Should Apple acquire Devialet/Phantom?

[snbeall]

Devialet has a genius product that just seems to need $/manpower influx to solve (and move along) further innovations, including multichannel and cinema, customer support, software glitches, and a marketing/distribution network. Apple seems a match made in heaven. Not anywhere even closely associated with Apple. I’m just an aging non-IT kinda guy and know that they have a human interface and “it just works” mentality. Surely they can solve the customer relations, marketing, distribution, and interface problems facing D. 

Again, I understand that this is genius (just as I salivated over Meridian DSP 20 years ago) and the problem they have bringing it to - and dumbing it down - to everyday application. I think they need a black Phantom for cinema with a good multichannel Dialogue and a reliable network connection. And Apple is breaking into the home network speaker market. And who can deny the similar aesthetics? HomePod is a toy. Their streaming and audio is falling behind. Beats acquisition is just another typical misstep huge corporations make when they have too much $ and start acquiring - makes them soft. 

Apple has built a following by NOT being Microsoft/IBM bloated behemoths anchored to obsolete/aging tech. They need a leapfrog approach to become cutting edge innovators again. Jobs must be spinning in his grave! Can you imagine the mini Phantom from the Renault car?


I’d have Apple acquire D for the Phantom technology, spin off the high end, keep the name, and allow it to continue to innovate with $ influx and software engineering support, trickling down the tech to the home network Phantom line...

[ragwo]

I disagree. The world does not need another Apple product. Devialet will figure it out eventually.

[ogs]

No! Apple should keep away from audio. We simply do not want mediocre products. Spin off High End to let it die? No...

[snbeall]

Neither are particularly intellectual or persuasive arguments. Ragwo is - if not persuasive - certainly patient however. And ogs must believe that the Phantom is mediocre?? What is more likely is that as they continue to struggle, they lose traction and following and die of their own accord in the next recession - not everyone is as patient as ragwo, nor as anti-Apple as ogs.

I know I just sent back $10k worth of product I had on trial but discovered only problems, glitches, and shortcomings that I do not expect for my hard earned after tax $10k. Not ready for prime time as we say in the US. But I have 3 iPads and a sequence of iPhones that just work and look good. May not satisfy techno-geeks but they work and look good. As for mediocrity, I refer you back to win-win premise.

[ogs]

No, I have said many times that Phantom is a wonderful design. I just do not want Apple to move into audio business and destroy it. I am not anti Apple, I am anti any BIG... fill in what you want here. HomePod is a mass market 'life style' product. It will probably sell well, but it is still mediocre as an audio product. Devialet is not handling Phantom well. Nor are they dealing particularly well with the Expert amps, but Expert amps sound good and Phantoms can sound fine. I do not think that would be the case if Apple was the developer.

[Rodrat2]

Apple mainly want a platform that excludes practically every other manufacturer or product and allows them to slowly charge for improvements and add ons. Without a lot of messing about their new speaker will not stream Tidal or any other stream service that doesn't have an Apple logo. I say this not to bash Apple as I am typing on an IPad Pro and have just bought an iphone x. If they took over Devialet they would strangle the products. It is deeply depressing that Devialet are still not able to sort out the glitches or make the Phantom do really basic things that owners want. Although my early Silvers have hardly put a foot wrong within the confines available I would not buy from them again. A shame as the concept is great.

[Will]

Apple has consistently shown little interest in high quality digital music - when it could, and should have been a leader.  Apple still only provide music in lossy format and was slow to adopt the newer higher quality Bluetooth standards.  ITunes imposes any number of restrictions both in terms of file type and resolution.  Apple started the digital music revoltion - but has done very little since - except where it could see a way to make lots of money.

[David A]

I don't have a Phantom and I've only heard a couple of very brief demos so my comment has nothing to do with the Phantom. I've got a 130 Pro, soon to be upgraded with the CI board when they start upgrades in Australia.

I've been an Apple user since around 1990 which is a long time. I use a lot of Apple software and I usually like Apple software. I use an iPhone, an iPad, and iPod and I bought the original Apple iPod audio boom box thing (forget its name) which I thought was surprisingly good for what it was and the price, though it didn't compare to the audio system I had at the time. I've stuck with Apple through quite a few ups and downs and I'm still with them.

I like Apple computers but I don't see anything Devialet is doing as fitting into the kind of market Apple is targeting with their AV product lines. I think Apple could maintain the sound quality if they wanted to but I don't think they could do so at a price point that would work with the market they're aiming at with their audio and video products and that means that they would change things to suit the market they're chasing which isn't the people with the audio interests I have, or that I think anyone else with an Expert amplifier has. As for the Phantom, I think the Phantom White would end up as the top of the line, the Silver and Gold would go, and we'd get one or two new, lower quality models than the White to try and make inroads into the market that wants something better and/or more stylish than products like the new Apple HomePod or competitors like Sonos.

My take is that Apple are good, even very good, while they're running with a product but they have a nasty tendency to drop products without notice, leaving you wondering what you're going to do, often after leaving them without updates or support for quite a long time and without making any announcement of their plans. They dropped their Claris line of software which included a couple of good products I relied upon, they dropped Bento from the Filemaker line, they dropped Aperture, and they've dropped a lot of other things. On the hardware side they dropped the Apple Newton around about the time I was really starting to get interested in one, and that was a groundbreaking product. They took over the Be computer line Steve Jobs founded after he was forced out of Apple but when they bought Be and brought Steve back into Apple they dropped the Be line and they even dropped the Be OS, a Unix variant, while they were looking for a Unix based replacement for the original Mac OS. If Apple took over Devialet as a whole, or even just the Phantom line, I think things would soon start to languish. I think the Devialet product line would die under Apple.

Apple would not keep the new Devialet OS for the Expert range because it's Linux. They'd go for a version of the MacOS or iOS. They'd exercise a lot of control over anyone wanting to develop software for it. I don't think they'd collaborate with Roon the way Devialet has and is collaborating and they'd stop Tidal streaming because it competes with Apple's music streaming service. I'd rather have Roon and Tidal than the iTunes interface and Apple Music. Apple and the Expert line would be a repeat of Apple and Be in my view.

I also wonder whether you'd be able to download music you bought from Apple Music and store it on your computer or music server. I had Apple TV versions before the current 4K version and I had bought some TV series which I had downloaded and had stored on my Mac. When I replaced the Apple TV I was using with the new Apple TV 4K, those files were deleted from my iTunes library. If I want to watch those shows now I have to stream them. I've still got access to them but I use bandwidth from my data plan every time I watch those shows whereas I only used bandwidth once when I downloaded. If you don't have an unlimited data plan you're going to end up using a lot more data than you used to use if Apple Music runs the same way which I think it does. It's not a problem if you have an unlimited data plan, or a much bigger plan than you've been using but you'll have problems if you're running close to the limits of your plan. Apple want to put media in the cloud and they want media which comes from them to be available only via Apple's version of the cloud. I think Tidal could come up with a way to stream to a Devialet if Apple took the line over but it wouldn't be as easy or as integrated a way of doing so as it now is with Roon or as we hope it will be with the CI board when they give us Tidal functionality on that.

Finally, I think Apple would want to push the product line further towards the video/Apple TV area than keeping them as audio products. I'd love to see a Devialet with HDMI inputs and video passthrough or processing and that's where I think Apple might take the Expert line but take a look at the choices they've made with video and audio on the current Apple TV and they're not the best choices if you want high quality audio or video. We'd end up losing functionality and control options.

If you like whatever Devialet product you have, and I really like my 130 Pro, you don't want Apple to take it over in my view and I say that as someone who has used Apple computers for nearly 28 years now, is still using them, and would hate to shift to a different computer platform. I'd buy another Mac from Apple and I'd buy another Devialet from Devialet but I wouldn't buy a Devialet from Apple.

[Celts88]

David

What a very well put together post - chapeau! 

Cheers
John

I'm waiting also to get my 1000Pro upgrade with the CI. There's a small chance they may come to Perth for us Sandgropers, so will get a chance to grill query the Devialet Engineers on the intricacies of the CI workings 

[snbeall]

NOW we’ve got a discussion! And that’s a lucid and persuasive argument, David A. Well said. Now I’ve got a confession to make. My premise was really only half baked and I couldn’t really give any good technical reasons for the premise. I just used Apple because I knew it would get attention and seemed to make at least some sense. I can’t really argue with David. That all said, if not Apple, who? Because they seem to need some help.