UK event with Mathieu Pernot - 17 July

[petrik]

Wow this is unfortunately really disappointing to see Devialet go on like this. They have so much budget and still don‘t care about the bug fixing, community conversation nor provide features long time ago made promises. 
This is a shame for the company - at least Mathieu now tells it the way it is without faking it.

I wasn't exactly sworn to secrecy but I had already heard as such from a dealer. He got it from the tech that did the CI installs so it's more than a year old information. So the Expert's development is on the back burner.

It's one thing to look at this from our point of view but for Devialet, if they can only find x amount of capable engineers, commercial survival forces them to work on new products. The Expert as is though, can't be sold as a new product because half of the stuff it's meant to do doesn't work as promised. I've had mine since before the extra power, SAM, Roon and the CI board so for me it's all a bonus, whether it works or not. If I were to buy one now and things just didn't work as they should, I would probably take it back to the dealer.

All this makes me wonder; If Devialet aren't going to develop on with the Expert range, is there a plan for a new series? That would be weird because the CI board still has so much to offer. I can only see one way forward with the Expert and that is develop it to its limits; Proper Roon integration, Tidal, Qobuz, room correction, new app with all the bells and whistles. That way, if someone was looking for a super integrated, it would be a very tempting amp. Like it used to be, in the good old days.

Tidal and Qobuz integration won't happen as it takes ~2 years of development effort (each). By contrast, Spotify Connect took only 12 days to implement by Devialet

I still have a marketing email from Devialet (Jul 13, 2017) regarding upcoming features on the Core Infinity board:



This was said in 2017. How many of these numerous capabilities do we have today in 2019?

[K4680]

Such statements on the date I expected, not more and not less !! Actually nothing!

[GuillaumeB]

I wasn't exactly sworn to secrecy but I had already heard as such from a dealer. He got it from the tech that did the CI installs so it's more than a year old information. So the Expert's development is on the back burner.

It's one thing to look at this from our point of view but for Devialet, if they can only find x amount of capable engineers, commercial survival forces them to work on new products. The Expert as is though, can't be sold as a new product because half of the stuff it's meant to do doesn't work as promised. I've had mine since before the extra power, SAM, Roon and the CI board so for me it's all a bonus, whether it works or not. If I were to buy one now and things just didn't work as they should, I would probably take it back to the dealer.

All this makes me wonder; If Devialet aren't going to develop on with the Expert range, is there a plan for a new series? That would be weird because the CI board still has so much to offer. I can only see one way forward with the Expert and that is develop it to its limits; Proper Roon integration, Tidal, Qobuz, room correction, new app with all the bells and whistles. That way, if someone was looking for a super integrated, it would be a very tempting amp. Like it used to be, in the good old days.

Tidal and Qobuz integration won't happen as it takes ~2 years of development effort (each). By contrast, Spotify Connect took only 12 days to implement by Devialet

I still have a marketing email from Devialet (Jul 13, 2017) regarding upcoming features on the Core Infinity board:



This was said in 2017. How many of these numerous capabilities do we have today in 2019?

To be fair Roon RAAT integration wasn't in that CI email. Given their "limited" resources it made a lot of sense for them to focus on Roon and effectively outsource the control point side of things.

I do appreciate however that many will be disappointed by the lack of native support for Qobuz and other services, especially if these were promised.

Guillaume

[petrik]

Tidal and Qobuz integration won't happen as it takes ~2 years of development effort (each). By contrast, Spotify Connect took only 12 days to implement by Devialet

I still have a marketing email from Devialet (Jul 13, 2017) regarding upcoming features on the Core Infinity board:



This was said in 2017. How many of these numerous capabilities do we have today in 2019?

To be fair Roon RAAT integration wasn't in that CI email. Given their "limited" resources it made a lot of sense for them to focus on Roon and effectively outsource the control point side of things.

I do appreciate however that many will be disappointed by the lack of native support for Qobuz and other services, especially if these were promised.

Guillaume

Fair points Guillaume. I agree that the Roon decision was a really good one. Hopefully they will get the gigabit network issue fixed in 2019.

Resourcing is much about prioritization and to me it sounds like that Devialet prioritizes the Phantom as the number 1 now. And yes, it's certainly a good thing that Phantom product line is going to get something nice. I'm just wishing that Devialet would fulfil the promises that they had given. It's just not right to "sell" Core Infinity upgrades based on features that they are not going to do.

I'll continue enjoying the Devialet Expert Pro sound quality and I'm eagerly waiting for to try running HAF filters inside my Devialet!

[ogs]

 eagerly waiting for to try running HAF filters inside my Devialet!

Running HAF filters on a Expert is actually convolution I think. Then it should be possible to use filters from Audiolense and Acourate too, unless Thierry makes a special version of his filters for the Devialet. Very interesting non the less.

I really hope Devialet (Mathieu?) improves the RAAT code to at least sound as good as (Roon)AIR. I know many say that RAAT is better than AIR, but I hear the opposite in my setup

[Confused]

I attended the OAC event.  First I have to say that @thumb5 produced an excellent and accurate summary of the Q&A with Mathieu Pernot, post #78.  I sat through the Q&A, and chipped in here and there, but full credit to Ian, he worked hard getting the answers for a sometimes reluctant to say too much Mathieu, a good job done.

As for the mood of the event, @brit pretty much sums up my feelings in post #79. 

I have a little to add.  For me, Mathieu seamed very downbeat, maybe a little dejected by things. That said, I came away with the distinct impression that Mathieu cares deeply about the Expert range, and wants Devialet Expert owners to continue to be happy.  However, it seams to me that the focus within Devialet in now firmly aimed at the mass market products, and this is where the available recourses will be concentrated.  I suspect that in the future any new features or improvements to the Expert software / CI Board will arrive as a "trickle down" form Reactor / Phantom development.  (which was also the case with SAM, as it happens)  Note the comments in #78 about the unified remote control app being released for Phantom and Reactor before the Expert series.  This is the future I think, new goodies, streaming service compatibility and similar will be developed only for the more mass market kit, and then ported to the Expert later.  One interesting statistic came up in conversation, apparently there are about 7000 Expert amps sold, the Phantom & Reactor range is now heading over 100,000 units and counting.  Also consider that the Expert is the older product and hence has been available longer. 

A related factor to this is availability of resources.  Apparently Devialet have staff on the software side of things that end up being offered deals in the USA for three time the salary, this is clearly making staff retention an issue.  OK, you could argue that Devialet should spend the money to get the staff they need, but if demand exceeds supply then this gets very expensive, and ultimately it is the customers that pay for this.  It is what it is I think.

The discussion about the phono stage hiss was interesting.  Mathieu was taking this issue very seriously, almost personally, and he did state that if anyone has a noisy phono stage the reasons for this should be established and the issue fixed.  But he is a man who likes data, it is all very well one guy saying the hiss is excessive and another saying it is OK, what Mathieu likes is data.  A others have mentioned, Mathieu's suggestion is that anyone who has the phono hiss should make a digital recording of the hiss and send to him.  This is a great idea I think.  If enough people can do this that it would help establish if this is a general issue, or if there are significant variations between the phono stages.  Data is good.  (perhaps something for another thread)

Now for a bit of trivia.  Mathieu and OAC's Jon were having a chat, and the topic of 1000 Pro's came up, apparently there is a "cluster" of 1000 Pro owners in the broad area around Oxford, more than anywhere else in the world.  What this might tell us about middle Englanders or the deals at OAC I really could not say.

In terms of the rest of the event, I listened to the second session run through from 140 Pro to 1000 Pro.  This time everything was pretty slick.  It is not possible to make any definitive statements based on a very rapid run through four amplifiers, with unfamiliar speakers & music.  The speakers were Wilson Sabina's and the 140 Pro appeared to do a perfectly good job driving them.  Oddly enough, for me the biggest delta in sound quality between the models was between the 440 Pro and 1000 Pro, but it was a super quick listen between four models with unfamiliar speakers, so I could be kidding myself here.  What I find is that irrespective of the amplification, I start to build judgments on the speakers, which distracts for the amplifier comparison.  As a final bit of trivia, it was nice to see that the participants in session 2 were not all male, yes, ladies present.  To be clear, I am not talking about wives / girlfriends / partners who were dutifully sitting next to their male audiophile better halves pretending to take an interest.  Indeed, in this case we had one young lady who was talking knowledgably about the Devialet range and her KEF Ref 5's.  I might be wrong, but I suspect that this was our forum's Laura.  Great to see I have to say.

EDIT:  How rude of me!  I forgot to thanks to Jon and the guys at OAC.  A very well organised event, great hospitality and good fun all 'round.  Top class!

[K4680]

Hello, the statement of Mathieu Pernot that is due to the behaving 100MB / 1GB on the router I do not think so, rather believe in the home network!

Roon / Devialet runs without problems with the following hardware.

Router:
AVM FritzBox 7490 (DSL)
                         7560 (DSL)
                         7590 (DSL)
                         6490 (Cable)
                         6591 (Cable)
Speedport W925V (DSL)

Switch:
AQVOX V1
AQVOX SE
Linksys SE2800
Linksys SE2500
Linksys LGS108
Linksys LGS124
Linksys Business LGS318P
Zyxel GS-108B v3
Zyxel GS1200-8HP

Switch with problems:
Netgear S8000 (managed)
Slow loading, skip ....

Cabling All CAT7 Supra Cable

Provider Vodafone / Telekom

There are probably many other combinations that work.
The routers and switches listed above all work without any problem except for the Netgear!

As far as my tests, and experiences!

[Manfred]

Hello, the statement of Mathieu Pernot that is due to the behaving 100MB / 1GB on the router I do not think so, rather believe in the home network!

Roon / Devialet runs without problems with the following hardware.

Router:
AVM FritzBox    7490 (DSL)
                         7560 (DSL)
                         7590 (DSL)
                         6490 (Cable)
                         6591 (Cable)
Speedport        W925V (DSL)

Switch:
AQVOX V1
AQVOX SE
Linksys SE2800
Linksys SE2500
Linksys LGS108
Linksys LGS124
Linksys Business LGS318P
Zyxel GS-108B v3
Zyxel GS1200-8HP

Switch with problems:
Netgear S8000 (managed)
Slow loading, skip ....

Cabling All CAT7 Supra Cable

Provider Vodafone / Telekom

There are probably many other combinations that work.
The routers and switches listed above all work without any problem except for the Netgear!

As far as my tests, and experiences!

I have a Linksys 108 switch, Fritzbox 6490 Cable and I had to configure the port to the D220 Pro to 100 Mbit and AIR crashes often when I play a video through JRiver Video Renderer connected to the server and I hit stop. I have to re-plug my D220 Pro to get it working again. Audio only works from my server to D220 Pro. (no video renderer in the audio path.)

[mdconnelly]

A big thank you to those that spent the time attending the event, conveying the questions and documenting Mr. Pernot's responses.

With that said, I find this disheartening and makes little sense given all the effort that went into creating the Expert Pro and the CI integration.

With respect to his comments on the Roon RAAT issue.... IMHO, that is a lame response that conveys that they simply are not willing to invest the resources to investigate the underlying issue. Perhaps it is somehow related to router or network configuration, but surely there are more than enough people experiencing the problem that Devialet could reach out and broaden it's investigation to reproduce the problem, investigate the cause, and provide insight and hopefully a recommendation (if not a fix) to those of us experiencing it.

His response that Roon has provided no assistance, while possible, is highly suspect.

[NickB]

A big thank you to those that spent the time attending the event, conveying the questions and documenting Mr. Pernot's responses.

With that said, I find this disheartening and makes little sense given all the effort that went into creating the Expert Pro and the CI integration.

With respect to his comments on the Roon RAAT issue.... IMHO, that is a lame response that conveys that they simply are not willing to invest the resources to investigate the underlying issue. Perhaps it is somehow related to router or network configuration, but surely there are more than enough people experiencing the problem that Devialet could reach out and broaden it's investigation to reproduce the problem, investigate the cause, and provide insight and hopefully a recommendation (if not a fix) to those of us experiencing it.

His response that Roon has provided no assistance, while possible, is highly suspect.

So are you calling Mr Pernot a liar?