New speakers SAM ready

[GTX]

Hi - I am changing house and selling my WILSON SOPHIA 3speakers... an amazing partner for the Devialet! Contact me if interested (only for pick up in London).

My new listening room is 4.5 x 3.8m. Keen to hear recommendations on small size speakers. Has anyone tried the Devialet with Enigma M1, Kaiser Chiara or Wilson Duette?

[moreno1973]

Has anyone tried the Devialet with Enigma M1, Kaiser Chiara or Wilson Duette?

I tried Devialet 120, 200 and 250 with Sonus Faber Guarneri Evolution. Very good sound and very nice looking setup. Best with 250.
These are powerful monitors, gives powerful sound and very nice midrange plus accurate hightones.

[colonel66]

Chatted to Vivid Audio today and they have sent both a K1 and a G2 to Devialet so they should be SAMed soon- vivalet does a skip down the passage

[Confused]

I have had a week or so now with SAM'ed Blades. I note some people here are finding negatives with SAM, particularly with bigger speakers. However, I am a happy large speaker SAM user, so far I am finding many positives and improvements with SAM. It is still early days and I haven't had enough serious listening time to feel able to post definitive findings, but so far positive. I’ll post more in due course…. I Just thought this was worth a mention for any larger speaker folk who are waiting in the queue, SAM for you may turn out to be well worth the wait.

[GuillaumeB]

I have had a week or so now with SAM'ed Blades. I note some people here are finding negatives with SAM, particularly with bigger speakers. However, I am a happy large speaker SAM user, so far I am finding many positives and improvements with SAM. It is still early days and I haven't had enough serious listening time to feel able to post definitive findings, but so far positive. I’ll post more in due course…. I Just thought this was worth a mention for any larger speaker folk who are waiting in the queue, SAM for you may turn out to be well worth the wait.

As some of you already know I'm running in a pair of Sasha 2s. I've been experimenting quite a bit with SAM and am very gradually coming to the realisation that I prefer it with SAM switched off. I say very gradually since I could not decide which I preferred at first.

There is something a bit more natural and organic with SAM switched off. With SAM activated, yes the bass goes a little deeper and fuller and also the soundstage deepens a little. With some music (with lots of bass!) this excites my room a little and I can hear the room resonance modes making themselves felt (despite some of the acoustic treatments). But with other material such as classical music, I'm not so sure if I prefer the effect.

It's almost as though I prefer the delicacy of the tonal texture without SAM. The bass almost sounds more textured/layered without it. The first thing I noticed when going from Sophia to Sasha was that bass, so much more complexity! A bit like going from a nice wine to something with real depth and subtlety, something that you want to savour slowly.

The best thing is that I can turn it on and off because with some music (and depending on my mood) SAM definitely sounds awesome!

This got me thinking about different optimised DSP filters, such as the ones used by the dCS Vivaldi. Wouldn't it be great to have different settings? We could have one with a warmer sound for e.g. I mentioned this once to Absolute Sounds the distributor. I think it's a rather good idea!

Guillaume

[AlexS]

It's almost as though I prefer the delicacy of the tonal texture without SAM.

Guillaume, I could not agree with you more, especially, as far as classical music is concerned. I spent hours testing with my Cremona M speakers, switching SAM on and off, to the point of not remembering the current setting (so, this was pseudo blind testing With SAM off, I consistently observed more transparency or air around the violins and cellos. It's as if SAM infused the music with some additional bass, which while making it a little more full-bodied, caused it to lose transparency and lightness.
(I disabled SAM in the Configurator, but noticing that the config file still retained the SAM settings for Cremonas, I hoped I'd be able to turn SAM on when desired, if I left one of the Remote's buttons to toggle SAM on/off. No such luck: if you disable SAM through the Configurator, you won't be able to turn it on by a button press - the music goes silent.)

BTW, for those who prefer to listen with SAM on, you should upgrade to the new version of Firmware 7.1.1, which allegedly fixes SAM temperature issues. I noticed my 250 was getting very hot to the touch with SAM on.

Finally, let me again mention that (at least, for my speakers, ears, and the type of music I listen to) the differences with SAM on and off are very subtle. That's why I consider Devialet's statement about the "SAM revolution" (on par with their ADH technology) an unfortunate exaggeration: SAM's effects (whether you like them or not) are in no way comparable to the quality of sound provided by Devialet proper.

[f1eng]

Well the effect of SAM is to correct the cone movement from 200Hz down.
I don't want to get too technical on a forum such as this, but basically in a loudspeaker the cone is never exactly where it should be had it perfectly followed the "instruction" of the amplifier signal. Devialet measure this deviation and produce a correction which means that the cone actually is where the input signal determines it should be.
On top of this they measure voice coil temperature and the safe travel of the bass cone. This is then mapped in to make sure the drive unit is always kept within its safe limits.
This does, of course, mean that the correcting effect can be partially over-ridden by the safety side of the software, so if one is trying to play a massive organ piece at high volume with, say LS50s, the bass -is- corrected for frequency but the level can only go up to a non-damaging level.

The effect will be very small on speakers which are very accurate and full range already, and are more likely to reveal room problems.

[Rufus McDufus]

One thing that concerns me slightly is how they deal with component changes on speakers. I've known in the past speakers that have had component changes over time, e.g drivers, crossover components, which aren't reflected in a version change, just by serial number. I wonder if Devialet work with the manufacturer to account for these? I haven't seen any particular speaker in SAM with several iterations yet.

[Mikeeo]

Hi - I am changing house and selling my WILSON SOPHIA 3speakers... an amazing partner for the Devialet! Contact me if interested (only for pick up in London).

My new listening room is 4.5 x 3.8m. Keen to hear recommendations on small size speakers. Has anyone tried the Devialet with Enigma M1, Kaiser Chiara or Wilson Duette?

Why sell? I heard these nice speakers sing superbly with out boom in a smaller room than you are moving to. Devialet are masters in the lower reg dept. little risk they will be boomy.

/Mike

[Confused]

On top of this they measure voice coil temperature and the safe travel of the bass cone. This is then mapped in to make sure the drive unit is always kept within its safe limits.

This interested me, I recalled hearing that SAM maps the safe travel limit of the cone(s), however, I was unaware that that SAM could infer voice coil temperatures. I can worry too much about things sometimes, and I found myself being a little concerned that because SAM can increase how hard the bass drivers are working, then SAM could maybe reduce the design life of the speakers. However, if SAM is keeping a metaphorical eye on both cone travel and voice coil temperature, then maybe this works in favour of reliability? Perhaps a case of take a bit by making the drivers work harder, then give a bit back by watching the driver excursion and temperature?