Possible new competitor to the 800?

[Confused]

SAM is a big factor I think.  I know some prefer not to use it, and indeed it is not available for some speakers.  For me, I really like the improvement SAM brings, so in considering an alternative, I have to consider how much better an amp would need to be in other areas for me to ditch Devialet & SAM for one of those alternatives.

It's interesting but in my own setup pressing the SAM button is not a "night and day" change although it depends massively on the material being played of course. 

With electronic/dance music I love it. No complaints whatsoever, it's genius. 

With other music genres I find it can add a slight artificiality or unnaturalness to the sound, again it depends a bit on the music so I can't generalise here. This makes me wonder if all the additional processing in the DSP isn't affecting things (in a very subtle way of course!). With dance music the timbres of the electronic instruments are a bit more basic shall we say...

My default mode is generally to leave SAM "on" and at 100% but experimenting with switching SAM off has been interesting, to say the least. 

Anyway I'm not complaining, far from it. It's great to be able to switch it on and off.

Guillaume

Guillaume - I would like to clarify your observations here.  To start, I can say that that running 8.1.3 SAM V2 I too have very similar observations, although perhaps a little more obvious that you are describing.  With some music, bass drum sounds (and we are talking real drum sounds here, not electronic) just don't sound right with SAM.  As an example I was listening to a track in my car last week, now my car stereo is reasonable quality but not the last word in audio reproduction, but I was struck by the drums in one particular track.  Listening to this at home, it was definately better, more realistic with SAM off, with SAM on it sounded a little artificial, as if the natural decay following the initial bass hit was being exaggerated.  These are fairly subbtle observations, it doesn't sound so obviously "wrong" as when I initially had SAM 2 issues, but the effects are there if you listen.

My specific question for yourself, are you own observations related to SAM in the 8.x.x era only, or did you find the same electronic vs acoustic music SAM biases back in the 7.x.x. days?  That is, are these your traditional views of SAM, or observations formed or perhaps reinforced with SAM 2?