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.
The result?
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. https://thelodge.com/
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. This DAC is a winner – and you can’t have it back.!!
John Greenham, 4-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
The hype is true! I was and still am almost shocked by the level of performance with this dac. Bravo! This is one of those rare pieces that has a presentation equally at home in very high-end hi-fi or a pro mastering studio. Gorgeous overall musicality with extreme resolution in every metric you can think of, while being as neutral for decision making as my prior reference dac. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Dave McNair, Grammy-awarded, multi-gold and -platinum mastering engineer
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.
John La Grou has spent more than a decade refining not only audio conversion but the entire audio signal path … and to my ears the imersiv D-1 DAC is abso-freaking-lutely a paradigm shifting, sonic game changer. Music played back through the D-1 exhibited notable sonic differences across the board, with greater detail in string plucks, bowing on strings, finger taps, stick hits, and vocal nuances. There was also an improvement in depth and spatial cues — I could aurally ‘see’ deeper into the soundstage. The low end sounded more defined as well. The biggest shock? Even 16-bit CD audio sounds better through the D-1 DAC, let alone hi-res and DSD files.
Paul Vnuk, Jr., Managing Editor, Recording Magazine, engineer, producer, musician (review excerpt)
