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.
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.
2 Channel Power / Signal Path: APC H15 → Mistral Audio W-3900 → Custom Roon Server → Silent Angel Bonn N8 → Silent Angel Forester F1 → miniDSP SHD Studio → Mutec MC-3+ USB → Devialet Phantom I 108dB
Headphone iFi Audio iDSD Signature → Grado GS1000i
Headphone iFi Audio iDSD Signature → Grado GS1000i
