At Long Last I Have Experienced Phantom!

[Paul @ HiFi Lounge]

Hi All,

Had an interesting day yesterday as Joachim from Devialet come in with a couple of Silver Phantoms, just thought I'd share my thoughts that I have put on my blog, I know a lot of you guys will already know a lot of this stuff but I was so impressed I just thought I'd share on here 

Now I know I can get a little over excited when we get a new product in here, emperors new cloths and all that, but ever since Devialet unveiled the Phantom just before Christmas I have been gagging to get my hands on one but due to Harrods exclusivity deal this wasn’t possible, although I nearly did venture into Harrods to buy one just so I could see if all the glowing reviews really were justified.

Well after a 6 month wait Devialet bought in a couple of Silver Phantoms for us to listen today, now like a lot of us I have read the reviews, but in all honesty they really did seem to good to be true so once both Phantom’s were hooked up I think it is fair to say that my expectations were pretty high and I was ready to be disappointed. Well the good news is that these awesome looking wireless speakers exceeded what I was expecting, I instantly had a big smile on my face as we tried some of my favourite tracks. The first thing that strikes you is the bass, it is immense, extremely solid and powerful, a couple of times I found it a bit much but you can set the Phantom to night mode which tones the bass down a little so it is good to have the choice, then we tried some vocal music, this is where Phantom really surprised me, voices come across as very natural and effortless with that excellent low Devialet noise floor where everything seems to project itself from an eery silence. So in two words, very impressed.

We used Devialet’s new Dialogue to get everything up and running, you don’t have to use a Dialogue but it certainly makes it all a lot easier to get Phantom up and running and to use the new Spark app with Tidal and other streaming services built in so definitely recommended as a partner for Phantom and around Christmas time (Estimate) the Dialogue will add UPNP streaming to the Expert range which really is excellent news, it is just nice to know that it is definitely coming.

We run 2 Phantoms in tandem but you can run up to 24, now that would be scary as just 2 had the room shaking with some of the demo tracks used, you just can’t state how powerful these things are, it really is quite astonishing technology.

HiFi Lounge has signed up to be a Devialet Premier dealer making us one of only 8 outlets in the UK where you can demo and buy Phantom, we have planned a Devialet open day for the end of August where you will be able to come along to experience Phantom and the Expert range and speak to representatives from Devialet, these guys really are bringing a different slant to highend music playback and we are really excited to be part on board for the journey.

We will have our Phantom stock around the beginning of July so not too much longer to wait, Devialet have done a slight re-design to add Bluetooth to Phantom which has held things up a little, but it is certainly well worth the wait. 

http://hifilounge.co.uk/devialet

Below are a few pictures and a couple of links to quick videos I shot as it really is worth seeing a Phantom in action :-)

https://youtu.be/lvO4X8R77qY

https://youtu.be/7vfpoxai3JE

Cheers,
Paul.

[AllenB]

Nice write up Paul, I can feel your excitement!

But my eyes keep getting drawn to the Aurenders ;-) Smaller casings than I imagined.

[Paul @ HiFi Lounge]

Thanks Allen, yes I searched ages to find a digital streaming transport that I really got on with, luckily Aurender hasn't disappointed.

[AllenB]

The big pre-qualifier for me with Aurender is Roon, if that gets integrated then I will be on the phone to you

[Hifi_swlon]

The big pre-qualifier for me with Aurender is Roon, if that gets integrated then I will be on the phone to you

Qobuz for me. If that gets integrated, I'll be on the phone too!

[superstock]

Qobuz is already integrated if you have a Dialog as is Tidal and Deezer.

[Hifi_swlon]

Qobuz is already integrated if you have a Dialog as is Tidal and Deezer.

Yes, sorry, jumped in on the Aurender comment without making it clear…

How well does the Spark Ap work?

[superstock]

Spark is OK but it sometimes has wobbles with Qobuz when it misses tracks in a playlist, loses last couple of second of a track and skips to the next track. Sometimes Qobuz tracks of an album are not available and then a new search will bring them up as playable files.

Optical inputs are sketchy when sharing to groups of stereo pairs if you group them and then eject a pair the optical input may need reseting (turn off and back on again in spark settings). I've had some loss of sync with optical inputs.

Turning speakers off (unplugging the system) seems in my home to reallocate optical named inputs to different speakers. You cannot change the names of inputs without doing a full install.

Installation with Spark is like driving a large lorry across a weak bridge, very scary and you don't know if you're going to get to the other side. I'd like a new install sound as you can't stop it until the install has completed.

The sound of the system though is something else. fabulous.

[Hifi_swlon]

Mmmm, fabulous sound would be nice.   The rest of the list I could do without!

Will wait until the early adopters have helped Devialet iron out all the bugs.  So maybe I'll look again around 2016/17 and see how they're getting on!

[Mr_Bill]

Hi All,

Had an interesting day yesterday as Joachim from Devialet come in with a couple of Silver Phantoms, just thought I'd share my thoughts that I have put on my blog, I know a lot of you guys will already know a lot of this stuff but I was so impressed I just thought I'd share on here 

Now I know I can get a little over excited when we get a new product in here, emperors new cloths and all that, but ever since Devialet unveiled the Phantom just before Christmas I have been gagging to get my hands on one but due to Harrods exclusivity deal this wasn’t possible, although I nearly did venture into Harrods to buy one just so I could see if all the glowing reviews really were justified.

Well after a 6 month wait Devialet bought in a couple of Silver Phantoms for us to listen today, now like a lot of us I have read the reviews, but in all honesty they really did seem to good to be true so once both Phantom’s were hooked up I think it is fair to say that my expectations were pretty high and I was ready to be disappointed. Well the good news is that these awesome looking wireless speakers exceeded what I was expecting, I instantly had a big smile on my face as we tried some of my favourite tracks. The first thing that strikes you is the bass, it is immense, extremely solid and powerful, a couple of times I found it a bit much but you can set the Phantom to night mode which tones the bass down a little so it is good to have the choice, then we tried some vocal music, this is where Phantom really surprised me, voices come across as very natural and effortless with that excellent low Devialet noise floor where everything seems to project itself from an eery silence. So in two words, very impressed.

We used Devialet’s new Dialogue to get everything up and running, you don’t have to use a Dialogue but it certainly makes it all a lot easier to get Phantom up and running and to use the new Spark app with Tidal and other streaming services built in so definitely recommended as a partner for Phantom and around Christmas time (Estimate) the Dialogue will add UPNP streaming to the Expert range which really is excellent news, it is just nice to know that it is definitely coming.

We run 2 Phantoms in tandem but you can run up to 24, now that would be scary as just 2 had the room shaking with some of the demo tracks used, you just can’t state how powerful these things are, it really is quite astonishing technology.

HiFi Lounge has signed up to be a Devialet Premier dealer making us one of only 8 outlets in the UK where you can demo and buy Phantom, we have planned a Devialet open day for the end of August where you will be able to come along to experience Phantom and the Expert range and speak to representatives from Devialet, these guys really are bringing a different slant to highend music playback and we are really excited to be part on board for the journey.

We will have our Phantom stock around the beginning of July so not too much longer to wait, Devialet have done a slight re-design to add Bluetooth to Phantom which has held things up a little, but it is certainly well worth the wait. 

http://hifilounge.co.uk/devialet

Below are a few pictures and a couple of links to quick videos I shot as it really is worth seeing a Phantom in action :-)

https://youtu.be/lvO4X8R77qY

https://youtu.be/7vfpoxai3JE

Cheers,
Paul.

Thanks for the comments Paul!

I believe I am speaking for a lot of others that are interested in Phantom and would really like to keep the dialogue on listening experiences and Branch/Dialogue/Spark rather than taking the thread into other directions.