Millennia Media imersiv D1

@woutb 

Thank you so much for your feedback.  

The Tambaqui offered great resolution and speed, a lot of detail, a very 'airy', extended sound, but was somewhat lacking in body and timbre , for my tastes. 

I spent much more time with the D-1, in my own system. Compared to my impressions of the Tambaqui, it had a similar airy extension into the highs, but with even stronger, better-defined bass, and greater resolution of tonality in the mids. Voices and instruments sounded very layered on the D-1. I.e. for me, taking into account the different listening conditions, the D-1 beat the Tambaqui at its own game and then offered other qualities too. 

So far in my audio journey, I prefer this type of sound.  Excellent dynamics and resolution but doesn't sound "thin" like a cheap chip based DAC.  Enough meat on the bones but that's not my top priority.

@yyzsantabarbara 

Been reading your posts and we have similar tastes.  Neutral gear.

Does the Meitner not sound overly warm and rolled off?  That's the impression I got from watching reviews of it.  

Does the Meitner not sound overly warm and rolled off?  That’s the impression I got from watching reviews of it.  
 

@kumizi The MA3i is not a warm sounding dac and it’s definitely not rolled off. It’s neutral. It balances details with musicality. Where did you watch a review of MA3i?

@audphile1 

https://youtu.be/z6egK2M_w_M?t=468

"This DAC is using a really slow filter with quite steep roll off.  By 20khz, the frequency response is attenuated by 4db."

edit:  This is a MA3 review.  Maybe they changed the sound in the MA3i.  

Does the Meitner not sound overly warm and rolled off?  That’s the impression I got from watching reviews of it. 

@kumizi I was talking with my friend Danny about the MA3i a few days ago. He was telling me he has not sold many of them compared to the D-1. He likes this DAC over the D-1. After living with it for 3 weeks I like it the second best. He sells the Meitner, imersiv, and Allnic. These 3 companies called him to sell their gear. I only gave the MA3i a listen because I respect his hearing and music knowledge. A bit of a genius in that realm. As I posted before I was the one who told Danny how good the D-1 was since he had not heard it at his home due to a glitch in his old iPad + imersiv D-1.

After I had the MA3i in the house for 3 weeks, I understood what Danny was saying. It took a while for the brand-new DAC to clean up sonically but once it did it was clean, detailed, dynamic, and as mentioned above had a very robust feature set (unlike the D-1).

After the last CanJam in NYC I read some comments on the MA3i that made me think the unit at CanJam was not broken in properly. I had 2 brand new units in my home at different times and the MA3i sound reported at CanJam made me think it was not a broken in unit. 

The reviews online seem to be not very complimentary of the MA3, but it also seems most of them are for the MA3 not the MA3i. I have not heard the MA3 but the MA3i is not overly warm or rolled off. It is not a detail monster like the D-1 (no DAC is) but it is also one that is not lacking in that area. It goes toe-to-toe in the detail area with the Benchmark DAC3B, Schiit Yggi+ OG, MIB, LIM. I think the new Schiit Singular (Byggy) is more detailed, but I sold it to buy (now in the future) the MA3i since I like the overall sound of the MA3i more.

If you are willing to go up to the $26k level, then the Allnic D-15000 Signature OTL/OCL is another one to demo. I compared this to the Playback Designs Dream DAC (also $26k) and it was no contest. I preferred the more precise and exciting sound of the tube Allnic over the solid-state PBD Dream (too mellow for me). I also think the MA3i is sonically a better fit for me over the 2x more expensive PBD Dream. I do not know if I like the MA3i over the Allnic (likely not), but I cannot afford it anyways so not an issue. 

Hypothetically, the greatest DAC in the world would be if Allnic licensed the HDR tech from imersiv to create a HDR | OTL | OCL DAC. Sort of a rich man’s MA3i.