Expert 1000 Pro

[Pim]

Ok. I got up early to read Confused's report. Nothing. It's now 4:30AM in the UK and still nothing. Come on Confused! Get up! Start writing! There's fans waiting!

[nicoludio]

He's confused by his findings Hopefully soon though

[octaviars]

He's confused by his findings Hopefully soon though

Perhaps he is feverishly trying to work out what he heard or perhaps not heard

[Pim]

He's confused by his findings Hopefully soon though

Perhaps he is feverishly trying to work out what he heard or perhaps not heard

Hopefully he's just so in awe of what he heard, he's going through the dictionary to find the right words to describe his feelings.

[Confused]

I have listened to a 1000 Pro and I am very clear and unconfused regarding my conclusions. I did not get lost coming back from Oxford. I am now working feverishly on making a nice morning coffee. Further posts will be available soon.

[sven911]

I have listened to a 1000 Pro and I am very clear and unconfused regarding my conclusions.  I did not get lost coming back from Oxford.  I am now working feverishly on making a nice morning coffee.  Further posts will be available soon.

Thanks!

[Pim]

I have listened to a 1000 Pro and I am very clear and unconfused regarding my conclusions.  I did not get lost coming back from Oxford.  I am now working feverishly on making a nice morning coffee.  Further posts will be available soon.

Can you make that an instant coffee please? I can't wait!

[Confused]

Oddly enough, I did nearly get 'lost' going to Oxford! It was a clear and sunny morning, heading up to 26deg, with not a cloud in the sky. Most of the conversation in the car related to pub beer gardens, beer, and that was about it! Days like this are very rare in the UK! However, this was too good an opportunity to miss, discipline ensued and we made it to Oxford.

First to say that it was an excellent day at Oxford Audio, the hospitality and service was second to none. Quite superb. A fun and relaxed day, but quite serious and focused when it came down to the business of listening to the kit. A big thank you from me! Plus, if anyone reading this is anywhere remotely within reach of Oxford and interested in hifi kit, go there, have a listen, maybe spend some cash. Why not?

The plan for the day was to listen to the Aurender N10, D800 with the Blades. Why the Aurender N10? Well, I am currently using a microRendu +Mutec as my 'front end', so to get reasonably close to my rig at home I wanted to use something that would feed the Devialet via AES/EBU. The plan was to run through a playlist with the 800 to get used to how everything sounded in the room, then switch to the 1000 Pro for the same playlist.

This was a little odd to be honest! Oxford Audio had done a good job of getting everything set up in the room and when I was sat there listening to music via the 800 I was thinking simply how good everything sounded. I did even find myself thinking this is excellent, this is the system one I want, and then thinking about should I haggle over the price. Of course I soon remembered that this is basically the same rig as I have at home and I don't need to buy another one. There is a point here though, it did sound excellent, so this was making me think the it simply was not possible that the Pro could be that much better? How could it be significantly better than this? Not possible. OK, we then switched to the Pro, and I wasn't feeling optimistic to be honest. But no! I was wrong! My pessimism and the thought I'd hear nothing much better lasted no longer than about 1 minute through the second track. This was special. The listening continued, and good things just kept coming at me. OK, lets jump to the conclusion. In this setup with my ears and music, the Pro is a triumph, it is superb. How good? Very, the jump from an 800 to a Pro with the Blades is a bigger jump than from the 250 to 800 with the Blades. I thought I was going to leave OAC a little unsure as to if it was better, is it worth the extra cash, but no, it's better, clearly better.

So what did it sound like? In terms of character it is of course still 100% Devialet. Tonally it is the same as a D800, same transparency etc., if you wandered into the room there would be no immediate way of knowing if the 800 or Pro was playing, but sit and listen carefully, they are very different. The word I would use is realism. We all know the hifi thing of 'details', but sometimes things can sound too 'hifi'. The Pro was delivering the details by the bucket load, perhaps as you might expect, but it did not sound 'hifi' versus a D800, it just sounded more real. It was a kind of mix of super analogue smooth, with hyper detail. Quite an achievement! Take a track with a reasonably well recorded acoustic guitar. On any system you will hear the notes that the guitar is making. Move to a decent hifi, you might start to think you can hear the fingers on the strings, this kind of stuff, here we are at D800 level. With the Pro it was like you could hear the wood of the body of the guitar, how dry the wood was given what the humidity was like in the recording studio that afternoon. Quite extraordinary. These things are of course difficult to describe, but the Pro was good, there were little magic moments like this track after track. Take an old favourite like Massive Attack's 'Unfinished Sympathy', the little percussion parts did sound like they were no longer recorded but someone was hiding and playing them in the room, sounds crazy perhaps, but is was actually quite startling.

As part of my original plan I was thinking that after running through a few tracks on the Pro, I though it might be a good idea to do a couple of rapid A/B tests with one selected track, so as to try and separate the two amps. There was no need to do this, for me all was clear, the Pro is one big step up.

It occurs to me that this might pose an issue for D200 users looking to upgrade. A few people have posted recently that they could go D400 for the same cash as a 220 Pro. My thoughts were that yes, D400 has to be the way to go. Having heard the 1000 Pro, I'm not so sure! Of course no one has heard a 220 Pro yet, and the benefit of having 400 watts will vary from speaker to speaker, but I am wondering now just how good the 220 and 440 might be. What I can say for sure is that the 1000 Pro is an absolute triumph, with the Blades and my ears at least.

This was not the end of my day at Oxford though, we had lined up a couple of Devialet alternatives to try. No harm in having a quick listen to what the opposition can do is there? I'll add a post about this in the appropriate thread, but for completeness here, the Pro won the day hand down, simple.

[Womaz]

Brilliant post as usual and very enlightening.

As a 200 owner if I was to upgrade it would be to D400 or 220 Pro.......biggest issue is the pro upgrade would leave me without my Devialet for a good while. This makes this a no go for me.

Thanks for the post, excellent

[sven911]

Excelent post, very usefull. I have my D800 already on "the list" for upgrade to a D1000.
Thanks