The magic of the ds1 is in its use as a booster IMO.
Not a standalone.
That wettish gained up tone you get from pushing your amp (tube amp) with a ds1 (check out Satriani) is nice.
However, on its own into a clean amp, its grainy crap - just compare it to some of the better drives out there. Its crap. Got to turn the tone down to 9 oclock-ish for it to make sense, then eq your amp to suit it.
Then there are mods that take away the ds1-ness and morph it into something totally different. E.g. Keeley mod. Analogman mod.