(14-Oct-2015, 10:23)Jean-Marie Wrote: (13-Oct-2015, 16:14)teddlesdee Wrote: But this is getting off-topic and becoming a 'do I' - 'don't I', in regard to Phantom vs Expert.
I may be wrong, but there seems to be more and more folk here that have been swayed to the 'dark side' (the 'phantom' name is apt in this respect! 
) and appear to be suggesting that Phantom in 'pairs' may give even the D400 + a good set of speakers, a run for their money!
Gad I am tempted to go audition some, but I would worry I might be enticed into their devilish embrace... WoooHHAHHAAAAAA!
I just wonder what Phantom is doing for Expert sales these days? 
I think they are attracting a slightly different type of customers:
If you like to be able to tune your rig, select your speakers upgrade to dual mono or even multi amps with active cross over etc... the Phantoms are not for you and therefore they are not eating on the Expert market.
For all the others, yes I'm sure that the Phantoms are competing against experts, but companies should never be afraid of cannibalizing themselves. If they don't do it, others will do and it is always better for you to be doing it than others.
Jean-Marie
I think the purpose of Phantom was to reach a much wider market and not necessarily the "audiophile" market.
Devialet's original ambitions (as per a Les Echos interview with Quentin Sannié on 27/2/2015) were for sales of 2-4k units per week by the end of 2015.
My personal feeling is that they are still too expensive given their mass market ambitions and in particular the pricing of other offerings from Bose, Sonos etc.; at over £3k a pair this lands squarely in "audiophile" territory.
I have told many non-audiophile friends about them and their reaction to the price is often quite revealing. Of course for those of us that are used to spending many tens of thousands of pounds/euros/dollars on a full rig they are an absolute bargain.
So I'm not sure that Devialet intended on cannibalising their own sales of Expert, but due to their pricing of Phantom they are mainly appealing to those already used to the idea of spending quite a bit of money on hifi separates. Or famous people as they occasionally like to tell us.
As to the whether people are buying the Phantom instead of the Expert I did hear a while back (from Devialet themselves I might add) that a significant proportion of customers going to la Maison to audition the Phantom were instead buying the Expert, so perhaps the Phantom is an elaborate "bait and switch" operation. I'm half joking of course, but I do see the Expert and Phantom as quite distinct offerings with little overlap. Yes there are Expert users buying Phantoms however I haven't heard of too many people ditching their Expert for a Phantom.
Ultimately I am not in a position to say whether a pair of Phantoms equals my 800 + Sasha 2 setup since I would need to audition the Phantoms in my own home and for a more level playing field I would probably need a pair of Branch stands (which I understand are still not readily available). I've heard the Phantom a few times, generally they have played a bit too loud with the focus being on demonstrating their prodigious bass capabilities. As I don't have a need for an additional system it makes no sense for me to buy the Phantoms even if they are almost as good as my current system.
Guillaume
Industry disclosure: UK distributor for Shunyata Research
220 PRO, totaldac d1 server with additional external power supply, totaldac d1-seven, Echole PSU for Totaldac, Wilson Audio Sasha 2, Shunyata Research cables, Shunyata Hydra Alpha A10 + DPC-6 v3, Various Entreq ground boxes and cables, Entreq Athena level 3 rack, 2 X SOtM sNH-10G with sCLK-EX + 10MHz Master Clock input + sPS-500 PSU, i5 sonicTransporter w/ 1TB SSD
UK
