Goodbye to Devialet - after upgrade program

[Hifi_swlon]

Did Devialet 'get lucky' here. Correct me if I am wrong, but did they not happen upon the advances representing the Pro upgrade, whilst putting together the Od'A, to the point where things over-lapped, and with new Od'A owners finding out that their machines were not going to be the pinnacle of Devialet ownership.

...

So I remain unconvinced about upgrading, of course it is difficult to read about the advances in SQ being reported, and that has it's own value in terms of upgrade costs. I like what they have achieved with the technologies, but I am wholly sceptical of Devialet OS, I think this could be a great white elephant. Ready to accept new advances maybe, but don't get sucked in by the hyperbola until something concrete is tabled by them. Again, the gun is held to your head, if you don't upgrade now, but later when these streaming boards are actually real, then you will be charged even more for it. That is pure marketing of an unsavoury kind in my book.

Allen, if you know my posts you'll know I'm not Devialets no 1 fan. I also agree with what you've said here.

It looks to me like the founders did genuinely aim to make the OdA the flagship, but as soon as it sold the investors and bean-counters leapt in and forced them to monetise it ASAP. If not, then they must be some cold, calculated guys. But that seems less likely - this smacks of the 'money man' in my experience. Also, the Experts came with SAM and other features out of the box. The Pros com with a promise of things way down the line - again this smacks of zero planning, and makes them look a bit clueless IMO. It further highlights their stretched software resources. Anyway, I'm getting off track.

Most of the Expert promises didn't affect me or were before my time. AIR was my thing, and still is - won't repeat that discussion. I've stopped trying it, other than updating my OSX as a last ditch effort to see if the beta3 worked, which (oh the irony) has screwed up my Roon setup and after a year without a single issue now has occasional dropouts on internet streaming. Urgh.

Resale wise I think the 200 is the worst affected. It makes little sense to buy one if you want a 220 Pro upgrade, as you can get a 120 for that. So we've been hit the hardest. Ok, some will say hifi isn't an investment - and of course it isn't - but does that mean you need to be happy about Devialet forcibly devaluing it. No, of course not.

But here's my take on the upgrade. I said I'd never spend another penny with Devialet (which thankfully I semi-retracted recently) but I forced myself to step back and look at the situation cold and be unemotional about it.

Not upgrading: Worst case, a 200 is suddenly worth a lot less resale. After December it might not be possible to upgrade any more (ok, it's unlikely based on past form but it could happen), and come 2017 if Devialet surprise us and add a decent streamer board, you'll not only have to pay for it (allegedly, again I think it will likely get included with the pro's after a time), but you'll have to buy a Pro, and sell the 200 at an even lower amount if it's not upgradeable.

Now, if you like the 200, are happy with it, aren't interested in selling it, and don't want to give money to Devialet then it makes sense not to upgrade.

Upgrading: You refresh the resale value of your Devialet, probably at least by the amount you pay for the upgrade. You get a streamer board for free should it ever materialise, and there is at least the chance that it will be technical possibile for it to handle Roon. As a bonus you'll probably get a degree of increased SQ, and a platform that all future firmware will likely be optimised for.

Ok, if you're me you'd also have to swallow your pride, but the upgrade does make logical sense in my case - particularly as I'm not 100% I want to keep my Devialet long term, so resale is a factor.

But that said I still think the upgrade on the 200 is the least value for money. So I didn't upgrade mine.

[GuillaumeB]

By all accounts the jump in SQ from 200 to 220 PRO is substantial, I am hearing this from many quarters. 

If SQ is the most important factor, and funds or overdraft facilities (!) permit it, then it's a no brainer. I'm pretty confident of that.

Of course it's very annoying to hand money over to Devialet given how poor they have been at communicating with their customer base and their inability/unwillingness in the past to address the AIR issue. 

And despite Quentin Sannié saying back in July: "I will make sure our teams get better at understanding your needs and communicating on a regular basis with you" I am not sure this has really happened. Yes we have seen some improvements but those improvements have been pretty limited in scope, and as far as I can see limited to some fairly decent interaction on the "Love is in the AIR" thread on Devialet's website, essentially an AIR beta testing feedback forum. Quentin Sannié's promises hinted at a much broader effort, something that I haven't seen happen yet.

If they really wanted to understand our needs they should ask us for starters what we want from Devialet OS for PRO. Open up a new thread on their support pages and start interacting! They could even send out a survey to all Expert owners asking them how they currently use their amplifiers and what developments they would most like to see in the future. 

Not only would they gather a lot of very interesting data they would also start to look like a company that actually cares. 

Guillaume

[Rufus McDufus]

Upgrading: You refresh the resale value of your Devialet, probably at least by the amount you pay for the upgrade. You get a streamer board for free should it ever materialise, and there is at least the chance that it will be technical possibile for it to handle Roon. As a bonus you'll probably get a degree of increased SQ, and a platform that all future firmware will likely be optimised for.

Now this is where my mental calculator is having a bit of a problem because  as far as I can see the s/h price of a D200 is about £3k at the moment (that might be optimistic, i don't know). The upgrade price to D220 is £3k but I can't see the resale price of an upgraded model being as high as £6k.  A quick search shows retail for a brand new D220Pro is about £7k so an upgraded s/h model is probably going to be worth less than £6k and maybe closer to £5k?

[edit] - more mental calculations:
Sell D200 now - get £3k
Upgrade D200 to D220Pro - cost £3k, s/h value (say) £5.5k. So the upgrade effectively costs £500.
I'm talking myself into this...

[Hifi_swlon]

Don't forget you'll (allegedly) have to add 1,500 Euro to the current price of the pro once the streamer board comes out.

[Womaz]

I doubt very much I will upgrade but I guess never say never.
Devialet not my favourite company as I have stated previously but doubt I would ever move from them. Say 3k if I sell my 200......what on earth could I get for that sort of cash that could get anywhere near as good SQ as my 200. If I did sell I would have to add significantly to my 3k to get anything near as good ........so I might as well upgrade to the 220.

Anyway I am happy with the SQ I get from my 200, but so understand why people are not happy about the upgrade . I feel more foe the OdA owners, now I think they really have got a raw deal

[Confused]

I have to say that I was very struck reading AlanB's very considered post earlier. The thing is, much of what he had written was stuff that I have thought myself over the last few months. When I first heard about the Pro, I too was a little disconcerted that Devialet had worked on the O'dA, apparently as a bit of a side project to produce a limited edition that would sit nicely above the D800. Then when this appeared to be working well, the plan to hone the design a bit, and release as the all new Pro range. This thought sat very badly with me, I felt that I would want the new model to be the best they could achieve, the result of many years hard R&D effort, that kind of thing. The Pro looked to me like a bit of a half hearted effort designed to extract cash from existing owners. I did actually get a bit of information regarding this a while back, this is second hand information so I have no idea exactly how accurate it is, but here goes. The story is that the O'dA was indeed something of a side project, although as this was Mathieu Pernot's (Devialet's Chief Designer) personal project, to call it a side project is perhaps the wrong term, a lot of care effort and expertise was going into this. What I was told was that in the early stages of this project it was becoming clear that big improvements in performance was possible, and the green light was given for a very serious R&D effort (many people and much cash) to push this even further and create the Pro range. It would appear that once the decision for the Pro range had been made, the O'dA had just been announced. Appalling timing, and we know how that one worked out. Even with this tale (if it is accurate, does anyone know for sure?) in mind, I still did not feel this was the 'many years hard R&D effort' that I felt a new range should justify. It was with all this in mind that I went for my audition of the 1000 Pro. To be honest, I was happy with the D800 and had no intention of trying anything new, but the upgrade scheme effectively forced me to consider my next step, this is why after listening to the 1000 Pro, I also had a listen to option from Chord (DAVE) and dCS, I was annoyed enough with Devialet (AIR, communication, all the above) to try some rival products to get a feel for just how good Devialet products really are. I think is was at some point during the second or third track that that I listened to on the 1000 Pro that all these thoughts were banished. The Pro was special. I had one of the moments when I started thinking this is it, this is what I have been looking for all these years, then a kind of primeval feeling 'I want one'. All very simple. So here is the great Devialet quandary at the moment. Some of what Devialet are doing is the kind of stuff that customers simply that should not accept. My default position with any company like this is simple, do not use them. Bad meal at a restaurant, stop going there, unreliable car, buy a different make next time. It's very simple. However, if you love music, love music beautifully reproduced, and your quest is to have the best possible sound quality for the money, then in my view, the Devialet Pro is a triumph, something you would be foolish to ignore. In a way, the fact the Pro is so good just serves to exacerbate the rest of Devialet's short comings and make all of this all the more annoying. After all, if the sound quality was rubbish we would all simply walk away, most of us would not have purchased in the first place and the annoying entity that is Devialet would be bankrupt. The Pro is just so good I fear that Devialet will survive and prosper.

As for the streamer board...... A bit of a joke I think. My view? Why didn't they just make this an option, sell the Pro and do the upgrades without it. This would make the upgrades cheaper, and the streamer board could then live or die on it's merits when we all know what it will do, and how it will sound. Ridiculous. The thing is they haven't done this, it is what it is, and I've still bought a Pro, I am not walking away in disgust. The sound quality cannot be ignored. It just adds to the annoyance.....

[AllenB]

Too true @Confused, I want to kick their butts, but I absolutely love the sound of the Devialet's.

[Hifi_swlon]

As to Confused's pondering of forgetting the streamer board and making the upgrades cheaper - I guess they didn't want to do that since the board will cost them a lot less than 1500 Euro to make, and they don't know if anyone will buy it. It's just a tool to drum up more upgrade interest, and maybe try and take the sting out of their pricing.

[Confused]

As to Confused's pondering of forgetting the streamer board and making the upgrades cheaper - I guess they didn't want to do that since the board will cost them a lot less than 1500 Euro to make, and they don't know if anyone will buy it. It's just a tool to drum up more upgrade interest, and maybe try and take the sting out of their pricing.

Yes, I wondered this.  If you take the design and development costs as a lump sum, I am guessing the actual production cost of each streamer board is fairly low.  Sub $100?  Maybe less?

Although they could still reduce the upgrade price. If they planned to sell the streamer board for Euro 1500 or whatever, this would make up the profit. Assuming they were confident it would sell in numbers. That is probably a big assumption, and leads us to where we are now.

[Hifi_swlon]

Surprisingly, the idea of the free streamer board was a bit of a draw for me.
Yeah, I surprised myself more than anything. Thing is, you can only be wrong so many times, and so far I've been way off the mark second-guessing Devialet. So this could be the big one - a top flight streamerboard rivalling all competitors, and built into the experts, and free.

Just saying. It could happen.

Also I just wrote this in the Roon thread but it seems somehow relevant here now:

So, apparently the board will be an optional extra on the pro in 2017. At Euro 1,500.

I'm still struggling to see how they'll manage it - will they keep manufacturing the old board to ship free for those that won't want the new one? Seems unlikely. Or provide nothing - no Ethernet or USB? Seems more unlikely. The only thing I can think is (if they stick to their word) it will be an optional extra only in that you have to pay more for a pro, which includes the 'pro' streamer board. Ie the pros go up in price.