250 Pro

[woodstock]

My take on the sound between the D 250 Vs 250 Pro.. Just to be clear there is nothing innately wrong with The pro version, it's just not to my personal preference. I find that the 250 Pro sounds like recorded sound and the D250 sounds more like live music. No more to add.

[woodstock]

Is there such a thing as having too much stage layering? An example of this in my system is having the piano stage front and the drum kit being 20 ft. behind this. When I hear live music I hear very little of this layering of sound so when I hear it in reproduced music it sounds artificial. The Pro 250 is still improving. Here is a thought; is it the Devialet burning in or is it the speakers burning in to the new Devialet?

[Vivialet]

you never know what happens during a recording session. During the mixing you can place every instrument somewhere in the room. The new pro has improved in making this audible, sometimes there are even some new background layers.
Definitly not a fault of the Pro but a big (sometimes huge) improvement. At least for me.

[Damon]

I don't have a Pro, nor have I heard one, but the whole concept or presence of layering and placement in reproduction always strikes me as a bit artificial. Not that it doesn't exist, or that we can't see the separation or placement of players when listening to music, but it can be quite artificial. My own experience is limited and, for the most part, limited to four piece rock music. But about 18 months ago a group I was with recorded 10 tracks in a professional studio. Fully equipped with all the mikes and mixers and acoustic separators. I love the way the Devialet gets me closer to the original sound; sound that I truly know. But.... the recording puts Maggie front and centre. Fine and dandy, but she was actually singing in the room upstairs, above the main studio room. and the drummer was at least 20' behind me, and my bass amp was in a separate room with substantial sound proofing. So even though the songs are 'live', any 'live stage' placement of the band that the system recreates is- must be- artificial.

On the other hand, go to a truly live recording from the '50's or '60's of Davis or Fitzgerald, or a big band session with Rich or Ellington and you may well have a few mikes picking up a whole group. In that sort of situation, there is a real physical relationship between players that is wonderful if captured and reproduced.

Mixing and mastering can make or break recorded music (and fix a lot of mistakes). I've always valued the ability of hi-fi systems to separate sounds so that I can hear and follow the players, or sections in the music. But is may be that there is too much dissection, as you say. Others have reported that the Pro is even better than the original Expert series in this regard, so it is possible that things are simply too.... pulled apart? Or perhaps your system and your room are actually quite amazing, to give you that sort of depth. 

The comparison to live is certainly something that gets discussed a great deal. I usually find live sound to be pretty bad, esp. for pop and rock music*; it's more the experience of being there, and either getting surrounded in sound, or else hearing un-amplified instruments. I guess I don't expect recorded music to be the same as a live performance.


*nothing like looking out into the audience and seeing your wife and friends with their fingers in their ears....

[yabaVR]

Is there such a thing as having too much stage layering? An example of this in my system is having the piano stage front and the drum kit being 20 ft. behind this. When I hear live music I hear very little of this layering of sound so when I hear it in reproduced music it sounds artificial. The Pro 250 is still improving. Here is a thought; is it the Devialet burning in or is it the speakers burning in to the new Devialet?

To me there's one important thing when comparing the sound of one amp over the other. If I'm not quiet sure I'm concentrating on the more or less 3D mapping of instruments and voices. If one amp gives me more 3D of single objects it's the more precise and better amp. The amp can not distinguish between precision of 3D mapping of an instrument and the distance/mapping in relation to other instruments. For the amp the technical parameters of mapping is the same for both scenarios.
So when there's something wrong with staging it's the recording/mastering of the scene in the studio that sucks.

I hate it when the actual sound is nice and natural but the Saxophone sits on the Piano which in itself sticks to the Drums that extend over 4m in width and the Contrabass is just all over it. I can only listen to such recordings as background music.

It's interesting that I had quiet the same thoughts sometime that my D200 is customizing to the speakers...or controlling their flaws to some amount. Don't know if that is possible but I'm impressed on how my D is having an incredible control over the speakers. It seems as it is sucked to each speaker chassis (I have no other words for it) on high volumes and I love it.

gui

[Pim]

One difference between being there live and recording is that when you're there you can see the positions of the musicians. I'm sure recording engineers can go a bit too far with their separation to make up for the lack of visual input.

As for Woodstock; Since the Pro is too much of an open window to the source (being the music or the player) for you, that practically means that the original 250 possibly was the ultimate amplifier for your system, your room, your ears. It's a shame you did the upgrade and aren't happy with it but on the other hand, if it gets better and you do end up being happy with it, at least you know there's no more improvement to make for you and you can rest easy and enjoy the music for the rest of your life. Awesome!

[woodstock]

At my age that might not be much longer. Maybe the answer to my dilemma is to get another D 250 and that way I can compare; hell, while I'm at it I'll get two D 250. That's the ticket to bliss.

[Axel]

Is there such a thing as having too much stage layering? An example of this in my system is having the piano stage front and the drum kit being 20 ft. behind this. When I hear live music I hear very little of this layering of sound so when I hear it in reproduced music it sounds artificial. The Pro 250 is still improving. Here is a thought; is it the Devialet burning in or is it the speakers burning in to the new Devialet?

Or is it your ears re-adjusting and becoming used to the changes? Also, I often find that when a piece of equipment has been moved on the rack, for cleaning or whatever, it takes a couple of days or sometimes even longer to come back on song.
As Damon said above, the final placement of instruments in the acoustic are the sole responsibility of the recording/mixing team, led by the producer and (hopefully) by the band.
I've found, since upgrading to Pro's, that the way in which the music was recorded is spotlighted, apart from other things by the amps really giving you a sense of what was going on in the studio. This, for me is one reason that makes the Devialet amps so special: it/they will wheedle out any substandard or sloppily mixed pieces of music and provide a clear window to the truth.

@ Damon re #44: great post, mate.

[Gerronwithit]

Salut mes amis! This is my first post on Devialet chat as I never had any Devialet gear to chat about. As of a week and a half ago the good people from Oxford Audio sourced and installed my rand new Devialet Pro 250. To say that it is a quantum leap in what I have owned and listened to before would be an understatement. The depth, transparency, balance and clarity is mind blowing.

I am probably getting a little ahead of myself as it is only step one of the journey. I had looked at other gear, primarily Naim, who also produce wonderful products, but I needed some thing to link up with my AV gear, not consist of a pile of boxes and get some sympathy from my wife. This the Devialet achieves in spades.

However, am playing it through twenty year old Castle Harlechs and whatever wiring came with it at the time, probably Chord. Although I do have a large collection of CDs and vinyl (somewhere) I am sticking to Tidal at the moment. I can get access to remasters of almost everything I like as well as new stuff as and when it arrives. I do have a NAS (Synology) and have ripped some stuff in WAV format. At the moment am stuck to playing My Favourites in random (not so random at times with Tidal) and album after album. It is truly transfixing and I am nowhere near casual acceptance or any form of disappointment with what I am hearing.

If I have a question, which I do, it is which speakers and interconnects would be worth looking at. Forget anything more expensive than the 250 itself?

[Damon]

Hi Gerronwithit,

Bienvenue! You've come to the right place for Devialet stuff, and by all accounts, OAC is one of the best places to get Devialet. There are quite a few Ex-Naim owners, me included, and I think we still have a lot of fondness for Naim. But here we are. And we all have a lot of shelf space thats opened up as well.

Did you compare a D250 Expert to a D250 Pro? Just curious if you did, as you would have fresher ears with which to evaluate the differences. Debate is raging, as you will read. Well, sort of.

Speakers and cables; argh, so many choices, but there is a long thread somewhere about speakers. Read that and the long winter nights will fly by. Now that you're here, you need to keep us up to date with your thoughts and of course, any changes to your system... we have rules about this sort of thing.