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An Enjoyable Afternoon with Vivid and Devialet
#1
I have a D250 and have been curious about Vivid loudspeakers for some time, but had never seen them in person, let alone heard them, until last Thursday when my wife and I finally got to hear several models, powered by Devialet electronics. 

My wife and I are currently visiting Johannesburg, and Vivid put me in touch with Panavision to arrange an audition.  Rian and Barry of Panavision gave us a warm welcome, and went out of their way to provide a fantastic listening session.  Even though we were mainly interested in the B1, they kindly suggested that we audition the V1.5, then the B1, the K1, all powered by a Devialet 250 in a relatively small and acoustically damped room, and the G1 powered by a Devialet 800 in a much bigger and livelier room.   We spent about 3 hours enjoying a selection of tracks from my music collection, and all the speakers were played without using SAM.

The V1.5 sounded fine, with excellent detail and surprisingly good bass, and showed me just how good and realistic track 2 of Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger can sound.  My wife, who appreciates good music but is less enthusiastic about audio gear, commented that she was surprised to look up and see an equipment rack, rather than a singing human, placed midway between the speakers.

Next, the B1 was moved into the same position as the V1.5, and improved on the V1.5 in almost every way, sounding just as detailed, but more effortless, and with notably better bass… sorry that I can’t provide a more detailed description of the differences, but it was quite enjoyable.

Then, the K1 was moved into position, and the sound again improved, with a little more effortless clarity than the B1.  However, we both thought that there was a larger improvement going from the V1.5 to the B1, than from the B1 to the K1, and I occasionally had the feeling that bass of the the K1 was overloading the room… this might have been solved by fine-tuning the positions of the K1, but since our main interest was the B1, we didn’t experiment with this.   

Then, after a short break, we moved to the larger and livelier room to hear the G1/Devialet 800.  Again, the sound improved in every way, and was certainly the best sound I’ve ever gotten from my music collection.  

But the greatest surprise of the afternoon came when I asked to hear the B1 in the larger room; Rian and Barry kindly moved the B1’s from the smaller room into position just inside the G1’s.  We were expecting to be disappointed by the B1 after hearing the G1, but to the contrary, we were surprised at how well the B1 held up.  While the G1’s were undoubtedly better, the difference was smaller than expected, considering the large difference in price and size.  The B1 filled even the larger room with lovely music which we continued to enjoy.

And to summarize our experience:

-Barry and Rian were fantastic hosts for the listening session, they were welcoming, knowledgable and friendly, and I can’t imagine how they could have taken better care of us.

-We thought that all of the Vivid loudspeakers, especially the K1, look better in person than in photos.

-All of the speakers we heard sound excellent in combination with Devialet, and there was a definite improvement in sound as the size and price of the speakers increased, but the basic nature of the sound was quite consistent from one model to another, and all showed an excellent balance realism, detail, and liveliness without harshness.
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#2
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. Is moving to another room with different acoustics and from D250 -> D800 a fair comparison? Coul have quiet some impact i suppose
Devialet 220 Expert Pro CI | Sonus Faber Olympica II | Crystal cable speaker cables, interlink and power cables | ROON Rock on Intel NUC | Netherlands
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#3
I had listened to Vivid G2 driven with D400 at Shanghai Devialet showroom and wasn't impressed. Maybe the sound was blocked by the central stone shelf.


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Before: Le200, KEF LS50, AQ Type4, NUC 5i5RYH/8GB/128GB M.2SSD, Roon, Win8.1/AIR2.1.3/RoonBridge, MM/AIR3/RoonBridge, QNAP TS-212P 5TB NAS, AQ NRG-X3

Now: KEF LS50W, NUC5i5RYH/8GB/128GB M.2SSD, Roon, QNAP TS-212P 5TB NAS,iFi iSilencer3.0+DC iPurifier+iPurifier2, Sonos ZP80+SPDIF iPurifier


Location: Cyberjaya, Malaysia
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#4
Thanks for sharing. One of my finest auditions was D800 + Vivid G2, it was simply amazing


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Aurender X100L / Transrotor Crescendo TT / Denon DCD1520 / Macbook Pro >> D400 >> Martin Logan Montis
amabrok's system - Latest update (May 2015, Page 11, Post #109)

Dubai, UAE
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#5
(12-May-2015, 14:22)iamwappie Wrote: Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. Is moving to another room with different acoustics and from D250 -> D800 a fair comparison? Coul have quiet some impact i suppose

Hi, and thanks for your response.  You're right that changing rooms and going from a D250 to a D800 isn't a fair comparison, but the final audition was with the B1's moved to the larger room, powered by the same D800, and placed right inside of the G1's, and the sound was very good.  Not quite as good as the G1's, but closer than we expected.
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