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Audio Science Review of Expert 200.
Experienced the same: a value of 0 or -5 is fine ... -15 or even -30 is causing problems or let’s say not best performing for most AV receivers as they have to exceedingly provide power to compensate for the low values of the front channels. For example was +12 db after Audyssey measurement for every front channel. And if you got two B&W 802 D3 to drive this is causing real stress for the AVR.
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(12-Apr-2020, 08:28)sam1000 Wrote: I used to own Anaview based amp from a company called D-Sonic, which got replaced by d200. That was my first Devialet unit in 2016 before the upgrade. There was no contest.  Let us know when you compare the sound of the two with level matching.
I am not all thinking that Anaview could replace Devialet  for highs but it is better than the Kharma M150 (Hypex based) I used before for the woofers.
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(01-Apr-2020, 01:33)whatmore Wrote: Amir has reached out to Devialet for a response.
There are questions that could easily be cleared up but I wonder if they will be as woefully uncommunicative on this as they are with pretty much everything else….

I actually signed into that site and made about 8 posts before I was banned. I think I should be grateful. Someone else have taken over from me and will no doubt be receiving abuse as I type.

What happened is that a chap advertised a D200 for sale, the seller said he loved it and it worked perfectly, and Amir messaged that if it was sold into the USA could the seller send it via him and he'd test it, then send it on. So it gets sold and the seller sends it to Amir and in 5 minutes he's blown it up. How dare I express any suspicion. So of course Devialet is considered to be fundamentally faulty and the not inconsiderable number of sociopaths who post there post 30 pages of fairly abusive stuff, as if any Devialet owners, or Devialet themselves, give a damn. Of course assuming Devialet care is just a measure of ASR members' own feeling of self-importance in the audiophile world.

All I can say is that my D250 Expert Pro CI gives me and my family, all of whom use it, a lot of enjoyment and it has done since 2016, moreso since the Feb-2019 firmware that made it Roon Ready and functionally faultless. 

Frankly, I don't give a hoot if the THD is 0.0001% more than Devialet claim. I bought the unit because I went to a demo at an audio dealer and loved (a) the sound and (b) the functionality. I still do. I didn't read the marketing, which is fantastically bombastic, but which I find amusing and do not take it too seriously. 

Devialet also took me off the audio merry-go-round. My only significant purchases since 2016 have been Shunyata cables and an Innuos Roon server.

ASR does some good in highlighting that there are a lot of quite cheap products, such as nCore amplifiers and things by the likes of JDS and March, that are very competent products and offer good value for money.

I would add that I met Mathieu Pernot at a demo, he was a bit scary but after a chat very personable, after which I have no doubt that if he decided to design a toaster, it would undoubtedly be the best toaster in the world.
250 Pro CI; Innuos Zen Mk3; Claro dual turntable (Expert Stylus Denon + OL Aladdin Mk2); RCM Sensor2; Wilson Sabrina; OePhi speaker cables; Puritan PM156 conditioner and Ultimate cables.
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(15-Apr-2020, 16:09)ssfas Wrote: I actually signed into that site and made about 8 posts before I was banned. I think I should be grateful. Someone else have taken over from me and will no doubt be receiving abuse as I type.

The only person I see in that thread who got banned was called "onlyforadv". Was that you or did they ban more than one person?
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(16-Apr-2020, 00:39)whatmore Wrote:
(15-Apr-2020, 16:09)ssfas Wrote: I actually signed into that site and made about 8 posts before I was banned. I think I should be grateful. Someone else have taken over from me and will no doubt be receiving abuse as I type.

The only person I see in that thread who got banned was called "onlyforadv". Was that you or did they ban more than one person?

He took over from me. I got banned before him. 

I've learned from that site that everything can be measured and if it can't be measured it doesn't exist. 

So if I measure the circumference of my head, does that tell me how intelligent I am? I would have to take into account the fact that thanks to the lockdown I can't get a haircut.

God bless Devialet for simplifying my audio life.
250 Pro CI; Innuos Zen Mk3; Claro dual turntable (Expert Stylus Denon + OL Aladdin Mk2); RCM Sensor2; Wilson Sabrina; OePhi speaker cables; Puritan PM156 conditioner and Ultimate cables.
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(10-Apr-2020, 22:05)Greg Wrote:
(10-Apr-2020, 13:51)PeppaPig Wrote:
(10-Apr-2020, 10:24)Confused Wrote: This is an excellent point, definitively they cannot. 

Consider you are measuring a "conventional" integrated amplifier, here you can measure just the amplifier, but to get measurements directly comparable to a digitally fed Devialet, you would need to add a DAC, which presumably adds its own noise, distortion and whatever else.

Indeed, in the case of the ASR measurements, or other measurements made via the analogue input, you are inevitably adding any noise or distortions from the ADC, which most of us do not need to use.  Clearly this penalises the Devialet results if considered in direct comparison with a conventional amplifier.

I suppose you could make direct comparisons of the digital input with integrated amps like the Gryphon or Hegal, which include their own DACs, but essentially these are just amp and DAC in the same box, a little different to Devialets ADH where the DAC is integral to the amplifiers performance.

A further step beyond all this is that with the typical usage for many, the Devialet is also a source as AIR or the CI board is effectively a "networked attached end point".

I do find the measurements interesting though.  As an example, I know many Devialet users get excellent subjective results using an external phono stage, which is fair enough when you consider that the built in phono stage is audibly noisy with low output MC's.  However, seeing how the various inputs measure, an external digital phono stage with S/PDIF output might be even better.  In theory at least.  It might even be possible to use a conventional analogue phono stage with an external ADC, which might yield good results if the external ADC measures better than Devialet's internal offering.  Again, in theory at least.

As an aside, I'm using the "listening with ears" method this morning.  No issues detected so far …….   Shy


Hi Confused,

I am not really getting why the measurement of analog input is noisy. I have a turntable connected to my 1000 Pro, no matter the MM cartridge I used before or the currentC cartridge. Both is very very quite, friend came to my house listen to it are surprised Vinly can be this clean. The Devialet background is like black black black, it’s one of the thing it surprised me. So I don’t know what those measurements reflected in real world listening.
Well, the clue is Confused has referred to low output MC cartridges which many of us use and have found with appropriate settings within the configurator,  the system sounds noisy, in particular hiss. I have no doubt that any MM cartridge will sound just fine with the configurator appropriately set. Those of us with low output MC cartridges have generally reverted to the addition of external step up transformers or a separate dedicated MC phono stage, as I have done. This issue has been communicated to Devialet and Matthew Pernot has personally looked at the problem and has concluded that the level of noise is acceptable. That is nonsense because users are troubled by the noise. As said, (considering the refusal to accept there is a noise issue) most of us in this situation have found our own solutions. I don’t blame Devialet for this because I realise how hard it is to create a noise free low output MC stage particularly when the amp has everything crammed into such a small space when low output MC cartridges benefit from expanded low noise construction requiring components in the phono amplifier section to be well spaced........not possible in a Devialet chassis. 

So, a separate MC phono amplifier absolutely works for me. My two gripes are 1, why can’t Devialet publicly recognise the problem and either acknowledge that they can’t fix it or better, do something that does fix it. My 2nd is I’m a bit pissed that I have to accommodate the space of a separate MC phono stage when one of my main drivers for going full Devialet was that I would have a simple one box system. Unfortunately, it seems that’s not going to happen. Otherwise, the sound of my 250 Pro C/I is magnificent!

I also have a 250 Pro CI and was using an Urushi 0.2mv and a high output MM 2m Mono. I did not find the Urushi dead quiet, but still very good and perfectly satisfactory for 3 years. I am now using it with an external phono, the Vertere Mk2 unit, it's excellent and very cheap. 

I now have a high output (2.3mv I think) SoundSmith Zephyr Mk3. This is a moving iron unit with a very light cantilever. It's extremely impressive and dead quiet direct into the Devialet.

A chap I know has after many years gone to an external Brinkmann phono amp on a 220 Pro (formerly a 200).
250 Pro CI; Innuos Zen Mk3; Claro dual turntable (Expert Stylus Denon + OL Aladdin Mk2); RCM Sensor2; Wilson Sabrina; OePhi speaker cables; Puritan PM156 conditioner and Ultimate cables.
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(16-Apr-2020, 00:39)whatmore Wrote:
(15-Apr-2020, 16:09)ssfas Wrote: I actually signed into that site and made about 8 posts before I was banned. I think I should be grateful. Someone else have taken over from me and will no doubt be receiving abuse as I type.

The only person I see in that thread who got banned was called "onlyforadv". Was that you or did they ban more than one person?

It has occurred that the approach taken on that site is fundamentally flawed. 

Their premise is that everything can be measured. What Amir does is measure things and generally points out what is bad, although he does say some things are good. So let's say of all the mini-monitors he decides three measure equally well. How do you then decide which one to buy? You're not allowed to listen to them, that would result in subjective judgement. 

It all sounds a very sad existence.
250 Pro CI; Innuos Zen Mk3; Claro dual turntable (Expert Stylus Denon + OL Aladdin Mk2); RCM Sensor2; Wilson Sabrina; OePhi speaker cables; Puritan PM156 conditioner and Ultimate cables.
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(15-Apr-2020, 16:09)ssfas Wrote: Frankly, I don't give a hoot if the THD is 0.0001% more than Devialet claim.

I wouldn't care either if the difference between the measurements and the Devialet's official figures would be this small and insignificant. The issue is that the measurements done by many different people (ASR, Stereophile, Miller Audio Research) are showing a huge difference between the measurements and the official figures in many areas (output power, THD, etc). It will be interesting to see what explains these.
Bluesound Node > Matrix Audio X-SPDIF 2 > Genelec 8351B & 7360A
Devialet 1000 Pro
Bluesound Node 2i > Genelec 8330
Tampere, Finland
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(16-Apr-2020, 15:58)ssfas Wrote: It has occurred that the approach taken on that site is fundamentally flawed. 

Their premise is that everything can be measured. What Amir does is measure things and generally points out what is bad, although he does say some things are good. So let's say of all the mini-monitors he decides three measure equally well. How do you then decide which one to buy? You're not allowed to listen to them, that would result in subjective judgement. 

It all sounds a very sad existence.

What does subjective judgement of mini-monitors have to do with the devialet review?
The questions that I feel need answering by Devialet are
- why are the measured specs so wildly different to what they advertise?
- why did the amp fail under an industry-standard test?

As I've stated before, I'm particularly interested to see whether the awful measurements are repeated when DPM is turned off. Because, subjectively DPM sounds so bad to me, I wouldn't be surprised if that showed up in the measurements we see
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(17-Apr-2020, 01:08)whatmore Wrote:
(16-Apr-2020, 15:58)ssfas Wrote: It has occurred that the approach taken on that site is fundamentally flawed. 

Their premise is that everything can be measured. What Amir does is measure things and generally points out what is bad, although he does say some things are good. So let's say of all the mini-monitors he decides three measure equally well. How do you then decide which one to buy? You're not allowed to listen to them, that would result in subjective judgement. 

It all sounds a very sad existence.

What does subjective judgement of mini-monitors have to do with the devialet review?
The questions that I feel need answering by Devialet are
- why are the measured specs so wildly different to what they advertise?
- why did the amp fail under an industry-standard test?

As I've stated before, I'm particularly interested to see whether the awful measurements are repeated when DPM is turned off. Because, subjectively DPM sounds so bad to me, I wouldn't be surprised if that showed up in the measurements we see

The only issue I've had with the sound from my 250 Pro was a nagging feeling that the MC phono could be improved, to the extent that I bought a Vertere phono, as mentioned above. 

Tipping the scales in my house is the fact that the Expert unit is a lifestyle product in that everyone uses it and enjoys it. That has never happened before in 20 years because of the complexity of traditional systems. It is also down to recent software advances and Expert's auto-detect and play. It is a big issue given the amount of music played in our house. It also means I use it more as well as everyone else. 

Such considerations count for nothing in objective audio performance. Objectivists rightly get upset by performance claims that, for the purposes of this discussion, I will accept are untrue. I take the website's claims with a bucket of salt, but then I never looked at the website before I bought my unit. I saw/heard it at someone's house and went to a dealer for a demo.

I was a PS Audio owner before and worry that users note that their expensive amplifiers actually generate audible background noise. I don't get that with Devialet, which is a lot cheaper.

If I had a dedicated listening room I might take a completely different view, but there is no mystery how and why Devialet market their products as they do, and largely ignore their customers. The company best at ignoring customers is Apple and it did them no harm. The business philosophy is to tell customers what is good for them and if the products work and they don't go to competitor products, then it's a great strategy. If the incorrect measurements do not lose them customers, then why change anything? 

The funny thing was that I saw in that audioscience discussion that some people there thought that Devialet's reputation would be damaged by audioscience trashing the performance of the product. I thing there's zero chance of that happening in the next millennium. Devialet Expert is a lifestyle retail product.

I think Devialet's problem with Expert, and I think Alan Sircom said so when he reviewed the 140, is that most people who want one will have bought one by now.

I have an apple MacBook Pro and always tell myself I'll get a cheaper, better device, but in 15 years I've yet to find one. My desktop machines are Mac Mini with BenQ screens, because I consider the apple iMac screens overpriced junk. Devialet Expert is much the same, their marketing may be a pack of lies, but the problem is the Expert units do a really good job.
250 Pro CI; Innuos Zen Mk3; Claro dual turntable (Expert Stylus Denon + OL Aladdin Mk2); RCM Sensor2; Wilson Sabrina; OePhi speaker cables; Puritan PM156 conditioner and Ultimate cables.
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