Munich High End 2015

[Axel]

It was great to meet with many forum members and finally put some faces next to (nick)names... Unfortunately the pointless Devialet demo with the Nautilus speakes and MANY D200's was a let down...

Back home safely and looking forward to try the 8.0 tonight...

Cheers...

Kunter

Saw the online pics. with 8 Ds and the B&W Nautilus and thought to myself "I bet that sounds great"
Shame to hear that it wasn't!

[GuillaumeB]

Hello chaps, sorry for the delay in posting on here. Truth be told it was my first Munich and I found the the whole experience almost quite overwhelming... in a good way obviously! There are literally miles and miles of exhibits and rooms full of high-end gear. Talk about sensory overload! Some brands appear in many different rooms partnered with different equipment. There are manufacturers, dealers, distributors and of course pundits everywhere! The crowds on Friday, the day I arrived, were almost borderline uncomfortable. On Saturday it was much better. I almost wish I had stayed through to Sunday as I ran out of time and didn't get to see half the things I wanted to. Some of this was because we spent so much time around the Devialet stands and generally talking to one another over refreshments in one of the many bars and restaurants dotted around the (very large) venue.

So I suppose you could say the main focus of Munich was on meeting other Devialet Chat forumers. In this regard it was a resounding success. We had arranged a meeting point on Friday, at 2pm. Within minutes of arriving there there were over a dozen of us! We all wore Devialet Chat stickers so that we could easily be identified by one another and of course Devialet. We then entered one of the Devialet rooms en masse and were treated to a 15-20 minute Q&A with Mathieu Pernot (Senior R&D engineer). After this we moved on to the main auditorium where there were 4 pairs of D200s driving a B&W Nautilus in "active" mode so no internal crossovers in the speakers themselves. The source used was a Macbook running iTunes (I think!) connected via USB. There was also a turntable there, sorry I don't know the model but I'm sure one of the vinyl enthusiasts on here will know! There were a couple of Shunyata Hydra boxes on the ground presumably covering mains distribution and filtering duties. The room was very busy and we couldn't all sit down.

At some point the group fragmented with many leaving to go and look at other things, but myself and IanG-UK stayed on and were able to have numerous conversations with Devialet staff including Romuald Cari (programmer of AIR), Yann Wachten (Asia Pacific sales manager) and Joachim Fritsch (the UK sales manager). Overall I found all Devialet staff to be extremely helpful and accommodating. If they couldn't answer specific questions they were happy to find someone who could. I learnt a lot. 

Later on a group of seven of us: IanG-UK, Gentleman, stefanfreij, Mikeoo, Charlemagne, myself and Ole (a Devialet dealer from Malmo) had a very enjoyable evening out. If I recall the conversation alternated between politics and hi-fi with lots of laughter in between. I believe there are now plans for some kind of follow-up jolly in Sweden! 

A few of us met up again for lunch on Saturday and more listening in different rooms including the Raidho one which we struggled to leave, it was seriously good! Later I went back to the Devialet stand and had a brief conversation with Mathieu who was able to answer more questions around SAM2 and MAT and I had a chance to listen to the Devialet/Nautilus setup once again. 

Also met up with Kunter and a friend of his, some great conversation in one of the beer gardens followed by some listening in the Absolare and Raidho rooms (among others).

Right at the end of the day realising that I hadn't seen half the stuff I wanted to I embarked on a frenetic trolley dash. This included visits to the Constellation/Magico room (had a nice chat with Ricardo of Absolute Sounds there and he introduced me to Peter Madnick which was kind of cool), Soulution/Magico, MQA, Nordost, and Metronome Technologie.

My favourite sound of the show? Without a doubt Raidho. Very closely followed by Absolare (with Rockport speakers), boy I don't think I've ever heard such a refined smooth sound. I also loved Nagra which was partnered with Wilson Audio Alexias. The totaldac rooms sounded great too. 

And Devialet? Well I though the Nautilus looked amazing but whilst there were amazing sounds coming out of these speakers overall they didn't really do it for me. I suspect a lot of this was due to the room acoustics and the crowds that were constantly pouring in (it was difficult to concentrate with the door constantly opening and closing). I also found that the sound varied depending on the track played. I wonder if a more simple setup with a D800 (or D400) with Sasha2 and a better curated playlist wouldn't have worked much better. I didn't notice any acoustic treatment in the room either, perhaps this might have interfered with the slick clean lines of the Devialet brand and image. The rooms did look stunning after all.

Overall a fantastic couple of days and a big thanks to all the Devialet Chat chaps for making it such fun, I really feel like I've made some new friends. Oh and of course a big thanks to Devialet for being excellent hosts and answering all our questions. 

Guillaume

[Chris Marshall]

Thanks for the report Guillaume

Sounds like it was a great show, must make the effort to get there one year!

cheers

Chris

[mauidan]

"Later I went back to the Devialet stand and had a brief conversation with Mathieu who was able to answer more questions around SAM2 and MAT" - Guillaume

What did they tell you?

[blorbed]

Hi Guillaume, you're just teasing now aren't you. They didn't get you to sign a non-disclosure, did they?

Go on, give us the juicy stuff!

[Mikeeo]

After this we moved on to the main auditorium where there were 4 pairs of D200s driving a B&W Nautilus in "active" mode so no internal crossovers in the speakers themselves. The source used was a Macbook running iTunes (I think!) connected via USB. There was also a turntable there, sorry I don't know the model but I'm sure one of the vinyl enthusiasts on here will know! There were a couple of Shunyata Hydra boxes on the ground presumably covering mains distribution and filtering duties. The room was very busy and we couldn't all sit down.

Vinyl player: Bauer Audio DPS  I believe. Was considering this until I found Dr. Feickert.

Later on a group of seven of us: IanG-UK, Gentleman, stefanfreij, Mikeoo, Charlemagne, myself and Ole (a Devialet dealer from Malmo) had a very enjoyable evening out. If I recall the conversation alternated between politics and hi-fi with lots of laughter in between. I believe there are now plans for some kind of follow-up jolly in Sweden! 

Follow up is probably to be, Olle is the name and he is a Devialet dealer from Ystad (east of Malmo) and he is both mine and some stefanfreij's dealer. Gentleman is working hard to make this happen! 

A few of us met up again for lunch on Saturday and more listening in different rooms including the Raidho one which we struggled to leave, it was seriously good! 

That was seriously good (I am a Raidho owner) and best at show. They also demoed the Aavik integrated-phono-dac-etc which shares many features of the Devialet concept. Aavik is a sister company as well as the Ansuz (cables etc) to Raidho.

And Devialet? Well I though the Nautilus looked amazing but whilst there were amazing sounds coming out of these speakers overall they didn't really do it for me. I suspect a lot of this was due to the room acoustics and the crowds that were constantly pouring in (it was difficult to concentrate with the door constantly opening and closing). 

I had some time early on Saturday to sit more or less alone listening to the system and my feeling is that the bass was out of phase/tune and some of the other 3 remaining elements, I think lower tweeter. Otherwise it was very effortless.

Overall a fantastic couple of days and a big thanks to all the Devialet Chat chaps for making it such fun, I really feel like I've made some new friends. 

Couldn't agree more!

Guillaume

I don't know why there is a thumbs down above, sorry/Mike

[amabrok]

It was great to meet with many forum members and finally put some faces next to (nick)names... Unfortunately the pointless Devialet demo with the Nautilus speakes and MANY D200's was a let down...

Back home safely and looking forward to try the 8.0 tonight...

Cheers...

Kunter

Hi Kunter

I'm also surprised they it was a let down

So if I may ask in what sense did it let you down?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[octaviars]

Later on a group of seven of us: IanG-UK, Gentleman, stefanfreij, Mikeoo, Charlemagne, myself and Ole (a Devialet dealer from Malmo) had a very enjoyable evening out. If I recall the conversation alternated between politics and hi-fi with lots of laughter in between. I believe there are now plans for some kind of follow-up jolly in Sweden! 


Follow up is probably to be, Olle is the name and he is a Devialet dealer from Ystad (east of Malmo) and he is both mine and some stefanfreij's dealer. Gentleman is working hard to make this happen!

Olle is also my dealer so if there is going to be a follow up in Sweden I`m keen on coming to that. I live 45km east of Malmo and 25km north of Ystad.

[GuillaumeB]

Hi Guillaume, you're just teasing now aren't you. They didn't get you to sign a non-disclosure, did they?

Go on, give us the juicy stuff!

Of course not! 

My questions were mainly around SAM2 and trying to understand how it would affect me with my Sasha 2 speakers which are already SAMified.

The short answer is that it makes very little difference (if any) to existing speaker configurations. The purpose of SAM2 is simply to be able to measure and SAMify more speakers, essentially speakers that had too many parameters for SAM(1) to work correctly. I was given as an example the Rockport speakers. So SAM2 has more parameters.

However digging a little deeper I discovered that SAM2 is more efficient in its DSP operations leading to a lower processing burden on the DSP engine. Might this affect sound quality? This remains an open question. But the official position seems to be that it changes nothing for existing SAMified speakers like mine. 

Secondly I was interested in understanding how MAT DSD worked, and if anything made it unique vis-a-vis the offerings of other manufacturers. So here is the official explanation:

MAT converts DSD into 40bit/384 kHz (yes you read that correctly!!!) thanks to an optimised algorithm limiting the amount of computational operations on the audio stream. Using only 15 bit perfect additions (no multiplication, no storage) the MAT algorithm performs a 128 taps, linear phase FIR (Finite Impulse Response) digital filter ensuring the conversion of the DSD format into internal native PCM format... and they claim with an outstanding level of performance.

Guillaume

[Womaz]

Sounds like you all had a great time, and some great feedback thanks.