And already a SAM related problem...

[Devialetuser]

Nothing to worry about here just keep using it with the firmware best suites your particular setup. I hardly use SAM to be honest, and if you speakers are B&W (a company renowned to make worlds finest speakers) I doubt it would help much. Much rather listen to B&W speakers without any DSP, just like the designer of those speakers intended them to be. Enjoy your music and don't worry too much about a functionality that is not serving its purpose.

[ogs]

I've had the thumping noise in my own system on both SAM1 and SAM2. It is related to deep bass content (below 30Hz or even 20Hz) I recently got my speakers measured for SAM and still had the noise on certain tracks after I enabled the new SAM profile (SAM is always at 100%). It was worse when I played loud(ish). I use room correction so I had to adjust the target curve EQ in the deep bass to get rid of the problem.
I am not suggesting you use the rumble filter on a permanent basis, just temporary until the issue is solved. You need to report this to Devialet so they can look at it and find a fix. I actually mentioned the thumping to Maxime Dumont when he did the SAM measurements on my speaker. He said that it shouldn't be like this. He also told me that SAM does high pass filtering to avoid too much low frequency content passing through SAM.

[ogs]

Regarding using speakers "as is".

B&W have been very enthusiastic about SAM. Designers of passive speakers makes choices based on what is possible for a given design. If the same design is made active by the same designer it would probably sound quite different because the designer could do things not possible in the passive version. The passive and active KEF LS50 is a good example here.

[invictus005]

Nothing to worry about here just keep using it with the firmware best suites your particular setup. I hardly use SAM to be honest, and if you speakers are B&W (a company renowned to make worlds finest speakers) I doubt it would help much. Much rather listen to B&W speakers without any DSP, just like the designer of those speakers intended them to be. Enjoy your music and don't worry too much about a functionality that is not serving its purpose.

After hearing SAM, it does a lot of things right. It's not just the bass that is improved, but there's a lot more energy in the lower midrange and upper midbass region. An attribute that I seek in an audio system. So it would be nice to be able to use it without noise issues.

As for firmware 7.1.3, I like it. I can see why so many people prefer and call it most analog like. I may just end up using it with SAM1. I'll have to do a few more back and forth auditions.

I've had the thumping noise in my own system on both SAM1 and SAM2. It is related to deep bass content (below 30Hz or even 20Hz) I recently got my speakers measured for SAM and still had the noise on certain tracks after I enabled the new SAM profile (SAM is always at 100%). It was worse when I played loud(ish). I use room correction so I had to adjust the target curve EQ in the deep bass to get rid of the problem.
I am not suggesting you use the rumble filter on a permanent basis, just temporary until the issue is solved. You need to report this to Devialet so they can look at it and find a fix. I actually mentioned the thumping to Maxime Dumont when he did the SAM measurements on my speaker. He said that it shouldn't be like this. He also told me that SAM does high pass filtering to avoid too much low frequency content passing through SAM.

If I turn the volume lower, thumping goes away. But I like to listen to at least moderate to somewhat loud levels. With SAM2 the low bass is very exaggerated, it's the Devialet's limiters that engage to stop woofer excursion. And this engagement causes a "thud" like sound. It's somewhat hidden when playing digital as it happens during the louder bass heavy passages, but it's audible nevertheless.

During vinyl playback it's audible even between songs if the volume is up fairly high as the woofers without subsonic filter are constantly moving.

I'll send Devialet an email and see what they say. If I get a response, I'll post it here.

[Rodney Gold]

I ran test tones to set up a set of vivid G3's with sam and had the same thumps and limiting at sam at 100% .. reducing it to 15% stopped that ...

[ogs]

So, we can assume this is a general problem with SAM as several users are reporting this. SAM should handle 'overload' gracefully and inaudibly (apart from reducing bass output at high levels to protect drivers). Devialet needs to look at the code to see what is happening here. If SAM1 and 7.1.3 does this properly, something has changed in newer versions.

[JohnnySix]

I get this whumping at the bass end whenever I do a room correction frequency sweep at -16dB through my D120.
My understanding was that SAM needs headroom to do its thang... so if your volume is much above -20, you may have run out of this headroom if there is high subsonic bass present.

[Confused]

I think there are multiple issue here, which in combination may be causing some confusion. So taking each point one by one. You mention that the 'thump' issue with vinyl is mitigated when you use RIAA 1976 equalisation. This makes perfect sense because selecting RIAA 1976 introduces a high pass / subsonic filter. You mention that you have your turntable perfectly set up and I have absolutely no reason to doubt this. The problem is that even with a perfectly set up TT, on a decent stand with an isolation platform, maybe even with the stand on a concrete floor, you can still get some 'environmental' feedback. Turntables are incredibly sensitive, and this effect in combination with no subsonic filter and SAM working hard at 100% is likely to cause issues in many set-ups. I note that some other responses to this thread have speculated that SAM has some low frequency filtering. This may vary between SAM profiles I guess, but my experience is that there is zero low frequency filtering with SAM. Feed the system a 2Hz signal or something and you can see the bass drivers moving a 2Hz. I also note that your turntable is a suspended sub chassis design, so some minor movement is inevitable. Some background information per these links:

https://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?...light=1976

https://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?...ht=walking

You mention trying a 20Hz test tone. One thing I have noticed with SAM is that some very low frequency test tones can upset SAM a little. It is perhaps worth remembering that 20Hz is pretty much the point at which bass becomes inaudible and can only be felt. So feeding a speaker with relatively small bass drivers a pure 20Hz signal with SAM set to 100% is almost certainly going to yield some strange results. SAM limits not just driver excursion, but can protect against voice coil overheating, as well as the amps digital power supply protecting the amp from overload, so it is not impossible that you are hitting three protection devices when attempting a pure 20Hz tone. To summarise, I really would not worry too much about what happens with a 20Hz tone.

Having said all of that, I would not discount the possibility that there is indeed an issue with your SAM profile. SAM has existed in two versions, V1 & V2. The V2 SAM come out with firmware 8 and any speakers that have been SAM'ed after this time have 'V8' designated SAM profile. Speakers SAM'ed before this have had the SAM profiles converted to be fully compatible with the later firmware versions. I know that there has been some issues with a small number of these V1 to SAM V2/V8 conversion, this was the case with my own speakers which exhibited all kinds of strange behaviour with SAM V2. Thankfully, Devialet found the issue, rectified it, and now SAM works fine for me. It is not inconceivable that there is a similar issue lurking in your SAM profile, I know a lot of the B&W speakers were part of the original V1 SAM ready set.

As a final comment regarding SAM V2, it does seam to come with a very high degree of adjustment. For example, with the original SAM I was quite happy to keep SAM at 100%, but with the Firmware 8+ SAM V2, it is much better to have SAM at 20% to 40%, to go to 100% is too much with a lot of music. I am aware that you are 'stuck' on 100% whilst you await you new remote.

The short version of this post is that I reckon that if you try SAM at a lower percentage setting and stick with RIAA 1976, then you will probably find that your system is fine. If you do continue getting SAM related issues it would then be wise to get Devialet to double check that there is not an issue with your specific speaker SAM profile.

[invictus005]

Let's not focus too much on the vinyl side as the thumping problem is present via digital playback as well.

Some further observations:

SAM1 is completely different from SAM2. 

SAM1 has a subsonic filter always engaged. With firmware 7.1.3 and SAM1 on, the woofers barely move, no matter how loud the sound is. With SAM1 off, the woofers move freely (no subsonic filer) and can get violent if the volume is raised, however the excursion limiter never engages.

With firmware 8.X thru current, SAM2 off the woofers move freely (no subsonic filer), limiters never engage no matter the volume. With SAM2 on, woofers move freely (no subsonic filter), but limiters engage making a "thud" sound if the volume is raised to moderate loud.

[Confused]

OK - Comment about vinyl duly noted.

Regarding SAM 1 having a low pass filter, it is interesting to me that ogs mentions being told SAM having a low pass filter, your observations certainly back this up, whereas my experience tells me that SAM 1 did not have a low pass filter. The reason I think (or thought) SAM 1 does not have a low pass filter is that I can recall using an external phono stage with SAM 1 and getting very obvious low frequency high extension woofer movement. However, when increasing the volume, this low frequency high excursion woofer flopping would stop dead, leaving the normal smaller woofer movement you would expect. So in conclusion, I would say that there is some kind of low frequency filter but one that is dependant on volume (or maybe calculated movement), so not a straight forward filter, but a subsonic filter of sorts, yes.

One point to note here, you can select a subsonic filter in the configurator, and also switch the subsonic filter off via the remote, but I am thinking this general filter setting is different to whatever subsonic filtering that may come as part of the SAM processing.

Regarding your SAM 2 observations, this does look odd. I am speculating to a degree here but I do have a theory as to what might be going on here. I had an original SAM profile, when this was migrated to SAM 2 it was pretty much unusable, certainly when set to 100% SAM. The main issue was that SAM appeared to be grossly exaggerating the very lowest bass, it did sound strange. It was better when set to a lower SAM %, but not completely right at anything over 0% SAM. So here is a degree of speculation, lets say there is a similar issue with the migration of your SAM profile to SAM 2, then you too would have grossly exaggerated lowest frequency bass with SAM 2, which could reasonably manifest itself as your limiter engaging 'thud'. As I say, speculation, maybe your issue is something a little different.

I think you will gain a better insight into this once you have your remote and can experiment with the SAM % a bit. However, I am beginning to think that what you are experiencing here is not right at all. I would say you have good reason to go back to Devialet and ask them to double check the SAM 2 profile for your speakers, there is a decent chance that there is something wrong with it that they can fix. Meanwhile, I would try and enjoy your new system as much as possible, maybe keep SAM off for now. Believe me, I know how frustrating this kind of issue can be, I wish you the best of luck getting it satisfactorily sorted out.