D800 upgrade, is it worth it? Alternatives?

[Confused]

There is much disquiet about Devialet currently, but I have been trying to think about the upgrade as dispassionately as possible.

At one level, this is quite a simple question.  Assuming I can achieve a satisfactory audition of the 1000 Pro, it is a simple matter of whether or not any perceived increase in sound quality is worth the £5000 cost.

There is another way of looking at this though.  £5000 is quite a lot of money, so I could consider selling the D800, adding the £5k upgrade cash, and look to the alternatives.  It is hard to say what is going to happen with Devialet residuals at the moment, on the one hand, the new models should depress values, on the other hand, starting from scratch, the cheapest route to the new models would be to buy second hand and pay for the upgrade.  However, for the sake of argument, I shall go for a 'round number' which I suspect is about right, and put a second hand D800 as being worth maybe £10000.

I think at times like this it is worth looking at what the competition has to offer, if only to confirm that continuing with Devialet is the best way to go.

So, in financial terms, continuing with the Devialet and upgrading is equivalent to a value / cost of approximately £15000. 

So what is the competition like at this level?  To be roughly equivalent, you would need to consider a package of DAC, pre-amp and amplifier.  Strictly speaking, you would need to include a phono stage also, but I suggest this is ignored for now for simplicity.

So, with £15K available, what would be the best choice of DAC / amp outside of the Devialet fold.  For me, I suspect it will be difficult to find something better than the 1000 Pro for this money.  So disquiet about Devialet or not, if sound quality is paramount, the upgrade is probably the best way to go.

No harm looking for alternatives though before parting with the cash!  I think I would start by considering the Chord Dave, but this would only leave about £7k for the amp.  Which is not quite enough for the Chord SPM 12000, and this assumes using the Dave as a pre-amp. This might be quite a decent combo, but I'm already upping the budget.  It is not easy this one!  Any ideas?  One thing is clear, there are a lot of alternatives out there!

By the way, this thread is posted in part as a bit of fun, in part it is quite serious in terms of taking a look at the alternatives out there.  However, it is not intended as another conduit for Devialet bashing!  There is enough of that out there currently. 

One thing, I guess we could also consider alternatives for the new cost of the 1000 Pro, which it has been announced is £22,9000.  Which building on my initial Chord Dave idea, would also bag the SPM 5000 Mk II, which if nothing else, is a lot bigger than a Devialet!!

[f1eng]

It cost me well over £10k to part ex my 800 for a O d'A which is not quite as high a spec as the 1000Pro.
I have yet to hear an amp to beat the Devialets, at any price.
The update is very much better value than the update from D-Premier to 800 IMO

[IanG-UK]

I'd agree with Frank - we both updated dual D-Premiers to 800s and recently 800s to OdAs.

The latter was more expensive as it involved a part exchange whereas the former was cheaper as it was a Devialet offering, as is now the case with 800 to 1000 Pro.

In terms of sound quality improvement, my sense is that the more recent change is more profound. Though I guess anything that gets closer to one's perception of perfection is better than what went before. I'm assuming here that where we have already reached with the OdA will change little when the 1000 Pro is realised.

The all-in-one design is a big factor for me - I guess the two box Devialet takes up less than one tenth of the volume of, say, a four box Audio Research equivalent: phono, dac, pre, power. And the latter is at least as expensive and as much as four times as expensive.

The non-obsolescence is also a big factor as is the programmable flexibility. Plus SAM. Plus, hopefully for all, AIR soon.

[dkdavid]

I aIm new on here, but let's me tell you my journey.
Sure I had had better systems a lovely set of 845 mono block valve amplifiers with some living voice obx speakers ! Absolutely amazing , but play any thing that electronic ( 80s ) and I would call apart when it all became busy.

I have had too many systems and sets, of speakers than I can recall all good in there own way, but for simplicity of (once a few little niggles were sorted) this devialet, takes some beating , sure it's a little expensive, and the constant new upgrades, that seem to be coming out in quick succession of each other, is a little annoying , but I think it's time to just listen to music and accept what the devialet does and also keep the boss, happy with the looks of the system.

Yes I will be looking at my speakers next (focal 1028 be) but that's out of seeing what the system can deliver, and I won't be comparing it to what I have had.

[Dr Tone]

No way I would dump £15000 into upgrading further into Devialet. In Canadian dollars that pretty much gets me a full Ayre setup.

KX-5 Twenty, VX-5 Twenty & QX-5 Twenty. For the full price of a 1000 Pro new I could move up the food chain on power or pre.

That said I don't need allot power to drive my speakers. At $10,000CDN the D200 is a pretty good value and very hard to beat performance wise, but that's where it ends for me.

[thumb5]

If I had itchy feet and that sort of budget available, I think I might want to listen to an Aavik U300 (I believe Mikeeo of this parish deserted us for one), a Gryphon Diablo 300 or (slightly more modestly) a Mark Levinson 585.

Disclaimer: I haven't heard any of them so they might not hold a candle to an 800, let alone a 1000 Pro.  But, as you might guess, I like integrated amplifiers and -- until owning a Devialet -- that kind of built-like-a-tank industrial design.

I had a Levinson 383 for many years before the 170/200/400 and loved it.  Having said that, the 170 did sound much better, from day one.

Ironically, I think I would miss the Devialet configurator and the amazing flexibility it offers.  I say ironically because I also see it as the amplifier's Achilles heel insofar as it ties the user to a service that could disappear at any moment.

[Philb]

My current thinking is to immediately do nothing other than to spend money on music - I recently started to use my turntable again and it sounds great via the Devialet phono stage, much more engaging to me than playing a file from a computer (which does not seem logical given what happens to the analogue input) - so I am going to try to control myself and be happy with the gear that I have (I know that it is a great struggle though!).

[RebelMan]

Confused, you have to ask (remind) yourself of why you bought the Devialet to begin with. Was it for the the simplicity of an all-in-one unit? Was it for the flexibility of configuration? Was it for the esthetics of a lifestyle system? Was it for the audio performance? Was it for the bang-for-buck/price performance ratio? Was it for all of the above? I think you need to evaluate the competition based on all of these merits and line up who's in the running. I think you'll still fine slim pickings among the alternatives but more have shown up to the dance floor. You need to compare apples-to-apples and under this condition the Devialet is pretty hard to beat.

[IanG-UK]

Confused, you have to ask (remind) yourself of why you bought the Devialet to begin with.  Was it for the the simplicity of an all-in-one unit?  Was it for the flexibility of configuration?  Was it for the esthetics of a lifestyle system?  Was it for the audio performance?  Was it for the bang-for-buck/price performance ratio?  Was it for all of the above?  I think you need to evaluate the competition based on all of these merits and line up who's in the running.  I think you'll still fine slim pickings among the alternatives but more have shown up to the dance floor.   You need to compare apples-to-apples and under this condition the Devialet is pretty hard to beat.

The clue is in the name RebelMan.

Confused is confused, or at least he has to pretend to be.

In reality he is staying with Devialet but to admit it would blow his cover!

[Confused]

Confused, you have to ask (remind) yourself of why you bought the Devialet to begin with.  Was it for the the simplicity of an all-in-one unit?  Was it for the flexibility of configuration?  Was it for the esthetics of a lifestyle system?  Was it for the audio performance?  Was it for the bang-for-buck/price performance ratio?  Was it for all of the above?  I think you need to evaluate the competition based on all of these merits and line up who's in the running.  I think you'll still fine slim pickings among the alternatives but more have shown up to the dance floor.   You need to compare apples-to-apples and under this condition the Devialet is pretty hard to beat.

This is quite an easy one for me, it was audio performance, and yes, bang-for-buck/price performance ratio sums it up well.  I have never remotely been interested in the aesthetics or one box solution stuff.  In some ways I see this as a disadvantage, I think I would have preferred the DAC to be separate and to have huge mono-block amps!

It is perhaps also worth noting that I do find some benefit from SAM.  Some have posted on here that SAM is of no benefit for large / full range speakers, or that things sound better without SAM.  I do not find this.  OK, the Blades produce more than enough bass without SAM, but this is not the full story, there is an improvement with the bass definition, plus a noticeably grater focus with sound stage with SAM.  These are not huge improvements, but to be honest, even minor improvements at this level can be expensive to achieve, and SAM was a 'free gift' from Devialet after I made my initial purchase.  So this is one aspect that immediately puts the opposition at a minor disadvantage.

To keep this simple, sound quality is the main factor, price is also a key consideration, and that's about it.