To DPM or not? That is the question.

[Dr Tone]

I have to believe DPM might be a bad thing for certain speakers, especially if they have some serious impedance dips at certain frequencies and the Devialet it cutting back for any reason.

Obviously in the configurator DPM is unrelated to SAM so I have to believe the Devialet isn't taking each speaker into account when playing with the output power.

[Pogie]

Why does DPM reset to ON every time I turn the Devialet off? My setting of 100% for SAM does not

[ogs]

That is because you have DPM enabled in the config file, same as SAM. SAM % however, is stored and remembered in the amp across reboots (as is bass and treble boost/cut + balance).

[helloworld1978]

I have the ELAC BS314 speakers currently running with my D400 and if I don't turn off the DPM I sometimes get distortion through the AMT tweeters. And in my setup turning the DPM off certainly improved the sound. Although the temperature does tend to get up to 50c. But I have noticed that as the temperature gets to that range the amplifiers sound stabilises and becomes much more detailed without any hint of harshness. I have just had the D400 for about 2 weeks so I think it might be going through the break-in process. On my other setup I have a single D200 running Sonus Faber Olympica 1 and that always has the DPM on as it has a regular silk dome tweeter.

[Dan]

I recently updated to firmware 10.1 and turned off the Dynamic Power Management in the configurator. I thought it sounded better, but as I turned up the volume the sound started to cut out of the speakers and the red lights started flashing on the 1000. The temperatures started climbing dramatically - the A Amp hit 80c.

I went back to the configurator and turned the DPM back on and so far the temps have been normal(40c+-). I have asked support about this, but was curious if anyone has been still turning the DPM off for better sound quality?

Obviously things could change with the upcoming new Core Board and Firmware.

[Confused]

I recently updated to firmware 10.1 and turned off the Dynamic Power Management in the configurator. I thought it sounded better, but as I turned up the volume the sound started to cut out of the speakers and the red lights started flashing on the 1000. The temperatures started climbing dramatically - the A Amp hit 80c.

I went back to the configurator and turned the DPM back on and so far the temps have been normal(40c+-). I have asked support about this, but was curious if anyone has been still turning the DPM off for better sound quality?

Obviously things could change with the upcoming new Core Board and Firmware.

80c?  Wow.  A forum record I think.

That looks way too high, DPM or not.  I have tried DPM off on my 1000Pro, and did not get anywhere near those temperatures.

This does beg some questions:

How loud are you playing exactly?

Are you using anything like room correction or DSD upsampling, so in other words running anything that requires software 'headroom' allowance / correction.  It could be that you have allowed too much headroom correction, so your amp is effectively working much harder than it should versus the actual volume level.  So for normal listening levels, what -dB setting is the Devialet's volume typically set at?

Are your speakers particularly demanding?  Low efficiency, big dips somewhere in the impedance curve?

[Dan]

@Confused - depending on the album, my sweet spot is -22. I am currently using ROON/AIR and am upsampling and have convolution filters (Thierry’s) enabled. This is demanding so I have ROON headroom set at 10.

I turned the DPM back on and temps are back around 40. I may tomorrow go back and turn the DPM off just to verify that is the issue - but not letting the temps get too high before abandoning ship. I guess I could also try lowering the headroom in ROON.

I’ve got a 1000 pro feeding Magico S3. 

Devialet support has gotten back and suggested DPM has nothing to do with SQ and should be left on. In my brief listen I thought it sounded better but could have been in my head (not ears...)

[no32]

In my system
DPM doesn’t sound as good as, it’s actually sound pretty bad

[ogs]

I also prefer to keep DPM off. The difference is small though. Do you see high temperatures on both units? Could be that heat transfer is not good enough between the amp board and copper bottom plate. There is a heat transfer pad covering the whole amp board. You'll see four screws in the middle of the bottom cover. Try tightening these a little (maybe one turn) and observe if temperature falls. I believe my 250 has around 50c with DPM off. (I'm at work now so can't give exact numbers)

[Soniclife]

@Confused - depending on the album, my sweet spot is -22. I am currently using ROON/AIR and am upsampling and have convolution filters (Thierry’s) enabled. This is demanding so I have ROON headroom set at 10.

I turned the DPM back on and temps are back around 40. I may tomorrow go back and turn the DPM off just to verify that is the issue - but not letting the temps get too high before abandoning ship. I guess I could also try lowering the headroom in ROON.

I’ve got a 1000 pro feeding Magico S3. 

Devialet support has gotten back and suggested DPM has nothing to do with SQ and should be left on. In my brief listen I thought it sounded better but could have been in my head (not ears...)

I always have DPM off, on the 400 it sounded better to me at the top end, I've not properly compared it on the 440.
I just played my system for 5 mins at -19, should be the same output as yours at -22, SAM was 50%, I was playing bass heavy music (warp label remixes), max temp was 42 across all 6 temps.

Are your amps in a cupboard or open to the air?