Phantom I White Classic Glossy 103dB

[struts]

Phantom Silver, now called Phantom I 105dB

Correct @ragwo and apologies for the mixup in my previous post which I have now corrected.

But if my memory serves me correctly (and it frequently doesn't) the Silver was never sold as a "Phantom I 105 dB" as it was discontinued when the new range was launched.  It was simply renamed "posthumously" by Devialet in the app when they launched DOS 2.  Correct?  

And if I am guessing correctly it will be listed as a "Silver Phantom Glossy" on your "My Products" page.  Correct?

[ragwo]

@struts
You're right, the Silver was renamed when upgrading to DOS2, after it went out of production. Here's how they're listed at Devialet.com
   

[ogs]

I'm in my 50s and still get super-excited when I've new gear enroute. 

I've a pair of refurbished Phantom I White Classic Glossy 103dB and Tree stands coming my way from Devialet. I don't know if they offer refurb Phantoms across the globe but in Canada they do. I'm curious if anyone has experience with this model and knows their history in the Phantom lineup. With the various models and name changes I don't know where they fit in in terms of their date of manufacture etc.

Also, if anyone has experience with a stereo pair of this model that would be great to know. I've a pair of Phantom Reactors 900 (Phantom II 98dB) which I've enjoyed for a couple of years now.

Going from a 2-way Phantom to a 3-way Phantom... I'm hoping it'll be an upgrade in terms of the mid-range.... I see the specs also note slightly better performance with the highs and lows, so we'lll see if my ears hear a difference. 

Cheers.

https://www.devialet.com/en-ca/phantom-s...t-airplay/

I had the original Phantom (then called White I think - EDIT: Classic, doh!) at home for a weekend in 2015 or -16. Connected via Dialog optical.
I made measurements with Audiolense from my listening position. It's a bit uneven from 40Hz to 500Hz due to the room (strong room mode at 47Hz), but look at the response from 10Hz (!) to 40Hz! And the general response from deep bass to treble! Nice sloping down - 20kHz is approx. 10dB down compared to 20Hz.

The lower curve is how Audiolense predicted the response after correction (including my "target" or room curve). It sounded very very nice! I did not buy them as I didn't like Dialog and "optical direct" wasn't yet available. Today's version and firmware is much more stable and better.

With Dirac and all I'm sure you'll get a good result!

   

[supaDean]

Thanks all, for the info. What a great community. I'll be sure to give you my feedback along with some pics once I've got them set up and have spent some time listening to them. Cheers.

[supaDean]

Hello All.... so the pair of refurb Phantom Premier Classic 103dB  arrived today with the Tree stands. Prior to these I've been using a pair of Phantom Reactor 900 (Phantom II 98dB) on Legs stands, so I can provide a comparison.

I'll start with the bad:

First off, one of the Phantoms arrived with a small shallow dent in one of the woofers. They arrive covered in a white sock which I didn't remove until after I had mounted it to a Tree. I'm quite certain I didn't bang it or even touch the woofers. I know how sensitive they are. If I did cause the dent I have no idea how I did it. I've written to Devialet. I almost feel bad about it because I think it will have to be returned to France and then replaced with another unit. That's a lot of shipping costs. Plus I'll be without the second Phantom for at least two weeks. The dent is cosmetic but I find the Phantoms such works of art it's a shame one of the woofers has this dent in it! I'll see how Devialet responds.

Second.... the Tree stands are a major pain! They shipped with the wrong size hex key, so if you don't happen to already have the correct size you'll have to source the proper size to assemble them. The design of the Tree is flawed... it's incredibly difficult to hook up three cables to the rear of a Phantom and mount on the Tree (power, ethernet and optical). There's simply not much room and the angles are brutal. For stands that cost CAD$900 a pair? I almost wanted to return them and use simple wood stools that are the exact same hight and cost CAD$60 for the pair. But I digress. Other than that they are very well made and solid. Perfect height in my opinion. And of course the way the Phantom sits on the stand allows for the best sound.

On to the setup of the Phantoms. This was also a pain. Oh my God I'm sounding like a whiner. But this is what it is. I'm not exactly sure what was the cause but at least part of it was the Phantom firmware updates that had to download and install. The download wasn't seamless and one Phantom wouldn't upgrade. After some time the second Phantom completed the download and install. But it then mucked up my stereo setup. And, as I was connected via optical cable it mucked that up as well. And then Roon had updates to download. At first there were numerous dropouts, and then no sound altogether. I reset the stereo pairing. I had to play with switching cables to ensure it wasn't cabling. I reset Roon and the Phantoms several times. I played with latency. That didn't work, either. I reset my Roon server and my preamp. That didn't work. Finally I set up the Phantoms to play as wireless Roon Ready instead of through my pre-amp and optical cable, bypassing all my digital room correction. For some reason that reset everything. When I switched back to optical cable everything worked. I've now been listening for about three hours and everything appears to be stable. The assembly of the stands, mounting and software headaches took over 7 hours to figure out. Boo!

It ought to have been much more simple... simply unplug the smaller Phantoms and plug in the larger Phantoms. But alas... this was not to be.

Now the good:

On to the sound. Oh yeah baby! Even using the digital room correction curve that I designed for the Phantom II, they sound great. Fuller. Smoother. Louder. The treble is sweeter. I would've done new room correction measurements / curves today but because of all the hoopla of earlier, I'll do it tomorrow. And while the curve for the Phantom II is probably quite close to what the Phantom I will need, as the low and high end can't really be heard by the human ear. The midrange may have more of an improvement when I do new measurements. In any event I can certainly "feel" the lower end much more so with the larger Phantoms during certain passages of music.

Wrap up:

I listen to many genres of music. One genre where perhaps the Phantom, big and small, does not shine is classical. But we'll see what happens when I do new measurements for room correction and then tweak the EQ. That'll be tomorrow's project.

Other side notes:  The height of the Tree for the larger Phantoms is perfect for critical listening. I find that the height of the Legs for the Phantom II is a bit too low to be floor standing. Not a deal breaker by any means as the smaller Phantom are incredible given their size. They rival many a larger speaker.

With the larger Phantom I more than twice the size of the Phantom II, they do dominate my listening room visually. Mind you the smaller Phantoms are really small.... they only weigh about 10lbs compared to the 25lbs of the larger Phantoms.

That's all for now. Back to listening! Hope this write-up may end up useful to some of you. Photos to follow. Cheers.

[struts]

The assembly of the stands, mounting and software headaches took over 7 hours to figure out. Boo!

Thanks for posting your experiences @supaDean, but I'm really sorry to hear about your troubles.  The dent in particular is a real bummer.  Leaves me feeling very lucky and slightly guilty that I have had very few problems since I upgraded my Classics to Golds via the last elevate program back in 2017.  

I had lots of problems getting those Classics to play nice (bear in mind this is back in 2015, looong before DOS 2 was released when after some initial problems were sorted my impression is things got a lot better).  Reading some of the nightmare stories posted here over the years and trying to help folks sort through them I developed a thesis that some of the problems lie in the hardware abstraction layer in DOS (the part that is meant to make all different hardware configurations and versions look and behave the same to the audio functionality) and that problems seemed to be occurring more frequently in stereo pairs where the speakers were of different vintages and hardware versions.  Although my Classics were only made four months apart the last four characters of the serial numbers were different (P3EK and P302) which we now know indicates different hardware revisions with different BoMs.

So it would be interesting to know what speakers you have received thru the Certified Refurbished program.  Please could you add the serial number and model number information to the thread here?  

Keeping my fingers crossed for you and hoping you end up with a cosmetically perfect and beautifully singing pair!

[supaDean]

The assembly of the stands, mounting and software headaches took over 7 hours to figure out. Boo!

Thanks for posting your experiences @supaDean, but I'm really sorry to hear about your troubles.  The dent in particular is a real bummer.  Leaves me feeling very lucky and slightly guilty that I have had very few problems since I upgraded my Classics to Golds via the last elevate program back in 2017.  

I had lots of problems getting those Classics to play nice (bear in mind this is back in 2015, looong before DOS 2 was released when after some initial problems were sorted my impression is things got a lot better).  Reading some of the nightmare stories posted here over the years and trying to help folks sort through them I developed a thesis that some of the problems lie in the hardware abstraction layer in DOS (the part that is meant to make all different hardware configurations and versions look and behave the same to the audio functionality) and that problems seemed to be occurring more frequently in stereo pairs where the speakers were of different vintages and hardware versions.  Although my Classics were only made four months apart the last four characters of the serial numbers were different (P3EK and P302) which we now know indicates different hardware revisions with different BoMs.

So it would be interesting to know what speakers you have received thru the Certified Refurbished program.  Please could you add the serial number and model number information to the thread here?  

Keeping my fingers crossed for you and hoping you end up with a cosmetically perfect and beautifully singing pair!

Thanks. Devialet contacted me and will proceed with a replacement. Am just awaiting their next instructions for the return.

Did new digital room correction curves today. Ended up preferring my earlier curves for the Phantom II. Perhaps I wasn't patient enough running today's measurement. Either way am very happy with the sound, which I tweaked just a bit in Roon. 

The serials for the two Premiers are P41NxxxxP307 and P39NxxxxxP307. I'll update your thread.

Here are a couple of images of the room with the smaller Phantom and then the larger. Cheers.