Remote mayhem with two Devialet Experts

[Damon]

Hi @amaynard

Interesting thread. I suppose that early on Devialet made the assumption that nobody would have two of their amps in RF range of each other. After all, the first amp was the D Premier, and it was +/- $15,000.00 USD. It was also a very unusual product at the time, in terms of technology and form. Getting the few persons with the available budget, and interest in audio, to invest in such an amplifier would have been the challenge.

I might also think that an early design concern would have been rapid and reliable remote and amp pairing. Dropped connections would be a bigger risk to the consumer and daily operation. I don't know how many other remotes are RF rather than IR, but that too may have been new tech for hi-fi.

Penultimate thought: if you upgraded one of the units, then could the Pro CI system could be used without affecting the original Expert system?

Ultimate thought: if you put a refrigerator between the two amps, say, hung from the ceiling and plugged in and running, that would be a low-tech solution. Our Dev remote doesn't work when I'm in the kitchen and the refrigerator is between me and the amp. I'll leave the installation details to you to solve. Bonus points if it gives you extra cold beer or cool wine storage.

[amaynard]

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Ultimate thought: if you put a refrigerator between the two amps, say, hung from the ceiling and plugged in and running, that would be a low-tech solution. Our Dev remote doesn't work when I'm in the kitchen and the refrigerator is between me and the amp. I'll leave the installation details to you to solve. Bonus points if it gives you extra cold beer or cool wine storage.

I love the thought of rigging a refrigerator up as a Heath Robinson Faraday barrier   I did actually begin to wonder about somehow adding shielding ... and one option is to use a foil underlay under the upstairs carpet. But it's a bit of an extreme fix.

You may be right about the design pathway here. And of course, even with this design flaw the Devialet remote is incredible. I'm a remote snob, and one of the reasons I love this amp is that they achieved something with it that no other company has managed in producing a responsive analog-feel remote control.

[Pleyel]

...

Ultimate thought: if you put a refrigerator between the two amps, say, hung from the ceiling and plugged in and running, that would be a low-tech solution. Our Dev remote doesn't work when I'm in the kitchen and the refrigerator is between me and the amp. I'll leave the installation details to you to solve. Bonus points if it gives you extra cold beer or cool wine storage.

I love the thought of rigging a refrigerator up as a Heath Robinson Faraday barrier   I did actually begin to wonder about somehow adding shielding ... and one option is to use a foil underlay under the upstairs carpet. But it's a bit of an extreme fix.

You may be right about the design pathway here. And of course, even with this design flaw the Devialet remote is incredible. I'm a remote snob, and one of the reasons I love this amp is that they achieved something with it that no other company has managed in producing a responsive analog-feel remote control.

Again, since the pairing only occurs when the signal from the remote exceeds a given level at the amp (hence actually designed to support multiple, independent amps+assigned remotes in the same room, even if this threshold happens to be too low), you may try to reduce the received signal strength by shielding specifically the amp (or the remote), which looks quite easier:
if you look for a solution, covering the window under the amp showing a red device with some conductive material (e.g. aluminium foil) should lower the pairing threshold and help fixing the issue. Low-tech but probably efficient.
The material of the table also has an impact.

You still can enjoy beer or wine while listening ;-)

[daniel.avasilichioaei]

Is Devialet Expert app working with your Devialet model? If yes, then you can control one of your amps (or both) using this app.

[amaynard]

Is Devialet Expert app working with your Devialet model? If yes, then you can control one of your amps (or both) using this app.

Thanks - and yes. I'm also controlling through Roon. It's just a pain when you don't have full access to the functionality of the remote.  Plus, the Devialet remote is a massive part of the Devialet experience, so sad not to be able to use it!

[amaynard]

Anyone else had issues with remotes when running two Devialet experts in adjacent rooms?

I've just purchased a 120 for a second system, and have been using an Expert 200 for the past few years. However, the remotes do not uniquely pair and stay paired.

I've had various mis-pairings occur - the most common being that both remotes pair with the same amp (which is incredibly frustrating as you're trying to control the amp in one room, and whoever is listening in the other room has their amp volume/input changing outside their control)

I've also had remotes pair, then lose their pairing.

What I haven't managed to achieve is each amp with its own uniquely paired remote.

There must be a workaround to this - how otherwise do dealers demo multiple amps in the same facility.

It's been a while since I posted this (and thanks for all the replies) -- thought I'd post an update though as I've finally found a fix to the problem, thanks to ChatGPT! (Which probably means that someone else discovered this somewhere):

The trick is to partially shield the antenna on the bottom of the amplifier that picks up the RF signal from the remote -- this is the "E" shaped circuitry that you can see through the acrylic window under the amp with the red LEDs.

I used a very Heath Robinson proof of concept using tin foil and electrical tape, covering part of the "E" -- the RF pickup is extremely sensitive to just how much of the antenna is shielded and so some trial and error is needed. And a more elegant solution would be to cover in partially shielding tape (such as something with copper wires sparsely running through it) so that you can change the attenuation with multiple layers.

But I now have two Devialets that I can control separately, without the remotes randomly repairing with the other amp!