experience. Rapid-switch, level-matched A/B/C comparisons with other DACs through a shared pre-amp reveal the distinction.
This thing is a joy to use.
Alan Silverman, multi-Grammy-winning, multi-Emmy-winning engineer
www.arfproductions.com
As expected, the tone is balanced, the sound transparent, but the level of detail is astonishing! The image is deep, very deep. How you manage to extract so much information from the bits is truly impressive.
This D/A helps me make better decisions, faster. I don’t feel like I have to fight through the sound to hear what is in the recording. I feel more relaxed when listening through it and the translation of my work is excellent, but purely from the perspective of listening enjoyment, I can only say thank you. I’m having a great time!
Jonathan Wyner, Grammy-nominated recording and mastering engineer, James Taylor, David Bowie, Aerosmith, Aimee Mann, Nirvana. AES President 2021. Author, Audio Mastering, Hal Leonard.
I’ve been using Imersiv D/A for a few weeks now. It was a big adjustment! A little destabilizing. I immediately noticed an openness and separation between the voice and piano. The recording didn’t sound like a recording, if that makes sense … there was a clearer separation of the instruments, much more like in the real concert hall. It caused me to spend a few emergency hours tweaking the balance of every song. The changes were minor, a dB or two here or there, but also significant. Just last week, that recording won the Grammy for Best Vocal Performance. This is a remarkable D/A.
Alan Bise, multi-Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated Recording Engineer/Producer, EMI, Decca, Universal, Aeon, Delos, Naxos, Telarc, Azica, Walden
There’s a surprising sense of depth and image extension. The clarity of Imersiv got me to hear in a different way and helped me to rethink some of my sonic choices. Some might think that these things are subtle. However, they made a big difference to me. You have done something extraordinary!
Neal Merrick Blackwood, multi-Grammy-winning engineer/producer
https://www.merrickmusic.com/
What the [imersiv] process claims, and what I heard, is greater low-level detail resulting in exceptional spatiality, what I noted as “fantastic” clarity, and heightened realism. The specs are impressive: true 28-bit resolution, greater than 170 dB dynamic range, and greater than 170 dB linearity.
Frank Doris, audiophile journalist, writing in Copper Magazine, Nov 2024.
In the rarefied world of ultra-high-end, five-figure DACs, sonic distinctions are minimal. Preference is more a matter of individual taste, system synergy, and aesthetics. Not so with the imersiv. The D-1 has more air, clearer transients w/o any harshness, and is simply more realistic and lifelike sounding. Above all, the D-1’s portrayal of timbre is singularly impressive. This initial impression remained constant over an extended evaluation period regardless of musical genre or the underlying quality of the recording. In direct comparison to the multi-path D-1, the high-end single-path DACs in my possession exhibit a slight scrim, which I did not notice when comparing one single-path DAC to another.
Bob Lardon, former VP and GM Harman Luxury Audio Group (Mark Levinson, Lexicon, Revel, JBL Synthesis)
We put the D-1 beta into the listening chain at the Aspen Music Festival. I’m used to being able to hear the instruments of the orchestra in their proper place in space, but this takes it to another level. The best way I can describe it is that I can hear the space between the instruments! I immediately got the feeling that being able to listen with this sort of detail will help me and my team to further sharpen our engineering skills.
Scott Burgess, multi-award-winning Director of Audio and Media Production, Aspen Music Festival
Bottom line: This is a stunning converter! It has tons of size … with endless space and ambience retrieval in the critical 800/1500hz range. Immediately apparent with operatic vocals and reverb tails. Great Work!
Brad Cobb, Senior Engineer, Los Angeles Opera
With familiar material, I have to say that what strikes me the most is the spatial resolution. Listening to acoustic music recorded at Zipper Hall, you can hear into the depth and true size of the natural room sound, keeping laser sharp stereo image and realistic instrument timbre.
Francesco Perlangeli, Principal Engineer, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Pacific Jazz Orchestra. Colburn School Audio Director