Devialet working on new AIR

[Antoine]

AIR 2.0 was released early June 2013 together with firmware version 6.0.

The original AIR v1/v1.5 was of course WiFi only (USB and ethernet inputs didn't exist back then) and gave lots of troubles to many users not having strong WiFi networks or otherwise poor networks. Worked fine here for me, though I had my fully tweaked for AIR Asus RT-N66U WiFi router (the best one could buy back then) at a clear line of sight distance of about 2 meters to the Devialet.

[Antoine]

Just for fun; some excerpts from the press release of AIR 2.0 back then:

Quote

Your D-Premier is going to love the new universal Wi-Fi streamer

As promised, D-Premier is getting even better.

With the firmware 6.0 update and the new Devialet AIR streamer, our teams have developed new software that further improves performances and the D-Premier experience.

These developments work together – to take advantage of the new Devialet AIR and the new Devialet application (iOS and Android), install the 6.0 update first.

Quote

The new Devialet AIR universal Wi-Fi streamer is a major development that lets you wirelessly play all the content stored or played on your Mac (from OSX 10.6) or Windows (Vista) computer on your Devialet.

No matter what format or audio player you use, don’t change anything. All you have to do is select your Devialet as your computer’s audio output device and play your music.

Quote

With the new Devialet AIR, you get wireless streaming with CD quality, unlike most other solutions. 

Whether you listen to compressed formats or CD-quality formats, the new Devialet AIR ensures loss-free transmission.

Quote

With the new Devialet AIR, you get wireless streaming with CD quality, unlike most other solutions.

Whether you listen to compressed formats or CD-quality formats, the new Devialet AIR ensures loss-free transmission.

The new Devialet AIR Wi-Fi streamer lets you stream at up to 192 kHz. Of course, you need a Wi-Fi network that can handle it!

Devialet AIR2.0 now also lets you adapt transmission latency to the quality of your Wi-Fi network. You can adjust latency in the application’s new interface to ensure audio flow stability.

Select bit perfect mode to enjoy your high resolution files (see below).

Quote

"bit perfect" mode

The new Devialet AIR Wi-Fi streamer lets you play your music in bit perfect mode. This mode is for users who play high-resolution files (superior to CD format). It avoids having your computer’s operating system alter your music file’s sampling frequency before transmitting it to your Devialet.

This mode depends on the audio architecture used by your computer. Access is therefore different for Mac and Windows.

With Mac, it is guaranteed automatically from iTunes when the "Bit perfect" option is enabled in the Devialet AIR application’s settings.

With Windows Vista, it can also be accessed automatically from several audio players by selecting WASAPI as the audio outlet in your player’s settings. These include free players such as Foobar 2000, Winamp and XBMC or commercial players such as JRiver, Adobe Audition, JPlay. This is not the case for iTunes with Windows or Windows Media Player, on the other hand.

It is always possible to play in bit perfect mode manually by adjusting the sampling frequency in the Devialet AIR application’s settings as needed for the format of the files you want to play.

[Cylob]

...hanging a Dialog on the wall next to your beautiful Expert is probably the most likely solution to be offered up...

I think you might be right. I will feel tricked though if that's the only solution they come up with after all this time.

[mdconnelly]

...
It's great having a system that can evolve over time with firmware and software upgrades, but it's kind of redundant if the people behind it don't have the skills or desire to keep it current.

Precisely.  That was a large reason I bought the Devialet 200   I don't really care about AIR at this point,  but I am a concerned customer who invested a non-trivial amount of audio-bucks into their product that is not being supported per their commitment to do so.   They need to address and reverse that perception to remain a viable player long-term I would think.  

We audiophools are a fickle lot and it doesn't take a lot for us to shift back into "shopping" mode.

[Hifi_swlon]

Wow, June 2013 to now, and still not fixed - that's nearly three years - and spanning five versions of OSX, and I'm sure a few versions of Windows.

Complete and utter incompetence.

[Music or sound]

Wow, June 2013 to now, and still not fixed - that's nearly three years - and spanning five versions of OSX, and I'm sure a few versions of Windows.

Complete and utter incompetence.

That time frame is the reason I think it is not only a software issue but an inherent hardware problem with the (and maybe any) builtin WiFi board for the present expert range. Obviously making soft/firmware which works with different and constant changing OS requires a significant commitment.

[Hifi_swlon]

Obviously making soft/firmware which works with different and constant changing OS requires a significant commitment.

Yes, but no more for Devialet than every other company that writes software - supporting new OSs is just a fact of life. Generally people work off pre-release OS software, and then quickly squash bugs once they're released and out in the real world. You wouldn't let an entire OS pass without having addressed any specific issues that affected its primary function - even if it meant re-writing a substantial portion of code, it would be deemed a failure and hugely embarrassing. To let six go by, I dare say it's unheard of - it's complete negligence, totally unfathomable.  This AIR situation combined with their newly added logo on an F1 car really sums Devialet up.

[Confused]

I recently remembered the existence of my Dialog, now a year old, unused and still in it's box. So I thought I would send a polite note to Devialet, asking for their advice as to what to do with it. The response?

'Compatibility of Dialog and Expert is still under work here.
I thus offer to refund you this Dialog.
Because if you don't have a phantom it is useless.'

I did wonder about posting "private" correspondence from Devialet here on a forum, but after consideration of Devialet's total lack of public communication on the subject I decided that I should, after all, nobody is getting information from anywhere else.

Anyway, what to make of the message? 'Compatibility of Dialog and Expert is still under work here'. Well there was some talk a while ago of Devialet working on 'multiple solutions' for AIR, so maybe Dialog compatibility is still in the mix? (Although Dilaog + Spark is a closed system, not a replacement for the universal soundcard approach of AIR 2)

However, 'I thus offer to refund you this Dialog. Because if you don't have a phantom it is useless.' To me this strongly implies that Dialog compatibility is not coming anytime soon, I would have thought that if it was, then the message would have been more along the lines of 'our engineers are working very hard resolving this issue and Dialog compatibility with Expert range will be available soon'. So on balance, I am concluding that the 'new' version of AIR (when and if it finally appears) will be just that, an updated version of AIR, as opposed to a Dialog based solution.

To be honest, it really is time Devialet put a stop to all the endless speculation of forums like this. All we need is a few nuggets of communication from them, a quarterly emailed newsletter or similar. (I dimly recall they used to do this) Reading one earlier poster who has decided not to buy a Devialet because of some of the AIR related posting on here highlights the issue. At some level, this is costing them sales. How many other potential buyers have read this forum as a "Guest", so never posted, never given there view, but have been put off Devialet and quietly gone off and bought one of the many options offered by rival manufactures? It's impossible to know exactly how many, but I would guess there have been quite a few.

[Dr Tone]

Obviously making soft/firmware which works with different and constant changing OS requires a significant commitment.

Yes, but no more for Devialet than every other company that writes software - supporting new OSs is just a fact of life. Generally people work off pre-release OS software, and then quickly squash bugs once they're released and out in the real world. You wouldn't let an entire OS pass without having addressed any specific issues that affected its primary function - even if it meant re-writing a substantial portion of code, it would be deemed a failure and hugely embarrassing. To let six go by, I dare say it's unheard of - it's complete negligence, totally unfathomable.  This AIR situation combined with their newly added logo on an F1 car really sums Devialet up.

I like your post so much I had to add it to my #AirIsAJoke twitter campaign.

[IanG-UK]

I think Brian (Confused) makes very fair points.

Dialog has been around for more than a year and, from the outset, Devialet signalled their intention to make it Expert compatible and presumably replace or complement AIR. But no news.

A dedicated AIR solution has been promise for three years and still there is nothing - no release and no news. To be fair, Devialet tried desperately hard with me to arrive at a solution - after all I was using the same set up as Devialet were using themselves - but nothing came of it. Luckily, Guillaume put me in touch with an infrequent poster on here who gave me a solution within a couple of emails - though the fact that it works for me clearly does not provide a solution for everyone since I advised Devialet of my approach but they did not promulgate it. Even with this solution and an ethernet connection I get very occasional disturbances using hi-res only which tends to confirm that the AIR2 approach is vulnerable. I would be incandescent were I still struggling with AIR as I bought my Devialet on the promise of a simple wireless architecture.

It will be interesting to see what emerges over the next few months. My money is on the idea that Devialet is focussing nearly all its talents on getting ADH and SAM into OEM applications like cars, televisions and mobile phones; and maybe producing a mini-Phantom.

Their autonomous communication has entirely dried up; and their responsive communication seems, at times, designed to tell customers as little as possible.

Such a pity for a company that showed promise in so many areas and still shows promise in a few.