New Devialet Phantom Ultimate - listening impressions

[DasLahmeSchaf]

Is this the 98 or 108?

2x 108db

[Johnnydev]

Dear Devialet Community

I’ve now been using two Devialet Phantoms in stereo mode on the “Tree” stands for about a week, and I’d like to share my impressions with you.

1. The product itself
The Devialet Phantoms are truly impressive speakers that, apart from a few minor issues, work flawlessly. Setup, pairing, and connecting with Roon and Tidal Connect all went smoothly. I’ve been using the speakers exclusively over Wi-Fi since day one.

2. Visual impression
Design is always a matter of taste, but I personally find the Phantoms to look minimalist, modern, and overall very elegant. One small downside with the “Light Pearl” version I received is that, depending on the sunlight, the finish can sometimes look a bit cheap or somewhat plasticky.

3. Sound impression (probably the most important aspect of any speaker)
Here my opinion differs slightly from many other reviewers online. I mostly listen to classical music, with some vocal jazz and a bit of folk.
From medium volume levels upward, the sound quality is acceptable (though a bit too bass-heavy) but still far from the performance of my Sonus Faber speakers driven by the Devialet Expert 400. Voices and instruments tend to sound somewhat inflated — the body of a violin doesn’t really come across as the body of a violin. That’s probably due to the physical limitations of such a relatively small speaker.

What disappointed me the most is the sound performance at low volume levels (volume setting below 22). At that point, voices, instruments — basically the whole musical content — get lost. Even my wife, who isn’t particularly into music, noticed it immediately. Her comment was that it sounds more like a “mush” than a clear musical presentation.
I can’t quite explain why this happens. I’ve tried different modes and played around with the equalizer extensively — without success.

Since I don’t want to take the risk of simply waiting and hoping for a future firmware update to fix this issue, the Phantoms are unfortunately going back to Devialet — a pity.

I can hardly believe what you’re writing about the sound impression, and certainly not the the disappointment of of the sound performance at low volumes, below 22, because that’s precisely one of the 108db ultimate’s stronger points compared to the previous series.

- Did you place them as devialet prescribes and tested different setups suitable for your living room?
- Did you use the tree’s for the best result? 
- Was your Wi-Fi quality 100% perfect?
- Taking into account the required burn-in time?

I’m absolutely not saying they could sound better then your Sonus Faber speakers with your D-400 (I personally think that this combination is hard to beat), but if you haven’t done the above correctly and optimally, in my opinion, then the 108db Ultimates haven’t had the opportunity to make a proper comparison.

[DasLahmeSchaf]

Dear Johnydev

Yes, I am using the original Trees and the WiFi network is WiFi6 and 100% perfect. Burn-in time is a good point.

However, I have to slightly correct my statement or assessment from my first report. I wanted to pack up the Phantoms over the weekend to return them. And then I came across the test report from “Audio File.” The reviewer wrote that the Phantoms have a kind of loudness function in Standard Music Mode and that he therefore carried out all his tests in Monitor Mode. I tried out this monitor mode (which was somewhat hidden in the general settings) over the weekend. And lo and behold, the sound quality improved significantly in my opinion. I've already changed my mind and will most likely keep the Phantoms. I hope that another firmware update will eliminate the rare crashes and, perhaps, together with a little burn-in time, improve the sound quality even further. Then I would be completely happy and a lucky owner of a really great active speaker system.

Cheers

[Johnnydev]

Dear Johnydev

Yes, I am using the original Trees and the WiFi network is WiFi6 and 100% perfect. Burn-in time is a good point.

However, I have to slightly correct my statement or assessment from my first report. I wanted to pack up the Phantoms over the weekend to return them. And then I came across the test report from “Audio File.” The reviewer wrote that the Phantoms have a kind of loudness function in Standard Music Mode and that he therefore carried out all his tests in Monitor Mode. I tried out this monitor mode (which was somewhat hidden in the general settings) over the weekend. And lo and behold, the sound quality improved significantly in my opinion. I've already changed my mind and will most likely keep the Phantoms. I hope that another firmware update will eliminate the rare crashes and, perhaps, together with a little burn-in time, improve the sound quality even further. Then I would be completely happy and a lucky owner of a really great active speaker system.

Cheers

Burn-in time is definitely an issue.   

I bought my phantoms from Audiofile, and they provide excellent advice and guidance.

https://audiofile.nl/phantom-ultimate-flex2-the-max/

[TeeJay]

For those that have received the new Ultimate 108s and use Roon, does the new Ultimates DAC take full advantage of high res? The legacy Phantoms would downsample to 24 bit 48khz on the audio output. I'm hoping that we can now use at least 24/96 or even 24/192.