Silver Phantom Hiss

[jonstatt]

All Phantoms I have heard now, 7 of them with all different manufacturing dates, emit some hiss regardless of what you read. My wife can't hear it, my parents can't hear it, my friends can't hear it. I can. It is incredibly subtle and high pitched so it depends on your hearing. One way to hear this to play something quiet like a quite classical part, with your ear close to the tweeter, and then stop it. You will hear the hiss continue for a second or two before the amplifier shuts down. However, while I know I have extremely sensitive hearing, I cannot hear this hiss when seated at a normal listening distance. So I am very surprised that you find it as annoying as you describe. Could you possibly make your video public so we can all hear what you sent Devialet?

I probably find it annoying as I have my Phantom on my desk, so when I'm working it's only about 18 inches away from my head, which makes the hissing very noticeable in quiet passages of music. It sounds like there are many others experiencing the same issue with their Phantoms, so hopefully it is something that Devialet are working on.

Ah! I think that explains why it annoys you particularly! Devialet are a bit in trouble with this because on their own website they say 3000W, 0 saturation, 0 distortion, 0 background noise! But I do have my doubts on whether this can be fixed in software at it seems to me to be circuit design...we shall see!

[stadidas]

All Phantoms I have heard now, 7 of them with all different manufacturing dates, emit some hiss regardless of what you read. My wife can't hear it, my parents can't hear it, my friends can't hear it. I can. It is incredibly subtle and high pitched so it depends on your hearing. One way to hear this to play something quiet like a quite classical part, with your ear close to the tweeter, and then stop it. You will hear the hiss continue for a second or two before the amplifier shuts down. However, while I know I have extremely sensitive hearing, I cannot hear this hiss when seated at a normal listening distance. So I am very surprised that you find it as annoying as you describe. Could you possibly make your video public so we can all hear what you sent Devialet?

I probably find it annoying as I have my Phantom on my desk, so when I'm working it's only about 18 inches away from my head, which makes the hissing very noticeable in quiet passages of music. It sounds like there are many others experiencing the same issue with their Phantoms, so hopefully it is something that Devialet are working on.

Ah! I think that explains why it annoys you particularly! Devialet are a bit in trouble with this because on their own website they say 3000W, 0 saturation, 0 distortion, 0 background noise! But I do have my doubts on whether this can be fixed in software at it seems to me to be circuit design...we shall see!

Quite. Given that their amps are known for zero noise I did find this issue with the Phantom a bit of a surprise.

[dr_dray]

About a month ago I purchased a Silver Phantom from Devialet at Westfield London. I was very happy with the sound except for an annoying hissing noise that occurs during music playback from all sources (WiFi, Bluetooth, and optical). It sounds exactly like the problem described in this thread: http://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?tid=1367 as per Invader's post - "I experience it all the time during playback and around 2s after stopping/pausing"

I contacted Devialet support and they requested a video of the Phantom making this sound. They agreed that this was unacceptable and organised for me to get a replacement Silver Phantom, again from Devialet at Westfield in London. I picked up the replacement today and it has the exact same problem.

Does anyone else experience this with their phantoms, or know of a solution? I love the sound of the phantom but during quieter passages of music the hiss is very irritating and really ruins the experience. Any suggestions for a solution welcome!

All phantoms suffer from this hiss (I even sent mine back because I believed it to be faulty). It is just something we have to live with, perhaps it is something that can be resolved via software updates in the future  however I am doubtful that this is the case. I have inspected several phantoms and have not seen one that does not emit some type of hiss ( I work in the audio industry so I have the advantage of being able to test several models). At around 2 - 3m distance from the phantom the hiss becomes fairly hard to notice... I would recommend sitting a little further away from your speakers