Should Apple acquire Devialet/Phantom?

[Confused]

NOW we’ve got a discussion! And that’s a lucid and persuasive argument, David A. Well said. Now I’ve got a confession to make. My premise was really only half baked and I couldn’t really give any good technical reasons for the premise. I just used Apple because I knew it would get attention and seemed to make at least some sense. I can’t really argue with David. That all said, if not Apple, who? Because they seem to need some help.

I was going to write something very negative about Apple buying Devialet, but no need, some fine posts earlier in this thread that have said it much better than I could.

So, If we accept that Devialet are great with the hardware but need help with software, then the question might be a simple one, who is good at software for audio products?

One answer is Sonore.  Sonore's 'SonicOrbiter' software is used on their 'Rendu' range of products, and even comes with the super cheap SonicTransporter.  Variants of the same can also be found in SOtM and Antipodes kit.  Broadly speaking, SonicOrbiter can do everything that is expected of the CI board at the moment, and more.  Plus, it is pretty much 100% stable, it works.  I am quite sure that Devialet products with Sonore software would be a match made in heaven.

I do not know the numbers, but I would guess that Devialet could easily find the money to buy Sonore outright if they wanted to. (if they were for sale that is).  Plus, I am sure the cost of buying software consultancy from them would also be very achievable.

There is a problem here though, every indication is that Devialet want to develop their own software ecosystem, with Spark for the Expert coming soon I am sure.  One positive here is that Devialet do seam to realise now that they have an issue with software and they do seam to be recruiting more manpower to address this.  I am sure they will get there eventually.

Having said all that, playing with the CI board beta software recently, it is actually quite good already, certainly not the complete disaster that some were predicting.  So maybe they might be getting there faster than we think?

[Gerronwithit]

Neither are particularly intellectual or persuasive arguments. Ragwo is - if not persuasive - certainly patient however. And ogs must believe that the Phantom is mediocre?? What is more likely is that as they continue to struggle, they lose traction and following and die of their own accord in the next recession - not everyone is as patient as ragwo, nor as anti-Apple as ogs.

I know I just sent back $10k worth of product I had on trial but discovered only problems, glitches, and shortcomings that I do not expect for my hard earned after tax $10k. Not ready for prime time as we say in the US. But I have 3 iPads and a sequence of iPhones that just work and look good. May not satisfy techno-geeks but they work and look good. As for mediocrity, I refer you back to win-win premise.

Firstly, I don't own a Phantom. However, last year I took both my sons to the Bristol HiFi show where there is always mountains of kit dressed to impress. Neither are audiophiles and were extremely sceptical of expensive cables and their supposed capabilities. However, both were very impressed with the Phantoms they heard and their capabilities. For them it was the stand out product and I can assure you they are not going to take anything I say for granted. 

Now, I have my 250 Pro back with the CI upgrade and have installed the beta firmware. My music is played through Roon and is mainly from Tidal. What I am hearing is aural heaven and when I think that something I'm listening to is a bit rough, it is because the recording is a bit rough or poor not because of my hardware. As to the software, I have yet to suffer a glitch from the Devialet itself, although have has the odd minor interruption when Roon spring an upgrade on me. At worst, that has required a cold start of the 250 Pro. 

As for Apple developing the software. well. haven't seen a lot of advances on AAC in the last decade or so. I too have an iPhone, an iPad and am writing this on my MacBook Air while controlling my 250 Pro and playing my music via Roon on the same piece of hardware. Apple is too busy watching what Amazon or Google are doing to care about high end audio and am not sure Tim Cook has a clue. If you wanted real software integration then the developers used by companies such as Denon, Onkyo or any other of the AV manufacturers who have to integrate all sorts of competing HiFi, audiovisual and communications standards into their offerings come to mind.

[snbeall]

And my experience is limited solely to 45 days or so with 4 Phantoms (2 Gold and 2 Elevates and a Dialogue) so perhaps I should have narrowed the discussion to that. But my experience was that, for being so damned advanced hardware-wise, they had not managed to better integrate more than what amounted to a single fancy Bluetooth speaker that would get louder and produce more bass than anyone else ‘s HomePod equivalent! It couldn’t even reliably produce stereo for me (network connectivity failures), and trying to do multichannel? Forget it! I did the same thing with two stereo setups in the 70’s. Except for having to get up and fine tune the volume knobs manually - easier to do with youthful knees and vigor - it was no different. Why in the heck have these guys not managed to produce even a rudimentary multichannel Dialogue, let alone a glitch free stereo model?? I doubt it would ever happen, because it would involve bringing Brits and Francs together, but dare I suggest some Meridian licensing or even intellectual personnel poaching? (Again sorta half baked and intended to provoke a response). Naw, they need a fresh young software company. Sonore has been mentioned. Other thoughts?

And why haven’t they introduced a matte black model at the very least? The Black Phantom cinema?

[snbeall]

And as for your sons being impressed, G? Just curious? How old? They are definitely impressive, seeing the bass modules flapping and hearing such bass come out of such a small package. I don’t know what the setup or room was, but the overall balance - even in my space which is large and trapezoidal/wedge shaped - was too bass heavy with recessed mids. Youngsters like such a shift with the bass heavy music of today. Plus, perhaps they have better mid/high hearing so it doesn’t sound as recessed? Lol But it is another software DSP complaint - no tone/tilt control whatsoever??? Not even a rudimentary way to room compensate? Again, I did better in the 70’s! It smacks of a waterproof Bose Bluetooth mono speaker.

I’ve only been a devotialet (see what I did there?) for a short time, but in all my readings, it seems that the overriding complaint is that the rudiments have been promised and the retort is that it is coming. Even here, I still hear... they will get there. They are adding people. Etc. If these basics have not been produced, they need something more than this. They need help. For cripes sake, there is a freaking car with a mannequin orbiting the sun for the next billion years. They can’t do multichannel Phantom Dialogue, or at the very least stereo with some tone control?

The problem is that the Phantom does not really fit with the rest of the company which is basically high end electronics. The Phantom is a completely separate product/division/vision, sitting orphaned and languishing. It could become Devialet’s iPhone if properly managed...

[cereal killer]

Answer to OP - NO! they'll close off all options and make nothing else compatible except itunes/apple software.
IF they did i would quickly sell my 220 pro and move to an open stage again.

[streamy]

I was going to write something very negative about Apple buying Devialet, but no need, some fine posts earlier in this thread that have said it much better than I could.

So, If we accept that Devialet are great with the hardware but need help with software, then the question might be a simple one, who is good at software for audio products?

One answer is Sonore.  Sonore's 'SonicOrbiter' software is used on their 'Rendu' range of products, and even comes with the super cheap SonicTransporter.  Variants of the same can also be found in SOtM and Antipodes kit.  Broadly speaking, SonicOrbiter can do everything that is expected of the CI board at the moment, and more.  Plus, it is pretty much 100% stable, it works.  I am quite sure that Devialet products with Sonore software would be a match made in heaven.

I do not know the numbers, but I would guess that Devialet could easily find the money to buy Sonore outright if they wanted to. (if they were for sale that is).  Plus, I am sure the cost of buying software consultancy from them would also be very achievable.

There is a problem here though, every indication is that Devialet want to develop their own software ecosystem, with Spark for the Expert coming soon I am sure.  One positive here is that Devialet do seam to realise now that they have an issue with software and they do seam to be recruiting more manpower to address this.  I am sure they will get there eventually.

Having said all that, playing with the CI board beta software recently, it is actually quite good already, certainly not the complete disaster that some were predicting.  So maybe they might be getting there faster than we think?

As early adopter I have Phantoms for almost 3 years. I received my first Silver Phantom pair and Dialog in March 2015. The Phantoms went trough a number of HW modifications. Once, after a few months the Dialog received a recall. The original Phantoms run stable without hickups. They received numerous updates, but no obvious or audible change. In autumn 2015 new models came out featuring Bluetooth. I purchased 1 Silver of this newer generation. Sonically identical to the two others. In January 2017 I purchased 2 Golds and sold a first batch Silver and the BT Silver to my brother. He used them happily without issues. My first batch Silver harmonizes well with the Golds. The Golds had an audible noise coming from the power supply, resonant ringing of an inductor coil. With a FW update Devialet could fully remove this noise, like magic. Now the ownly issue reamaining is the optical input of the Dialog that has from time to time some cracking. I assume that It is a HW issue since Devialet could not fix it. They limited the optical input to 24/96k in a FW update, without resolving the issue. So, I hope Devialet will offer at some point a better Dialog HW, hopefully with HDMI input and audio/video sync. Else all happy on the HW side.
When it comes to the networks that Phantoms build with the Dialog and the ‚home network’ that portable Devices and PC/Macs use to control and stream the music using Spark, Devialet did a fairly good job in making this stable (again through a number of FW updates) for those that do not have too much wifi/PLC pollution from neighborhood. These external factors cannot be controlled by any system from any manufacturer. As such only the user can debug this, e.g. by using low latency Ethernet (not more than 1 switch/router and sufficient bandwidth to streaming providers). So not much more can be done through SW updates. One improvement could be done: include the possibility to manually configure the Phantoms/Dialog networks. But this also would open potential support needs for non-expert users. All in all I agree the HW is well mastered by Devialet, despite the faulty optical input of the Dialog that can be circumvented by using the optical inputs of the Phantoms that accept 24/192k without hickups.
Now what are the problems on the SW side? After all the updates so far Spark is very stable, offers access to many streaming services, has UPNP (as beta) included, offers access to a huge number of internet radio station, manages direct connection of BT in its best quality format, includes Spotify connect, allows selection of any optical input, accepts Airplay, and is fully multi-room capable with without any audible desynchronization of any of the Phantoms in any of the rooms. This means a 20us sync between any Phantom, a performance neither Apple nor Sonos can provide! With apple we saw how long it took until they were able to deliver their wireless earpods due to this challenge. And the same can now be observed with the Homepod that by now only is delivered as unsynced mono speaker. Spark is also very snappy, with local streaming (non-UPNP), streaming services that are now dead stable (good and stable buffering integrated), at least with Qobuz and Spotify (I have access). In general very comparable to Roon, that is a reference in stability and performance (snappiness), not in the service offer. Here Spark is way better!
Spark: What is missing?
- A user experience like in Roon
- Missing folder management
- No DSP, equalizing, room control, no filters
- No multichannel playback, only mono and stereo
- No fast scrolling through a huge library, no alphabetic links or paging
- No multifactorial serach only one keyword
- No tags, tagging
- No infos about the played file format and quality or resolution

I guess there are many more missing features other users might wish.

So, in conclusion, in my opinion, the HW is reliable and solid, some manual/individual setup of the networking options could resolve many of the problems some users have, but require more support that e.g. this forum could easily provide. Also not much need for improvement on the FW side.
Spark is a solid application for the management of the HW and has all basic features to handle small libraries and streaming services, like access to hires quality, new albums by genres, access to a list of similar artists, playlists etc.
Spark completely lacks advanced features that specialized SW like Roon provides. So, my wish is that Spark 2.0 / FW 2.x will include The roon endpoint RAAT. Then all would be happy listening on the SW side!

[Confused]

And my experience is limited solely to 45 days or so with 4 Phantoms (2 Gold and 2 Elevates and a Dialogue) so perhaps I should have narrowed the discussion to that. But my experience was that, for being so damned advanced hardware-wise, they had not managed to better integrate more than what amounted to a single fancy Bluetooth speaker that would get louder and produce more bass than anyone else ‘s HomePod equivalent! It couldn’t even reliably produce stereo for me (network connectivity failures), and trying to do multichannel? Forget it! I did the same thing with two stereo setups in the 70’s. Except for having to get up and fine tune the volume knobs manually - easier to do with youthful knees and vigor - it was no different. Why in the heck have these guys not managed to produce even a rudimentary multichannel Dialogue, let alone a glitch free stereo model?? I doubt it would ever happen, because it would involve bringing Brits and Francs together, but dare I suggest some Meridian licensing or even intellectual personnel poaching? (Again sorta half baked and intended to provoke a response). Naw, they need a fresh young software company. Sonore has been mentioned. Other thoughts?

And why haven’t they introduced a matte black model at the very least? The Black Phantom cinema?

Hey!  The Brittish and the French work just fine together thanks!  We had the odd war in the past perhaps, but we are best of friends now.  Here are a couple of examples of Anglo-French cooperation:
(Plus, we Brits quite like drinking French wine, champagne, as well as eating French cheese, it's all good. Some of us Brits even drive French cars, or listen to French amplifiers, although personally I skip the French car bit)

   

   

Joking apart, I wonder if the fact that Devialet is a French-speaking company might hinder their ability to get the right software staff to a degree?  Other posters have suggested using expertise from AV companies and similar, but thinking about it, they don't necessarily need the companies help, they just need to poach some talented staff.  Might the French language be a barrier to this?

[cereal killer]

There's very little wrong with the software IMHO. a lot of issues i read from users seem to be network/IP/Mac address related... I bet if DHCP protocol was used throughout there'd be a lot less confusion.

I'm running Beta 12 and roon 300 ATM and can't fault it...... then again i have everything switched off barr, Ethernet, optical and SAM.

Whole network is wired through a TP-LINK VR900 router/switch, Postta Cat 7 cables, and all is DHCP bar the QNAP which I've fixed IP address within QNAPs configuration setting

[Rufus McDufus]

To be fair though setting a fixed IP address within the Devialet config should just work - this is pretty basic stuff. An alternative, if there is some sort of problem with Devialet & a configured fixed IP address, is to add an address reservation on the DHCP server.

[daibaron]

I'll make it simple...
Apple was right to buy Beat audio over any other "audiophile" brand.
IMHO, Sonos is a better choice to invest money in rather than Devialet.
It's call investing money on other companies, so they don't need to re-brand. and they are ready for mass production.

"Devialet is pleased to announce that Tesla's Mars shuttle will be equipped with our audio technology, we hope you'll have a pleasant flight"