Devialet 200 ------my first 4 months

[ledesc]

Hi Womaz,
Same feeling and situation...
My Hifi budget makes me running Daphile to feed my D200 for the moment (my CD drive is packed somewhere to be WAF compliant).
I can't afford to buy a PC/MacBook and dedicate it only for,the Dev.
If only we could stream qobuz directly from the Dev. for day to day listening, I could wait for AIR being fixed.
I'm considering a budget for a good streamer to use the USB input.
But also, I need to remind that I really love the D200 with the 805d !!!

[Womaz]

I am also considering a streamer now as it appears to be a longer than anticipated wait for Dialog.

On the dealer issue, I am up in Newcastle upon Tyne so not awash with dealers. He did however do a 90 mile round trip to get the 200 to me, never asked me for a penny deposit, and then let me have it for 2 weeks at home. He the did the same trip again to pick up my old amp and network player which i traded in.
He was not aware of the white noise issues and not sure whet he could have done even if he was. He was more than helpful to be honest. I actually think Devialet are letting the dealers down too.

[Confused]

As a devialet dealer, there is no way i would sell an amp without going to the persons house and setting it up!

Firstly, i wouldnt want someone inexperienced to set it up and fudge something accidentally - then they talk the product down to others

secondly, these professional solutions should never just be sold to people and thats the end of it! its all part of the service that makes a dealer a good dealer!

I don't think anyone would argue with you that dealer support is important.  I have certainly seen many posts on this forum relating to issues new users are having, which simply would never have happened with a bit of dealer support.  With respect to my own experience, I have found my dealer to be exemplary, they assisted with set up and have provided good advice and support since.  I have never had any reliability issues with the Devialet but I did have a couple of problems with a turntable I bought, none of these issues were the dealers fault, but they could not have done more to ensure that the issues were resolved painlessly and to 100% satisfaction.  

However, one big issue in this post is the performance of AIR.  Resolution of the AIR issue lies with Devialet, not the dealers.  In fact, my afore mentioned dealer had a lap top that would drift into white noise when used to run Devialet AIR, and the dealer actually lent this laptop to Devialet in part of the drive to assist Devialet isolate and resolve the issue.  I also had some configurator issues that my dealer helped me with, but again this was not me requiring help understanding what to do as such, it was bugs in the dual mono configurator that Devialet themselves have owned up to.  So good dealer or not, the Dev can be a bit of a pain.

For balance, I am actually a very happy Devialet owner.  Since buying it, I have been delighted with the SAM upgrade, and this year early experiments with RAM have been very positive, for someone with a lot of old vinyl this is quite an exciting addition.  If I'd known about all the upcoming issues before buying the Devialet, I would still have purchased, no doubt about it.  But with respect to Devialet's ability to debug software, communicate, the fact that they can advise Dialog will work in a month, then quietly admit only to those who ask that it will take a year, quite frankly Devialet should be utterly shamefaced.  Plus, in the industry I work in, equivalent performance would result in people being fired and contracts being terminated.  

Sounds good though!

[Yippedidou]

As a devialet dealer, there is no way i would sell an amp without going to the persons house and setting it up!

Firstly, i wouldnt want someone inexperienced to set it up and fudge something accidentally - then they talk the product down to others

secondly, these professional solutions should never just be sold to people and thats the end of it! its all part of the service that makes a dealer a good dealer!

I don't think anyone would argue with you that dealer support is important.  I have certainly seen many posts on this forum relating to issues new users are having, which simply would never have happened with a bit of dealer support.  With respect to my own experience, I have found my dealer to be exemplary, they assisted with set up and have provided good advice and support since.  I have never had any reliability issues with the Devialet but I did have a couple of problems with a turntable I bought, none of these issues were the dealers fault, but they could not have done more to ensure that the issues were resolved painlessly and to 100% satisfaction.  

However, one big issue in this post is the performance of AIR.  Resolution of the AIR issue lies with Devialet, not the dealers.  In fact, my afore mentioned dealer had a lap top that would drift into white noise when used to run Devialet AIR, and the dealer actually lent this laptop to Devialet in part of the drive to assist Devialet isolate and resolve the issue.  I also had some configurator issues that my dealer helped me with, but again this was not me requiring help understanding what to do as such, it was bugs in the dual mono configurator that Devialet themselves have owned up to.  So good dealer or not, the Dev can be a bit of a pain.

For balance, I am actually a very happy Devialet owner.  Since buying it, I have been delighted with the SAM upgrade, and this year early experiments with RAM have been very positive, for someone with a lot of old vinyl this is quite an exciting addition.  If I'd known about all the upcoming issues before buying the Devialet, I would still have purchased, no doubt about it.  But with respect to Devialet's ability to debug software, communicate, the fact that they can advise Dialog will work in a month, then quietly admit only to those who ask that it will take a year, quite frankly Devialet should be utterly shamefaced.  Plus, in the industry I work in, equivalent performance would result in people being fired and contracts being terminated.  

Sounds good though!

Cannot agree more to this post. I bought an Aurender after I saw there was no issue with AIR. Me too was p... off because AIR sounded so good. Lucky I had the funds to buy the Aurender ( but I reluctanly had to give up my PSAudio transport to do so which I had planned to use elsewhere ). I think the problem is probably more serious than they admit. And probably would cost them money to fix... For sure, it doesnt give me confidence of the quality of service Devialet can deliver...

But to be honest, as I wrote before on this forum, I love the rest: the sound, SAM, the remote, etc. So I'll keep it up for a while and see what happens in the future. Meanwhile, as you said, it really sounds good.

We'll see later... It is my feeling that some competitors will catch up...

[agentsmith]

I must have been lucky as i have not encountered much problem with AIR.  


What are some of these problems that make life so difficult?  Are they related to WiFi?  I use gigabit Ethernet and haven't had any nagging problems. 

May be it is also because I didn't use it enough as I cycle between USB, Phono and AIR.  I have not use AIR much since 8.X because SIT does not support DSD.

[agentsmith]

I must have been lucky as i have not encountered much problem with AIR.  


What are some of these problems that make life so difficult?  Are they related to WiFi?  I use gigabit Ethernet and haven't had any nagging problems. 

May be it is also because I didn't use it enough as I cycle between USB, Phono and AIR.  I have not use AIR much since 8.X because SIT does not support DSD.

[Confused]

I must have been lucky as i have not encountered much problem with AIR.  


What are some of these problems that make life so difficult?  Are they related to WiFi?  I use gigabit Ethernet and haven't had any nagging problems. 

May be it is also because I didn't use it enough as I cycle between USB, Phono and AIR.  I have not use AIR much since 8.X because SIT does not support DSD.

I don't think anyone, including Devialet, really know what the issue is with AIR, although its not wifi related, I have suffered the dreaded white note with hard wired Ethernet.   I think if anyone really did know what the problem with AIR is, it would be solved by now. 

As an example, I had an old Windows Vista PC that worked flawlessly with AIR.  In fact towards the end of this PC's life, AIR was just about the only thing it worked flawlessly with, otherwise the thing was very slow, noisy and a little problematic.  I now have a quad core Windows 8.1 machine, it is about11 months old now.  It runs via AIR Ethernet on exactly the same network as the old Vista machine.  The 8.1 machine used to suffer white noise routinely.  Now it does not, since the beta versions of AIR and a couple of tweaks on the PC, I am 100% white noise free.  I do get the odd bit of stuttering now, but nothing drastic.  It all appears to be very random, but it probably isn't, it is just that nobody appears to have correctly identified the actual problem.  There were some rumors that Devialet were on the verge of solving the issue, but now it has been quite a long time since the last beta version of AIR was released, so that looks like a bit of a false dawn.  In fairness, I routinely use AIR, and for 95% of the time it works fine and sounds superb.

[Waterside]

Well here are my thoughts after owning my 200 for just over 4 months, warts and all.
First thing to say is that this will appear to be a negative posting to some who read it, but after weighing it all up the 200 has a sound to die for and you know what at the end of the day that’s the most important thing about hifi.
I do feel however that you have to be a hi fi lover to really embrace the Devialet range full. I am not really a hifi lover, but I am a music lover. I think there is a difference. I had no idea that the setting up of the Devialet would be so troublesome and the support and documentation from Devialet does really leave a lot to be desired. This forum is the only reason I got through that first week – surely this should not be the case. People on this forum took a lot of time out to help me and to them I am eternally thankful and I have no doubt I will need them again.
So 6k and AIR is simply too unstable to use – this is the biggest disappointment. I use the word disappointment but the truth is I have no idea how Devialet get away with it as it affects a lot more users than they would care to admit. I am now back to using a CD transport as my full budget and more went on the 200. This is my biggest disappointment. For me 6k is a large amount of my cash and I cant help but feel that I am not getting the best out of the 200. When using AIR I get about an hour before the white noise kicks in. This has virtually stopped me using AIR. This is a shame as I love the sound quality with AIR. It is simply the best that I have ever owned – hence the frustration.
I have got the Dialog and I am pinning all my hopes on this working and giving the same SQ as AIR…………..just have no idea when it will be available.
I guess I should have researched more before I bought the 200, as I had no idea that upgrades were prone to bugs and it is also rather time consuming. Infact I have not even upgraded to the new version 8 as it took me that long to get my configurator right at set up. I have a headphone amp and had to change all of the inputs to accommodate that, so the thought of starting all that over again do not really appeal. I know I have to do it sometime though.
The big question is would I swap the 200 for my cash back and the answer is NO. I am not really that technical and to be honest when dealing with my music I really don’t want to have to mess about with various bits of software, but when I heard the 200 it was an instant WOW. It still is 4 months later. After all this is what is really of most importance. I have not owned any other high end piece of kit so I cant compare it to those, but it blew my old M6i amp out of the water in every way. Bass and soundstage in a different league.
So pleased with the purchase , disappointed with the AIR issues and hoping Dialog solves it all.

Hi, i rarely post on forums but thought would give my tuppence worth on the subject of AIR.

First of all have you looked at your router?

I have BT home hub5. The settings need sorted out. Turn off parental controls (really bad and slows connection) and then split each channel to 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Rename each channel and keep the 2.4GHz channel for the devialet. 

Buy a long pice of J11 cable (the wire that hooks into router) and place your router exactly next to the devialet. 

Buy second hand MacBook if you can (got year old one for £400). Just better than a PC and sacrifice as music hub. 

Plug the laptop into router via cat cable, don't hook into 5GHz. 

Turn the devialet software to delay 5000ms. 

Check the wifi signal between air software and computer. 

I stream from the Qubuz desktop application (£20 a month but I assure you they digitise music better than you can). Turn latency to maximum in the settings tab. 

Turn the whole lot off. 

When you turn it all on again do not use any other applications on the Mac and in fact avoid using the 5ghz too. 

Now you can test it. 

Finally always keep in mind computers are notoriously buggy! How often at work do you press control alt delete to force a program to shut down etc. 

It's a good sounding piece of software but I think the routers are at fault. 

Best regards.

[Rufus McDufus]

Devialet have acknowledged the AIR problems and can reproduce them too, though I think just with PC, not Mac. It happens using ethernet too. They thought they'd found an issue using the default clocking on a PC and recent betas use a different clocking method, but it doesn't appear to have fully fixed the issue.

[Womaz]

Well here are my thoughts after owning my 200 for just over 4 months, warts and all.
First thing to say is that this will appear to be a negative posting to some who read it, but after weighing it all up the 200 has a sound to die for and you know what at the end of the day that’s the most important thing about hifi.
I do feel however that you have to be a hi fi lover to really embrace the Devialet range full. I am not really a hifi lover, but I am a music lover. I think there is a difference. I had no idea that the setting up of the Devialet would be so troublesome and the support and documentation from Devialet does really leave a lot to be desired. This forum is the only reason I got through that first week – surely this should not be the case. People on this forum took a lot of time out to help me and to them I am eternally thankful and I have no doubt I will need them again.
So 6k and AIR is simply too unstable to use – this is the biggest disappointment. I use the word disappointment but the truth is I have no idea how Devialet get away with it as it affects a lot more users than they would care to admit. I am now back to using a CD transport as my full budget and more went on the 200. This is my biggest disappointment. For me 6k is a large amount of my cash and I cant help but feel that I am not getting the best out of the 200. When using AIR I get about an hour before the white noise kicks in. This has virtually stopped me using AIR. This is a shame as I love the sound quality with AIR. It is simply the best that I have ever owned – hence the frustration.
I have got the Dialog and I am pinning all my hopes on this working and giving the same SQ as AIR…………..just have no idea when it will be available.
I guess I should have researched more before I bought the 200, as I had no idea that upgrades were prone to bugs and it is also rather time consuming. Infact I have not even upgraded to the new version 8 as it took me that long to get my configurator right at set up. I have a headphone amp and had to change all of the inputs to accommodate that, so the thought of starting all that over again do not really appeal. I know I have to do it sometime though.
The big question is would I swap the 200 for my cash back and the answer is NO. I am not really that technical and to be honest when dealing with my music I really don’t want to have to mess about with various bits of software, but when I heard the 200 it was an instant WOW. It still is 4 months later. After all this is what is really of most importance. I have not owned any other high end piece of kit so I cant compare it to those, but it blew my old M6i amp out of the water in every way. Bass and soundstage in a different league.
So pleased with the purchase , disappointed with the AIR issues and hoping Dialog solves it all.

Hi, i rarely post on forums but thought would give my tuppence worth on the subject of AIR.

First of all have you looked at your router?

I have BT home hub5. The settings need sorted out. Turn off parental controls (really bad and slows connection) and then split each channel to 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Rename each channel and keep the 2.4GHz channel for the devialet. 

Buy a long pice of J11 cable (the wire that hooks into router) and place your router exactly next to the devialet. 

Buy second hand MacBook if you can (got year old one for £400). Just better than a PC and sacrifice as music hub. 

Plug the laptop into router via cat cable, don't hook into 5GHz. 

Turn the devialet software to delay 5000ms. 

Check the wifi signal between air software and computer. 

I stream from the Qubuz desktop application (£20 a month but I assure you they digitise music better than you can). Turn latency to maximum in the settings tab. 

Turn the whole lot off. 

When you turn it all on again do not use any other applications on the Mac and in fact avoid using the 5ghz too. 

Now you can test it. 

Finally always keep in mind computers are notoriously buggy! How often at work do you press control alt delete to force a program to shut down etc. 

It's a good sounding piece of software but I think the routers are at fault. 

Best regards.

Whilst i really appreciate the time you have taken to reply to my thread, your post just confirms my belief that I need to get the Lap top out of the Hi Fi set up eventually.
I am looking to have what I used to have like a network player controlled by an I pad app, without the need to have ,y lap top in the system.

I am eagerly awaiting Dialog to see if this saves me the expense, but admit to losing patience as its a miss not having the whole music collection at my fingertips. Think the Aurender N100 is my favourite option so far.

Many thanks for the reply though