Is the upgrade service still available?

[chrisc]

After spending 3 months at it, the short answer is: No, customers here cannot upgrade their amps. The local agent is so fed up with one-sided correspondence that he stopped offering the service. There is a main agent in Durban, they do not reply to emails either

It was far cheaper in the long run to buy this 220Pro from Brian in Canada and sell the 120Expert I had. Both transactions were relatively simple, after I succeeded with my local bank's procedures. The main problem dealing with the local bank is the lack of knowledge of the staff. Instead of finding out how to activate a service they advertise as being offered, they take the easy way out and say it is not being offered any more

But this has nothing to do with Devialet products

I must say that the fellow who bought the 120 from me is totally lost with the Configurator, he could not figure it out at all. Not getting any replies to emails sent to Devialet or submissions on their website (apart from auto-responders) did not help either

[BrianT]

Chris

I have removed the 220 Pro Ci from my Devialet profile, so you should have no problems re registering it again in your name.

Brian
Ottawa, Canada.

[ArnoNYC]

I've waited for us to move back to France before going through the upgrade process... Interesting enough, the communication through the website is no easier when you're located in Devialet's home land

After a couple of unanswered emails I ended up calling the Devialet flagship store in Paris. No immediate answer but someone called me back half an hour later, and helped me through what remained a challenging communication. It took a little while (and obvious efforts on his end) but he managed to connect me with the right folks. After having identified that they had an obsolete email address as my primary contact, communication was back on and they pushed the upgrade to my Devialet account, for me to pay it. Now waiting for the UPS pick-up (tentatively tomorrow...), and I do expect the turn around time to be minimal as I'm quite close to where the upgrade is actually performed (Normandy, apparently...). I'll keep you guys updated...

FYI I'm upgrading an Expert 120 to an 220 Pro with CI - purchased a few years back while I was in NYC, along with the "Ensemble" package. Until now this amp and the Atom speakers have given us absolute satisfaction, but man, I agree that Devialet as a brand has room for improvement in terms of customer service . On a positive note, all Devialet representatives I spoke with since the original purchase were extremely friendly and obviously seeking to help.

Looking forward, I will lower my expectations when using emails and will not hesitate calling their main store again when in need of any serious assistance

Cheers

Arnaud, now back in Paris

[ArnoNYC]

I've waited for us to move back to France before going through the upgrade process... Interesting enough, the communication through the website is no easier when you're located in Devialet's home land

After a couple of unanswered emails I ended up calling the Devialet flagship store in Paris. No immediate answer but someone called me back half an hour later, and helped me through what remained a challenging communication. It took a little while (and obvious efforts on his end) but he managed to connect me with the right folks. After having identified that they had an obsolete email address as my primary contact, communication was back on and they pushed the upgrade to my Devialet account, for me to pay it. Now waiting for the UPS pick-up (tentatively tomorrow...), and I do expect the turn around time to be minimal as I'm quite close to where the upgrade is actually performed (Normandy, apparently...). I'll keep you guys updated...

FYI I'm upgrading an Expert 120 to an 220 Pro with CI - purchased a few years back while I was in NYC, along with the "Ensemble" package. Until now this amp and the Atom speakers have given us absolute satisfaction, but man, I agree that Devialet as a brand has room for improvement in terms of customer service . On a positive note, all Devialet representatives I spoke with since the original purchase were extremely friendly and obviously seeking to help.

Looking forward, I will lower my expectations when using emails and will not hesitate calling their main store again when in need of any serious assistance

Cheers

Arnaud, now back in Paris

Just received my Expert 220 Pro back from Devialet, after a not-so-seamless upgrade. Let alone the initial communication hiccups, my amp was mistakenly upgraded to a 140 Pro (while I had ordered and paid a 220 Pro upgrade). Had to return it for them to fix their mistake, which they did...

I felt fortunate that I'm now within driving distance from the Devialet factory, which kind of limited my frustration to an extra 10 days overall...

On a positive note, I'm now enjoying the improved connectivity and rediscovering my vinyl collection... thinking of getting maybe one or 2 of the Lost Recordings, subscribing to a high-quality streaming service (Qobuz vs. Tidal?), replacing my amp power chord (still with the stock one...), etc. ... long story short, normal life 

[chrisc]

Very fortunate you were able to drive to Paris. A mistake like this would have cost a lot of money in courier fees, as well as dealing with an inefficient customs dept who do not understand the concept of sending a product to a factory for upgrading and re-importing it again. To do it twice would strain their already limited intellectual abilities.

“Not so seamless” is putting it mildly. This is the kind of mistake you might expect from someone who does not have a clue what he is doing, which for an organisation which appears to be seemingly populated with highly qualified scientific people is astonishing

[ArnoNYC]

Very fortunate you were able to drive to Paris.  A mistake like this would have cost a lot of money in courier fees, as well as dealing with an inefficient customs dept who do not understand the concept of sending a product to a factory for upgrading and re-importing it again.  To do it twice would strain their already limited intellectual abilities.

“Not so seamless” is putting it mildly.  This is the kind of mistake you might expect from someone who does not have a clue what he is doing, which for an organisation which appears to be seemingly populated with highly qualified scientific people is astonishing

Agreed 100% - I clearly had in mind all those on this forum who are abroad (with some down under...), for whom such a mistake would have been particularly painful. The reasons why I put it mildly was that they offered some compensation with a 1-yr subscription to Roon (which I may not use, but that's up to me...) but also that I've seen for the last few weeks how the current lockdown (here in Paris it's been going on for a little while) has affected companies (incl. mine)... but still, they want to play in the high-end league and this was clearly below par.

[kerkhoffd]

Good to hear the mistake was corrected. Are you now more happy after the upgrade sound-wise? Does it indeed sound better? I never got around to upgrading my two D200’s.

[ArnoNYC]

Good to hear the mistake was corrected. Are you now more happy after the upgrade sound-wise? Does it indeed sound better? I never got around to upgrading my two D200’s.

Hhhmmm good question. So far I'm happy but I can't objectively tell whether it's any better sound wise (or how much it has improved) as there are too many variables in my equation:

• the upgrade came a few months after our relocation, a period of time during which I did not use my amp much
  
• my system sits in our living room, the geometry of which is far from optimal (the room is almost a pentagon with some open walls, I don't have much flexibility in the location of the speakers, etc)
  
• my power source setup is a mess - the Devialet runs on the cheap stock power cable that came with the Expert 120, the turntable is on a power bar shared with many other AV devices, etc.
  
• my turntable was just serviced and I'm not convinced it's back to a fully functional condition
  
• I'm also just starting to try high-res streaming sources (starting with Qobuz - I may end up giving Roon a try), trying to understand which route to go and for which result... 
  

First observations, not limited to sound quality:

• I'm still amazed at the sound quality when playing certain vinyls (e.g. live performances) - whether it's better than with my original Ensemble 120 I can't honestly tell
  
• I feel I have more frequent and obvious static noise when listening to vinyls (may be related to my power source configuration...)
  
• I really appreciate the improved connectivity in the everyday use of the amp, and more specifically the Airplay connectivity, although I've had some issues with it over the past 24hrs... user errors I guess, or maybe issues with the SD card (for whatever reason last night upon reboot HDCP got disabled)
  
• the Devialet is used in a bypass mode to drive the front speakers when watching movies & TV, and the setup is definitely not as good as what we had in NYC. So for this specific application, I will refrain from judging the benefit of the upgrade as I have no valid comparison point
  

The added analog inputs and improved connectivity were objectively the main reason for me to upgrade, as they would make my Expert more usable on a daily basis. I also liked the idea to be offered an upgrade path and felt that the price of the 120-220 Pro w/ CI was reasonable. So from this standpoint I can already say that I'm happy with the upgrade.

As for the sound quality when streaming music or listening to LPs, I'll save my feedback for later 


PS) I can't stress enough how valuable this forum has been (and still is) in my Expert journey...

[kerkhoffd]

Thank you for sharing!