Death by Audio Rooms Stereo Reverberator

This was a pedal I would like to enjoy so much, the overall design and concept were so attractive, that big knob is very unique. But design isn't a gamechanger when buying a pedal. This pedal introduce too much volume when engaged, measured 14 LUFS of gain when dry and wet knobs are at noon. It's a bit too much considering a reverb has to do one thing: reverb. Not gain. When dialing the knobs ccw, the pedal become noisy (this is a thing, they tell you to crank up the volume to get rid of noise), so it basically becomes unusable for me. I noticed that also some knobs of the alt function were not well calibrated, the freq knob generates a click when dialed all the way ccw in digit mode. Of the 6 modes, Room, Digit and Gong was the more enjoyable, the last is a strange sounding gritty bitcrushed reverb. The others are of no use for me: the modulation in Wave is too aggressive, Peak is good, but I see best use for it with exp pedal or external lfo.

On the other hand the spread was huge, and this is a good thing. The cascading delays creates a big wall of sound that gentle modulates in the stereo field.

At this price (and below) there are tons of good reverbs worth buying that not introduce a ton of gain. Say Specular Tempus or Specular Reverb, Walrus R1, and with a little more you can grab the a way better Empress Reverb that has studio quality, no added volume at noon and nearly the same amount of stereo spread.

ROOMS is a mind-blowing stereo reverberator perfect to make ambient music, drone textures and sounds from another world. Maybe it is one of the best products of their label, Death By Audio, very expensive but the price is worth of it. My favourites modes are Wave and Gate, the first to achieve a very personal vibrato/chorus/flanger and the second to make long-reverberating ambient swells with no need to collide with each other. Moreover, "Peak" is a sensible and very resonant filter that is perfect for synths and guitars. I also recognize the Gong mode by its extreme weirdness sound. And lastly the ROOM and Digit modes, which add a huge feedback to the reverb that, if you set a great volume, everything around you trembles.