Millennia Media imersiv D1

I have had my Meitner MA3i for 6 months, and will never part with it. 
Meitner MA3i hooked directly to the First Watt Sit-4 amp to the Volti Lucera speakers…

^ That's great to hear.  If the streamer and preamp are good, it makes the overall value proposition a lot better.  Over $10,000 on a DAC is a big purchase for me.

I liked the Meitner MA3i going through the Benchmark HPA4. Though direct to amp was about the same. Using a preamp allowed me to connect more sources to my office setup.

The imersiv D-1 was not good via the HPA4 preamp, or not as good as it is direct to amp.

This is another way that the MA3i is more robust than the D-1. I could use the uber neutral HPA4 preamp with the MA3i and not suffer sonically. 

I had the option of replacing my 2-month-old imersiv D-1 DAC with a brand-new Meitner MA3i, but I stayed with the D-1 even though the D-1 is a PIA to use.

The MA3i is likely my next and last audio buy to replace the RME ADi-2 in the office.

@kumizi The Ethernet streamer on the MA3i sounds terrible at first. I mean shockingly bad to my ears (fatiguing). However, give it about 100 hours and then it sounds really good.

I compared the Ethernet streamer on the MA3i to USB input on the MA3i using my Sonore OpticalRendu (now about 10 years old). The Rendu was better with better clarity, but the Ethernet was not far behind, and Ethernet would be what I would use on the MA3i since I only have 1 OpticalRendu now. The Ethernet input also has better ROON support on the MA3i. I had about 200 hours on the Ethernet streamer when I did the final comparison. The new OpticalRendu streamer is supposed to be much better than my very old unit.

I also think that one reason the MA3i gets a bad rep from people who hear it at shows is likely because the demo unit are using Ethernet streaming with low hours on the Ethernet pathway.