Upgrade from 220pro CI to 250pro CI or 440pro CI

[Stino]

Not quite on-topic. but:

I have still not upgraded my 440 Pro to CI status. I have no apparent use for the new facilities.

Is there an improvement in sound quality with the CI 'upgrade'?

Fraser

Yes, even if you do not stream you benefit from an increase in sound quality. A new clock is fitted, for example.

[frejo]

When I listened to Magico A3(?) I thought the 250 was perhaps a little better than 440. But I believe that may be speaker dependent. I am really not sure where to go myself

[AnKran]

Dear guys, 

Thanks for all the helpful answers. Somehow, I feel the overall impression to me is, that 440 to 250 seems to be more or less on a level. In this case I would prefer to go for the 250 I fear I will not have opportunity to have a direct comparison. 

I will try to get a listening session, to compare the 220 pro CI to the 250 pro CI. Would be interesting what kind of improvement this give.. Any experience on that? Is it worth the doubele price (at least in Pre owned market)?

[fraserhadden]

Thanks Stino.

A case against upgrading beyond the 440CI also seems to be evolving.

Fraser

[Vivialet]

as owner of a 1000pro I would say that the 220pro has the best sound/price ratio and the 440pro is the best buy if you need more power.
I think noone really needs 1000W, the price gap is very high for maybe a small gain in SQ.
I have the 1000 as I have already started with a D-Premier which was upgraded 2 times. Today I would buy a 440pro.
Of course the 250 looks better and the remote has a much better feel, but the saved money can better be spent for speakers and cables.

[Ozzzy189]

I recently had the fortune to try some different options in my lounge.
My current set up for my listening is as signature- Expert 220 pro and totem tribe towers.
We tried expert 440 pro.... not a huge improvement. I put this down to the already fantastic performance and size of my lounge and bay at the end behind my seat and the fact that I don’t need more grunt. It was better but not a huge amount and financially nowhere near worth doing imo.
I have had a 250 pro on loan for a few weeks previously and think this was probably a more worthwhile avenue to travel down having a better source and that copper case has to be worth having for the sonic improvement along with a much nicer remote!
So now we tried kudos super twenty A speakers with the 220.
My thoughts was that they were fuller sounding but a little bit slow and not as agile as the totems. 440 passive didn’t really improve things greatly.
So we tried them active in 440 configuration.
This was better and I could certainly live with them but the cost vs performance was not worth it compared to what I run. IMO anyway.
I did like the sound but I was expecting to get blown away by the sound and I wasn’t.
I put it down to not really needing more power and having a relatively narrow lounge that can’t really accommodate big floorstanding speakers. In a big room I think that this configuration could be really special as the bass was clean, tight and powerful especially.
So although we tried all that, we didn’t have a whole lot of time but it did make me realise how good my simple system currently is.
I have borrowed an audioquest Y powercord and this is a worthwhile improvement too. Am i right in thinking this is the best audioquest budget cord?
Any good audioquest speaker cable recommendations?
A huge thanks to Chris Fuller from HiddenSystems in Windsor for popping over to set all this up.
I can highly recommended him for any Devialet and hifi related advice and purchases.

[sfdude]

I know this is an older thread. FWIW, I just auditioned the 440 Pro CI and the 250 Pro CI on B&W 802D3s. It was an easy swap and we primarily were streaming via Roon Nucleus+ to have a direct comparison. Both units were powered on around the same time and warmed up accordingly, only swapping speaker cables (Nordost Freys) between the units.

The 440 Pro CI definitely had the edge in terms of better control on the bottom ends and a little more fluidity and coherence on the upper end. The midranges were about equal on both Devs. I also think the 802s benefited from being driven from the monoblocks vs the single 250.

So it will depend on your overall system what you're trying to achieve, how much power your speakers will require to get the best out of them. I could still live happily with either but knowing the 440 is a great value compared to the equivalently priced 250, I'd choose that and not worry about needing anything beyond 440W/Ch.

[RvdH]

I went from 120 -> 220 -> 440.
The jump from 120 to 220 was significant from a sound quality perspective but the 220 to 440 jump brought me the most pleasure. It added an effortlessness to the sound and certainly solidified the bass and widened the soundstage.
I've never heard a 250PRO, just the original d-premier on a few occasions both as a single unit and dual mono config.

Funny, the jump from 220 to 440 on my Martin Logan Summits was less significant than a speaker cable upgrade costing half the amount. The joy an upgrade from 220 to 440 gives seems to be highly speaker dependent.

[Drifter]

I went from 120 -> 220 -> 440.
The jump from 120 to 220 was significant from a sound quality perspective but the 220 to 440 jump brought me the most pleasure. It added an effortlessness to the sound and certainly solidified the bass and widened the soundstage.
I've never heard a 250PRO, just the original d-premier on a few occasions both as a single unit and dual mono config.

Funny, the jump from 220 to 440 on my Martin Logan Summits was less significant than a speaker cable upgrade costing half the amount. The joy an upgrade from 220 to 440 gives seems to be highly speaker dependent.

It might very well be highly speaker dependent.
I've listened to a few Martin Logans. Since the bass drivers are internally powered the extra power from the Devialet mono config won't affect bass performance. I'm also not sure how the high/mid electrostatic panels reacts to more power.

[Jean-Marie]

I went from 120 -> 220 -> 440.
The jump from 120 to 220 was significant from a sound quality perspective but the 220 to 440 jump brought me the most pleasure. It added an effortlessness to the sound and certainly solidified the bass and widened the soundstage.
I've never heard a 250PRO, just the original d-premier on a few occasions both as a single unit and dual mono config.

Funny, the jump from 220 to 440 on my Martin Logan Summits was less significant than a speaker cable upgrade costing half the amount. The joy an upgrade from 220 to 440 gives seems to be highly speaker dependent.

It might very well be highly speaker dependent.
I've listened to a few Martin Logans. Since the bass drivers are internally powered the extra power from the Devialet mono config won't affect bass performance. I'm also not sure how the high/mid electrostatic panels reacts to more power.

I am not surprised that electrostatic panels do not exhibit much improvement going from a single model to a dual model, because they are usually characterized by a very low deep (usually between 1 or 2 ohms) at certain frequencies, which means that they are mostly current limited, not voltage limited.

A dual model (by bridging) is doubling the voltage, but the current capability remains the same. So that will be very audible on speakers with a high impedance (those are voltage limited) and much less on speakers with a low impedance (those are current limited).

My two cents,
Jean-Marie