"After using it for a session for vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, and then finally piano, I have to say I find this preamplifier quite attractive, and right up there with all the other great character amps costing many thousands more with their own foot print and sonic stamp. The DP1 has a very dense, colorful sound, with a LARGE amount of input/output headroom. I was able to get an absolutely killer electric tone with the Royer 121 using the Transformer Output, and then a much cleaner, faster more responsive tone using the electronically balanced output with a pair of Beyerdynamic MC-930's on piano.

"The DP-1 seems to work really well for driving low output microphones, such as ribbons and dynamics. The +30DB switch is clutch with quiet sources such as finger picked acoustic, so as to change the gain range to my advantage. It has a lot of low mid thunder and punch to my ear, which makes it a great choice for drums and electric instruments. The transformer output stage gives the signal some very musical weight and girth while exhibiting a warmer top end. The tone variations between the output stages and GERM settings are really useful in changing the distortion character depending on how you are using the pre, which can yield lot of differing options for the discerning engineer's widely varying microphone selection. It sounds nothing like the Chandler box, for those of you who are asking the question." - A/B