Negative Reviews

[no32]

The gryphon is a much better amp/dac than my old devialet 140. Gryphon is also 3 times the price of the devialet. So perhaps it's not a fair comparison.
My Gryphon amp is Very transparent sounding, and show more details in the music, but the detail don't shout at you like it did in the devialet. Vocals has got a much more live feel, with closed eyes I can really be fooled to believe the singer is in the living room with me, It's almost like a thin veil has been removed between me and the music. The gryphon is not dark sounding at all. But the gryphon is a much much more satisfying amplifier.

Which Gryphon do you have ?


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[Delija]

Diablo 120.

[no32]

+1


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[David A]

I've performed a - 2.5db alteration to the bass on my Totems, it sounds much better. SAM at 0% too. More SAM added more bass and it becomes overbearing and muddies the midrange.

That's not problem with Devialet, but with your room and/or speaker positioning.

I think @Delija is right and that it is a room or setup problem.

I've had a similar problem, recently solved by repositioning a couple of my acoustic panels. I've found since upgrading my speakers a couple of years ago to Focal Sopra 2s that SAM resulted in a hardening of the lower mids which I found noticeable on female voices. I was also having room issues since getting the Sopras which were not evident with my previous speakers, Dynaudio Contour 1.3 SEs, which I figured were room related due to their lower extension in the bass and spent time experimenting with a different speaker placement and also with my acoustic room treatment over a long period. I've finally found a panel placement which results in a better room response in my bass frequencies and seems to have eliminated the problem in the lower mids when using SAM but I'm still keeping SAM set at 0% in my system.

At 0% SAM is on but just performing phase correction. As you increase the % it seems to apply an increasing amount of EQ in the bass to further boost bass extension and that can result in problems if the boost at a particular frequency coincides with one of your room modes which can result in an exaggerated peak with a longer decay time which can cause issues in the lower mids. You may well be able to solve your problem with speaker placement so the speakers don't load a problem room mode as much, or with acoustic treatment, or a combination of both if the problem results from a room mode being excited too strongly. You may even be able to dispense with the cut from the bass tone control. It may take a bit of time and effort finding a good solution to the problem but it will be worth it. If you have your speakers.

I checked Totem's website and they say the speakers can be placed quite close to the wall but a photo in one review showed a rear port. As an experiment I'd try increasing their distance from the wall behind them a bit, especially if you have them really close to that wall or to a corner. I t think you'll lose less bass than you may think and, if the problem is a result of too much bass gain from proximity to the wall, you may notice a gain in bass clarity as well as a reduction in the problem you report. If you get that you may also find that you don't need to reduce your bass tone control setting and may even be able to use SAM as well though if you can then use SAM you may find that you want to keep it set to 0% or to a very low level.

[maxijazz]

If i understand well, 0% SAM just provides protection for woofer. Increasing SAM adds phase correction that results in increased bass extension and accuracy (that can by heard as increasing of bass amount). There is no equalization, per se.

[Jean-Marie]

No, phase correction is on as soon as SAM is activated, no matter the percentage.

The percentage deals with the bass extension, not the phase.

Jean-Marie

[David A]

If i understand well, 0% SAM just provides protection for woofer. Increasing SAM adds phase correction that results in increased bass extension and accuracy (that can by heard as increasing of bass amount). There is no equalization, per se.

No, phase correction is on as soon as SAM is activated, no matter the percentage.

The percentage deals with the bass extension, not the phase.

Jean-Marie

I don't know where I read it but I do remember reading somewhere what @Jean-Marie is saying, just turning SAM on at 0% turns on phase correction. Increasing the percentage setting increases bass extension. I have never seen anything from Devialet about how they increase bass extension but my feeling is that it is by boosting the lower frequencies because the only way to make bass (or any frequency) which is either inaudible or only faintly audible is by boosting output at those frequencies.

I have no way of measuring the phase response of my speakers with and without SAM to try and confirm my original comment and Jean Marie's confirmation but I did think of one measurement I could perform. I use a PS Audio P12 power conditioner which has a display screen which can report a number of performance measures, one of which is the total power output from the P12 on a moment to moment basis. With SAM on at 0%, it showed the P12 was delivering 81 to 82 W of power to my system for the track I was playing at the time. I turned SAM off and the power output dropped to 71-72 W of power, a 10 W reduction. Turning SAM back on increased power output back to the original 81 to 82W of power. Since no other changes occurred apart from turning SAM on and off I think we can safely assume that just having SAM on at 0% resulted in my amp using 10W of power more than it does with SAM off. I don't think that the amp would require an additional 10W just to provide bass correction during this test given that my volume setting was -21 dB so I was listening at quite moderate levels and there was no need for the amp to actually apply volume correction. When I've made some previous tests using the P12's info display I've noticed that the system draws somewhere around 35-40 W or so of power with the amp off so the amp draws around 30 W of power with music playing and SAM off, and around 40 W of power with SAM on at 0% so having SAM on at the level I was listening at actually increases the amp's power draw by around 33%. That's a big increase in power draw for just applying speaker protection and that suggests that something more than just speaker protection is occurring with SAM at 0%.

This test doesn't prove that phase correction is being applied with SAM at 0%, only actual phase measurements of the speaker's output at 0% would do that, but I do think the above results give very strong grounds for believing that whatever SAM is doing at 0 % involves more than simply providing speaker protection and phase correction is the only other candidate we have to explain what else might be going on.

[Delija]

The effects on phase could be easily seen by measuring speakers + subwoofer integration.
Settings which are optimal with SAM are totally off without SAM.

[maxijazz]

I don't know where I read it but I do remember reading somewhere what @Jean-Marie is saying, just turning SAM on at 0% turns on phase correction. Increasing the percentage setting increases bass extension. I have never seen anything from Devialet about how they increase bass extension but my feeling is that it is by boosting the lower frequencies because the only way to make bass (or any frequency) which is either inaudible or only faintly audible is by boosting output at those frequencies.

I have no way of measuring the phase response of my speakers with and without SAM to try and confirm my original comment and Jean Marie's confirmation but I did think of one measurement I could perform. I use a PS Audio P12 power conditioner which has a display screen which can report a number of performance measures, one of which is the total power output from the P12 on a moment to moment basis. With SAM on at 0%, it showed the P12 was delivering 81 to 82 W of power to my system for the track I was playing at the time. I turned SAM off and the power output dropped to 71-72 W of power, a 10 W reduction. Turning SAM back on increased power output back to the original 81 to 82W of power. Since no other changes occurred apart from turning SAM on and off I think we can safely assume that just having SAM on at 0% resulted in my amp using 10W of power more than it does with SAM off. I don't think that the amp would require an additional 10W just to provide bass correction during this test given that my volume setting was -21 dB so I was listening at quite moderate levels and there was no need for the amp to actually apply volume correction.  When I've made some previous tests using the P12's info display I've noticed that the system draws somewhere around 35-40 W or so of power with the amp off so the amp draws around 30 W of power with music playing and SAM off, and around 40 W of power with SAM on at 0% so having SAM on at the level I was listening at actually increases the amp's power draw by around 33%. That's a big increase in power draw for just applying speaker protection and that suggests that something more than just speaker protection is occurring with SAM at 0%.

This test doesn't prove that phase correction is being applied with SAM at 0%, only actual phase measurements of the speaker's output at 0% would do that, but I do think the above results give very strong grounds for believing that whatever SAM is doing at 0 % involves more than simply providing speaker protection and phase correction is the only other candidate we have to explain what else might be going on.

 You explanation makes sense.
I am too wondering how increasing of extension is implemented while we rise SAM's "percents". Maybe that is just adding power to lower frequencies (= equalisation) as you mentioned.

[thumb5]

This test doesn't prove that phase correction is being applied with SAM at 0%, only actual phase measurements of the speaker's output at 0% would do that, but I do think the above results give very strong grounds for believing that whatever SAM is doing at 0 % involves more than simply providing speaker protection and phase correction is the only other candidate we have to explain what else might be going on.

Actually there is another possibility: the computation (signal processing) required to implement SAM at 0% itself uses some additional power.