One year after 13.2.0

[David A]

IMHO, Devialet has two significant weaknesses - software development and customer support/communication.  Devialet simply doesn't focus resources on these.  Perhaps that is a financial decision or perhaps it's simply corporate philosophy.  To do it well would require significant resources and neither would provide a direct income stream from it.  Of course, I have to believe their products success would be that much greater if they did these two things better, but who knows. 

The impact on me, a Devialet customer for over 5 years, is that I have a hard time recommending Devialet to others for these reasons.  But, I'm still an Export 440 Pro owner and it still sounds as good as ever.  If/when I ever replace it, rest assured I will pay a lot more attention to how well a company supports its products and customers well beyond the initial sale.

+1.

I've been a Devialet owner for a bit under 5 years and I agree entirely with your assessment of Devialet's weaknesses though I would say one thing slightly differently. I think their product success depends more on the software development than the customer support/communication and I think that doing the software development better, doing a better job of releasing new firmware without bugs and fixing any bugs that occur much faster and better would reduce the dissatisfaction owners feel with their support and communication.

The first Experts were truly innovative and one of the few if not the first amplifiers to combine the inclusion of a DAC and streaming capabilities in the same device. That was the feat that in my mind gave some credibility to the "one day everyone will own a Devialet" slogan. Now that one box combination of DAC, streaming capabilities, and amplifier is much more common and while I don't think anyone else has quite done it with the design flair of Devialet, I do think that some of the others are now doing it with fewer bugs and more reliability. If Devialet can't do better on the software development front then fixing the customer support and communication won't let them stay competitive. It's fixing the software development issues that is essential to keeping them competitive in a market that is becoming a lot more competitive with every year in my view.