Millennia Media imersiv D1

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.

One caveat for me on the D-1. I really like the D-1 with Class A amps. A tube amp had an issue for me, the $7k RAAL Requisite VM-1a with the D-1. I sold it because it was a bit fatiguing with the D-1 and replaced it with a used $400 Schiit Aegir v1 amp (Class A 20 watts) + imersiv D-1. This was great.

I should also mention that John La Gou of imersiv is about to release a new switch using transformers with dual XLR and RCA inputs and outputs. Something Danny was also going to build but pivoted to do another project. The idea is that you could use 1 imseriv D-1 for multiple amps.

That unit would allow me to run my office, Livingroom, and RAAL Requisite SR1a headphone setup with a single imersiv D-1 DAC. Now I was planning on buying this unit from Danny (now John) but I am not going to since the D-1 cannot do DoP over SPDIF. The MA3i can and it sounds almost as good.

@kumizi first of all the review is, as you already noticed, for the original MA3. 
And who is this guy and why should anyone take him seriously? He pooped on dCS Bartok and Meitner but is promoting Schiit and Chi-Fi. 

In addition, I had the original MA3 and I was very impressed with it. Highly resolving but sweet sounding DAC. Where it lacked was in dynamics and drive. It was definitely not rolled off or overly warm but kind of polite and reserved. Not for large scale where you expect slam. 
 

The new MA3i resolves every single issue I noticed with the original. It’s a terrific DAC that sounds like music and gets out of the way.
If you’re looking for a hi-fi autopsy of a recording, then may be the D1 is for you. My personal preference is for the sound to resemble live performance as closely as possible. I get it with Meitner every time. It will not sound mechanical. It will not sound like a recording studio monitoring tool, which DACs like Benchmark and D1 really are.

Auditioning is key. Otherwise you hop on a merry go round and never get off…