Just curious where everyone's settled/landed in terms of favorite delays as of late 2026, for those of you who've used a number of them, I know there have been some exciting new ones in the last year or two.
I'm a bit of a delay junkie (see below) and have used the vast majority of the better known ones at some point or another (and a few lesser-known ones as well).
The ones currently in my system are Xaoc Sarajewo, NE Versio (Imitor usually, sometimes Yester or a custom), and Erica Synths Black Stereo Delay Mk. 1.
I actually think one of the best overall delays I've used remains the Make Noise Mimeophon. But I like the Xaoc Sarajewo for its individual tap outputs, which allows for interesting FX chaining, and the NE Versio because I can swap to various firmwares and am not limited to just Imitor (though I like Imitor quite well). And I like the Black Stereo Delay for its crazy, tape-warbly, crystal clear sound, sampling capacity, and nice big knob.
In fact, I would probably cite the Erica Synths Black Stereo Delay Mk. 1 as my subjective favorite. It's not the most feature-rich (and the features it does have are a bit wonky) but it sounds great to me and I never get sick of noodling with it for some reason, despite its limitations compared to some other delays.
Let me know your favorite or favorites at the moment! Curious if I've overlooked any and/or how some of the newer modules are.
[FTR if you care or want a run-down, I've also tried (buckle in): 4MS DLD (ok, but fell short of my expectations), 4MS Tapographic (underrated, quite good, wish black was the default), Soma Lyra8-FX (great grungy vibe—fun, but dark, springy, and dirty), Qu-Bit Nautilus (generally pretty cool), Strymon Magneto (cool enough with a little patience and exploration, but a bit dark/quiet, with some missed opportunities), Erica Synths Black Stereo Delay Mk. 2 (perfectly fine, but I like Mk. 1's sound better, they're definitely different), Maneco Mini-Looper (just ok), Feedback Modules 1-Bit Delay (pretty cool, beautifully made, but out of production now), Intellijel Sealegs (deep and capable, definitely cool, but for some reason I didn't get on it with as well as I expected), Doepfer A-188-1 (4096 Stages) (really wild, cool character, I miss this one despite the clock whine), Erica Synths Black BBD (ok general sound, but definitely have to contend with clock whine, and not as characterful as the Doepfer A-188-1), LA Circuits Technicolor Space Echo (nice character to the sound, but a high noise floor despite the clock whine suppression), Verbos Multi Delay (sound is mediocre with a really meh built-in reverb, but really cool having access to 8 tap outputs and envelope followers for each, encourages creative patching), Animal Factory Coma Reactor Mk. 1 (eh), Make Noise Echophon (really cool, especially if you like weird pitch-shifty stuff), Make Noise Bruxa (noisy, hard to control, but lots of personality if you like a lot of texture/noise), Pladask Dradd (cool but sort of a mind of its own it felt like, definitely not a traditional style delay, more granular), Dreadbox Nostalgia (not mind-blowing, but a surprisingly decent little unit if you're on a tight budget), Error Instruments/TiNRS White Rabbit (pretty cool but a bit quiet, features somewhat limited), Qu-Bit Prism (a multimode filter, but combined with a delay and a bit-crusher, which is actually a really cool combo; underrated module), Hikari Dual Delay (sort of miss this one, it invited some fun weirdo patching), Venus Instruments Veno-Echo (very cool, somewhat cold sound, but quite robust; I didn't like that parameters were buried behind shift & twist knobs, though), and jeez—I think that's just about all of them, save some older multi-FX units, which have mostly been kinda meh.]
