If Warmth Is a Distortion, Why Do So Many Audiophiles Still Defend It?

I am listening to the most resolving DAC in the world at the moment, the Multi-Path Imersiv D-1. This thing allows you to hear into a recording like nothing I ever heard. The DAC has a filter called Harmonic Distortion. There are 6 pre-canned filters and each one can be set to a level from 0 to 10. With 10 having the most distortion.

When the DAC had 0 hours on it last week, I cranked the distortion to 10 and have been progressively lowering it. Maybe one day I go to zero but at the moment I am at 4. It is an understatement to say every song I ever heard on an audio systems sound better through this DAC. This DAC will blow up the DAC field; nothing can compete with it spec wise and the sound is not neutral like some other great measuring DACs. I am not calling it digital or analog, my term for this sound is Audio Realism which I spice up with a touch of 2nd order Harmonic Distortion.

I have hooked this DAC up to 3 systems. The big rig was beyond belief great. However, the Magnepan Mini in my office is like a new speaker. I tossed the KEF KC62 sub from this system, the Mini with this DAC did not need it. As I write this, I am listening to heavy metal on Maggie Mini’s and blown away. I never would listen to this music on Mini’s with my other DACs.

Only negative for me was on my bright RAAL SR1a phones. My Yggi+ DAC, which now seems veiled in comparison, is better with the SR1a. The Imersiv Harmonic Distortion helps a lot on the phones, but it is not as good as the Yggi+ MIB on the SR1a. On 2-channel the Yggi+ are way way behind, and I loved the Yggi+ before I heard this DAC.

I am selling my Schiit Yggi+ OG | Schiit Yggi+ MIB | Benchmark HPA4 preamp | KEF KC62 sub because this DAC eliminates all those items.

I bought the DAC. Not cheap at MSRP of $12k (what I paid). Got to sell a few more items to make the cash work. 

FAQ - Imersiv

During D-1 beta testing, a seasoned mastering engineer compared the D-1 DAC to his 25-year-old Pacific Microsonics Model 2 DAC. The D-1 was vastly better in all respects (40dB lower noise, 100X lower THD, etc). But his old DAC had a low-mid “thickness” or “richness” coloration, which made certain kinds of music sound “fuller” or more “finished”. I immediately recognized this as second-harmonic distortion giving music more apparent “body.” That’s what 2H distortion does, in very small amounts.

I really liked the sound of his vintage DAC.

So the mastering engineer says, “my clients keep coming back because they LIKE the sound of my signal path. They LIKE the sound of the old PM2 DACs, and I don’t want to change that.” He then went on, “if you can add some coloration to your DAC that emulates my old DAC, then I would have the best of all worlds and would replace all the DACs in all my studios.”

So that’s what we did. We spent the better part of a year learning how to add different amounts and flavors of 2H distortion as a selectable feature of the D-1 DAC. We put a curated selection of these 2H distortion parameters in the D-1 Pro Menu, selectable as “A”, “B”, “C”, etc.. Go to the Pro Menu, select a 2H preset letter, then use the front-panel encoder knob to dial-in a desired amount of harmonic coloration. There’s also a switch-bypass setting for quick A-B comparisons.

Use care — a little goes a long way. At full blend (“10”), measured distortion levels can exceed 10% THD (!) Don’t overdo it. Often, just the slightest hint of “warmth” and “richness” can be the difference between “too thin” and “just right.” We’ve created the 2H presets such that numerical levels between 2 and 4 will likely be most common for pop music masters. Each preset has a different harmonic structure and bandwidth. We spent months “ear tuning” these presets to address many types of pop music. I hope you find them useful.

Home users may find this a curiosity, and are welcome to experiment. One beta tester told us it “sounds like analog tape.” Another said it reminded him of vinyl. 

I have been a patron of live, unamplified music for around thirty years. The various halls have their different accoustics. I listen to the L.A. Philharmonic at Disney Hall, which was accoustically designed by sound engineers and the conductor at the time, Essa Pekka Salonen. The sound still bounces around, though. It does when I listen to live jazz or rock too.

At Disney Hall I'm about 100 feet from the orchestra. I sit about 9 feet from my stereo. "Analytic" gear that has a precise soundstage with all the instruments separated by black spaces just doesn't sound real. Some distortion is required to make it sound like live music. The L.A. Phil sounds like a wave of music when it gets going. Even when one musician is playing in the orchestra, I have to look around for that musician. A French horn can sound like any other brass horn, or even woodwinds sometimes. And the sound bounces around the auditorium so it's not precisely placed.

That's what real music sounds like, and I want it to sound as close as possible to real music in my listening room.

Bob Dylan writes songs and leaves the lyrical interpretation to the listener.  How we interpret an artists work is part of the process.  

“Audiophiles don’t use their systems to listen to your music, they use your music to listen to their systems.”

@audio-b-dog 

+1 "...Some distortion is required to make it sound like live music."... 

I would think less emphasis on details over the rest of the spectrum will for fully integrate the sound to so make it sound more real... as opposed to distortion. 

@ghdprentice 

I agree with you to some extent. I have just gotten rid of my last tube piece of gear, an ARC PH-7 which I loved for many years, partly because lt was "clearer" than my ARC PH-3. I replaced my ARC Ref. 3 preamp this year, also. It's sound was pretty tight. ARC is trying to tighten their sound, in the sense that musical notes have less bloom.

So, now I have Pass Labs gear in their place. Pass Labs, however, still has a "softer" sound than other solid state gear. My setup sounds pretty close to the ARC sound I got rid of.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. I owned a McCormack DNA-1 with many upgrades for many years. I ran various speakers with that amp. Years ago, a friend of mine went on vacation and loaned me his Krell amp to try out. It was a little more expensive than the McCormack, but not much. The bass slam on the Krell was obviously much better. But the mids and especially highs sounded hard to me and unenjoyable. I couldn't get that Krell out of my system fast enough.

This dichotome between "musical" and "analytical" equipment still exists today. I have always leaned toward "musical" speakers with a softer sound. I now own Sonus Faber speakers which are known for their "musicality." 

I think I'll just leave it at that, because reviewers constantly use those two terms, "musicality" and "analytical" sound, and I don't think that there's any dispute that they exist in current equipment.