Dutch Interface magazine published a UC1 review by mastering engineer and ‘creative entrepeneur’ Sander van der Heide. He was blown away by the UC1.
“If you know that UC stands for ‘Universal Converter’, you already get a bit of an idea what kind of device this is. When I tell you ‘Universe Controller’ would be a better name, you know what to really expect. (…)
How you use it is entirely up to you and any suggestion for how to use it in fact limits its ability. You really should see the UC1 as the center piece of your studio. It doesn’t matter whether this is a small mobile set-up, a large modern mixing studio, a production room, a recording studio, audio post-processing or a mastering studio. It feels at home everywhere, as long as it is allowed to take center stage. (…)
How good it sounds, can best be explained by telling you its DAC’s are based on AKM 4396VF DAC chips. It is a demonstration of the fact that it’s not just the chip that ensures how good a converter sounds, but how it is integrated, which pre-amps are used, how well the power supply is designed, whether vibrations have been taken into account, the entire signal path. That is why converters with the same chips can sound completely different, and can also be priced completely differently, because those chippies themselves cost a few dollars at most.
The real comparison I have is with my DCS 954 converter. This has been my ‘holy grail’ for 15 years and no DAC has been able to beat or even match it. Until I put the UC1 – which I had left on for a few days – next to it and simply compared it at the same volume with some of my reference recordings. You can already see it coming, but I didn’t, and was shocked: that low end! So much tighter and deeper, but without emphasis. And the highs were open, but not sizzling. You would want to own the UC1 for the DA converters alone.”
“I was shocked: that low end!”
Sander van der Heide, Interface
