Firmware 8.1.2 released

[Eddye]

I've installed 8.1.2. No problems regarding the firmware upgrade, but I adjusted my config somewhat and the D200 didn't accept it. I went back to a previous 8.1 config and that works. Probably some bits fell ober during download or something. I'll create a new config tomorrow to try again.

[Antoine]

This is a forum where, at least I thought, people share their views and opinions to enjoy their music and learn from each other's experiences. As such one would hope that this would be done in a cordial, decent and cultured manner. To make statements like 'making no sense at all, Devialet would scream, you'll have to sell your devialet and move on' is only reflective of an individual's character, pedigree and grooming. I'm not going to sell my Devialet or move on because I bought it for a reason and will find a way to get around these minor issues.
What I will leave is this forum and move on because of the reprehensible responses I got from two members here. It's left a poor taste in my mouth and this isn't the kind of company I normally keep.
So long


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

First, I'm sorry if I offended you, I surely didn't mean to.

However, please keep in mind:
- English is not my native language, Dutch is. The subtle sensitivities of certain words/sayings might elude me
- the Internet is borderless, so you'll run into people from countries all over the world on this forum as well. Cultural differences are in play in communication as well. (For example you may have heard the Dutch, in general, are quite direct.) A bit more tolerance to these differences would make your own 'life on the Internet' quite a bit easier.

You mentioning my (and DrTone's) "individual's character, pedigree and grooming" suggesting these are sub standard (or below your standards) could leave a bad taste in my mouth about you (I choose to not let it), especially since these target the individual and not the topic in discussion. You know very little (close to nothing) about me.

I'd suggest to just forget about it (see first sentence in my post) and move on.

[Dr Tone]

This is a forum where, at least I thought, people share their views and opinions to enjoy their music and learn from each other's experiences. As such one would hope that this would be done in a cordial, decent and cultured manner. To make statements like 'making no sense at all, Devialet would scream, you'll have to sell your devialet and move on' is only reflective of an individual's character, pedigree and grooming. I'm not going to sell my Devialet or move on because I bought it for a reason and will find a way to get around these minor issues.
What I will leave is this forum and move on because of the reprehensible responses I got from two members here. It's left a poor taste in my mouth and this isn't the kind of company I normally keep.
So long


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow!  My comment wasn't a personal attack it was my opinion and nothing but me laying out what your options would be when Devialet doesn't support multiple firmware versions.
I'm not going to appologize for you misconstruing my comments.  After the personal attack you've launched it probably would be best to go hang out with your other company of a higher pedigree.

[Confused]

Has anyone tried 8.1.2 with DPM on vs off? (or 8.1.0, I guess the conclusions would be the same) I'm just having my first foray into 8.1.2, and wasn't sure which to go for. Too many choices.....

With respect to Antoine's post above, I have always found Antoine to be one of the more interesting contributors on this forum, and always appears to be a polite and civilised chap, well, for a Dutchman at least....

[Antoine]

Thank you Confused. And regarding "well, for a Dutchman at least.... " that made me chuckle to be honest.


Lot's of stereotypes here (on business culture) but some are true nonetheless:

http://www.intercultural.nl/Publications...254601c55f

Communication style
The Dutch directness in the communication with foreigners regularly causes misunderstandings. Unable to make things understood through context and unable to read context, the Dutch express themselves verbally.
They speak on a friendly tone in rather short clear sober sentences lacking any form of politeness or courtesy. The Dutch are distrustful of very polite conversations, afraid that an unpleasant message may be hidden which they are unable to detect. Transparency in communication is key. Being very nice may awaken the suspicion that one is in need of a special favor. Politeness may also cause irritation as it is considered and a waste of time.

• Communication should be linear and very direct.
  
• Emotion and non-verbal communication is minimal compared to many countries.
  
• Ask people what they think instead of waiting for a non-verbal sign.
  
• The Dutch are distrustful of many compliments and very polite conversation
  

Egalitarian society, status and authority
Holland has an egalitarian society. Status and respect are obtained through study and hard work and not through family ties or old age. Every person is equal and should be treated accordingly which may be difficult to understand for many foreigners.
As a Brazilian General Manager expatriate in the Netherlands remarked “I am happy that my Dutch personnel did not throw me out of my office the first months I worked in Amsterdam. As top manager in Rio, I barely spoke to my lower personnel. I was used to giving orders and being served. In Amsterdam I learned to exchange some words daily with the cleaning lady, to discuss all the work with my managers and to very kindly ask my secretary what phone calls came in for me. I am now used to making my own photocopies and get my own coffee at the coffee machine.

• As Holland is an egalitarian society, the Dutch have big problems accepting hierarchy.
  
• Cross level communication or collaboration is normal.
  
• Only some companies use academic titles on their business cards.
  
• Throughout all layers of society and business, people call each other by the first name.
  

[Confused]

I tried 8.1.2 today. Not a success. I was expecting (for those who believe in expectation bias) that the differences from 7.1.3 to be subtle at most. However, not the case. In my system (D800 / KEF Blades) 8.1.2 sounded utterly dreadful. This is not subjective, it sounded awful and I could only listen to three track before tuning the system off, feeling a little grumpy.

The problem? Bass. With SAM enabled something very strange was happening to the bass. Take the first track I tried, the Pixies "Where is your Mind". The lowest bass from the bass drum was very prominent, but after the bass drum hit the lowest bass sound continued to hang in the air, it sounded most odd, although this low bass was in time with the drum and very slowly faded out, it was almost a continuous drone going up and down slightly in volume. Even trying SAM at 0%, this effect was reduced but not eliminated. SAM off, things sounded normal, but of course without the benefit of SAM.

Quite bizarre, in fact I am starting to wonder if there is some problem with the specific SAM profile for the Blades and SAM V2. This is not a case of preferring one firmware to another, one was unlistenable.

Most odd! It is also very disappointing, assuming this issue cannot be rectified I am now stuck on 7.1.3 for ever. No bad thing you could argue, because I have already reported that I realy like 7.1.3, but it does mean that I either have to abandon SAM, or do without any new features or upgrades that might come along. As someone who has a lot of old vinyl, I was particularly excited about RAM, so this for example I cannot use of stuck with 7.1.3.

I will be corresponding with Devialet and see what they have to say. I think I might get my dealer to try 8.1.2 SAM with the Blades also. This would at least serve as a check that I have not done something wrong. Although the firmware upgrade went without a hitch, both amps showing upgrade successful and 8.1.2, new configurations were made etc. I'm as sure as I can be that I've done nothing stupid. Annoying!

[Jean-Marie]

Has anyone tried 8.1.2 with DPM on vs off?  (or 8.1.0, I guess the conclusions would be the same)  I'm just having my first foray into 8.1.2, and wasn't sure which to go for.  Too many choices.....

With respect to Antoine's post above, I have always found Antoine to be one of the more interesting contributors on this forum, and always appears to be a polite and civilised chap, well, for a Dutchman at least....

I Did try it on and off on 8.1.0 and could not hear a difference. 

However, with the new menu screen it is easy to turn it on and off on the fly and do the test yourself.

[MusicLover]

Good evening everyone,

After about a month away for repair in France, I was able to pick up my D200 yesterday. The reason for the failure was not stated, but I will enquire further, next week, until I get an answer from Devialet themselves.

Now, about FW 8.1.2. I installed it straight away, gave it a while to warm up and started more critical listening. First of all, I have to say that SAM for my SF Olympicas sounds as gorgeous as ever, if not better. Same in width and height, the soundstage seems to dig deeper; precise and sweet highs and very controlled deep bass with vivid micro and macro dynamics. In summary, very musical.

The above observations are from yesterday and today’s listening to several pieces from Carol Welsman's "I Like Men" album, choral music from The Cambridge Singers' "Christmas Album" or famous "Take Five" from The Dave Brubeck Quartet, all standard red-book quality. High res albums such as "Let No Man Write My Epitaph" from Ella Fitzgerald or Hilary Hahn's Bach Violin Concertos sound as vivid as ever, although, with a collection of over 300 high-res titles, more and more, I am realising that outstanding sound quality and higher resolution quite frequently do not go together.

All in all, I am very satisfied with 8.1.2, very enjoyable and addictive so far. My previous experience with 7.1.1 and, very briefly, with 7.1.3 did not seem at the time this good. Bear in mind USB is my input of reference.

Just my brief experience with the new FW.


ML

[Vivialet]

I'm still not convinced by the new SAM. I enjoy music more without it. Instead of SAM I'm again using my B&W DB1 sub. Together with 8.1.2 this gives the best combination currently. 7.1.3 is no improvement if you listen without SAM. The new features are also an important reason to use 8.1.2.
I guess we cannot agree that one firmware is the best, every SAM profile is different, every speaker-amp combination is different. As long as the configurator is compatible with older firmwares we have the choice...and it only takes some minutes to change the firmware.

[Confused]

An update. After trying many things, the firmware 8.1.2 / SAM / Blades combo still sounded dreadful. In essence, there appears to be a massive increase in the very lowest bass, it does not sound good at all. This gave me a thought (it happens occasionally). The Blade 2 is SAM V8 designated, which I believe means it has been SAM'd with SAM lab for SAM V2. So as an experiment, I tried running the Blade 2 SAM profile. With 8.1.2, the Blade 2 SAM profile actually sounded far better than using the "correct" original Blade profile. In search for further information, I thought I would then try the new KEF Reference 5 profile. This is obviously a traditional "box" style speaker, but does have the same number and type of bass driver as the Blade, essentially the Ref is a box style trickle down development of the Blade. The reference 5 profile also sounded massively better with 8.1.2 than the "correct" original Blade SAM profile. I'll do a bit more listening tomorrow, but it looks like there is something very amiss with the Blade SAM profile. I have posted previously that I really liked SAM with the Blades (on 7.x.x firmware), but one downside was that with some tracks there appeared to be a little too much ultra low bass grunge. I'd put this down to the fact that any speaker that could effectively run flat frequency response to sub bass levels would have some issues like this. I'm not so sure now, I beginning to think the original Blade SAM profile is defective somewhere, and now with SAM 2 this has gone from a minor issue and manifested itself into something quite horrible. Clearly, if you can swap the exact SAM profile for one which is merely a close approximation, and get a massive improvement, well, something is badly wrong somewhere. I wonder if the Blade is the only speaker to suffer this?

My ever helpful dealer (Oxford Audio) has offered to set up their own demo Blades next week with 8.1.2 SAM V2 new week, just to check the issue is repeatable. Assuming they find the same this should add a little clout with any forthcoming dealings I have with Devialet regarding this issue. (Which goes to show that there are some very decent Devialet dealers out there - thanks guys!)