Was the D-Premier upgrade a waste of money?

[Music or sound]

I got one of the early D-Premiers and was quite content with it (also power wise). The only problem I had was that the optical input was only working up to 176kHz but not at 192kHz with my AK120 as a source but otherwise the sound quality was excellent. Then there was the upgrade offer expiring last summer. I tried to get input of various persons to see whether that upgrade has any advantages especially as it was costing almost as much as a D-110. I also spoke with Devialet's Quentin Bernard and he told me that in order to use future configuration upgrades an upgraded processor would be necessary. That was somewhat interesting to me as I use Devialet's crossover function and a time/phase adjustment function would be very useful for fine-tuning a crossover. That time adjustment is part of SAM (which I can never use with my speakers) but now I expect that there will be no support from Devialet to implement that in the configurator.

When I committed to the upgrade via Audioplus I requested that they made sure of the functionality of the optical in at 192/24. When I got the unit back as a D250 it sounded excellent but so did it before (only a slight different sonic signature). But the optical input now worked only up to 96/24 and it sound significantly less good (thin and brighter).
I contacted Audioplus and Devialet. They told me that it would be possible to replace that optical input receiver (why not the right one during upgrade as requested) but that story constantly changed and now after 7 month of complaining no solution in sight!

Early on I was o.K. with AIR and WiFi and it worked even without router in adhoc mode (limited to 96/24). Now AIR is not working for me (+/- router) and finally also had too many problems with ethernet direct that I completely gave up on AIR. I am using now Audirvana Plus and USB for computer audio. But a good USB-SDIF/AES converted like Audiobyte  etc. would be less than 1/4 of the cost of the upgrade!


I would like to hear from other forum members who did that upgrade about their long term opinion.

[f1eng]

I had my 2 D Premiers updated, one at a time. My speakers will never be SAMmed and I feel the update was not worth the money for me, though the warranty extension is welcome.
Luckily I noticed after the first one was updated that the optical input receiver had been downgraded, and the second was kindly sorted by Devialet.
I miss the HDMI input, I have never used the USB but I have suddenly lost enough signal on my wifi for AIR wireless to stop working, so I am using Ethernet until I find why. On the D-Premiers, before AIR I used my Metric halo recorder as a firewire to AES/EBU converter for computer streaming (using Amarra) this was fine.
Maybe one day there will be something in firmware which I will welcome which I couldn't do with a D-Premier.
The 800 is fantastic and sounds fabulous, but so were my D-Premiers. the 3dB of extra power is hardly necessary with 109dB/watt speakers...

[flohmann]

I found that my d-Premier sounded significantly better after the upgrade, even before SAM arrived. Smoother, less fatiguing. But, of course, I didn't have a d-Premier on hand for direct side-by-side comparisons. After SAM arrived, the improvement was quite obvious (and this even though I dialed it back to only 10% on my speakers).

[Borgen]

I feel that Devialet has yet to deliver on the promise that made me do the upgrade. The message was that I needed to do the upgrade to get the DSP to be able to use the coming upgrades. I am still waiting for those upgrades to prove it was worth the upgrade.

As for sound I was quite happy with the old D-Premier, I feel there was a slight improvement, but not anywhere near defending the cost of the upgrade. As for connectors, I've used the USB and Ethernet and I am happy with that upgrade, but I didn't need that as I had a very stable AIR and good USB/spdif connector.

[Confused]

Didn't the upgrade include some improvements (or replacement?) of the power supply? I do not know the exact details of this change, but I do know there are differences in the power supply. Maybe this explains part of the improvement in sound quality that some report? Although with power supply modifications, how apparent the improvement will be could be very speaker dependant. As for any lovely DSP related upgrades coming soon, I would imagine the main focus at Devialet currently must be sorting out Spark and DIALOG. This has to be a severe embarrassment for them at the moment. Maybe they have different teams working on the Phantom & "Expert" ranges? Does anyone know?

[f1eng]

I feel that Devialet has yet to deliver on the promise that made me do the upgrade. The message was that I needed to do the upgrade to get the DSP to be able to use the coming upgrades. I am still waiting for those upgrades to prove it was worth the upgrade.

As for sound I was quite happy with the old D-Premier, I feel there was a slight improvement, but not anywhere near defending the cost of the upgrade. As for connectors, I've used the USB and Ethernet and I am happy with that upgrade, but I didn't need that as I had a very stable AIR and good USB/spdif connector.

The principle reason for the extra DSP was SAM. If you don't need SAM the DSP update will probably never be necessary unless a room correction algorithm is added some day, and you want to use it.
My D-Premiers were updated one at a time, so I was able to compare the newly updated 240, as I think it was then, with the remaining D-Premier before I sent it for update. If there was any sound quality difference at all it was negligible into my speakers. Maybe harder to drive speakers would have benefited from the higher capacity power supply.
I still think of it as an update not an upgrade

[Music or sound]

It was explained to me that the "upgraded" shark chip allows more extensive DSP functions. If one can not use SAM there is no new functionality available through the configurator that was not possible for the D-Premier. I was and am interested in the promised time phase adjustments (available for Totaldac, Holms etc.) and may be some intelligent version of room correction but presently I see no indication that Devialet is working on any of these improvements.

[ogs]

It was explained to me that the "upgraded" shark chip allows more extensive DSP functions. If one can not use SAM there is no new functionality available through the configurator  that was not possible for the D-Premier. I was and am interested in the promised time phase adjustments (available for Totaldac, Holms etc.) and may be some intelligent version of room correction but presently I see no indication that Devialet is working on any of these improvements.

I updated my D-Premier because I wanted Ethernet and USB. I also wanted to keep my amp upgradable and as Devialet said the 'old' platform would be left behind regarding firmware upgrades, I felt I had no choice. The more powerful DSP was also important. I've used the USB input a lot. The ethernet port is only used for connecting the amp to my network for remote control. WiFi is disabled. Devialet never fixed AIR so I've not been able to stream directly to the AMP. Devialet should have released the the specification  for AIR so people in the Linux community could make a driver (or they should have made a Linux version of AIR themselves). As the new Dialog is probably Linux based, Devialet would have benefited big time if there already existed a Linux version of AIR. Imagine the new Dialog working directly with the 'Expert' line via AIR...
And I still hope Devialet will keep their promise on a convolution function in the DSP of the amp. This is the right place for room correction processing.

@Music or sound: your comment re.: ...time phase adjustments (available for Totaldac, Holms etc.) is interesting, but as far as I know Totaldac has no correction capability built in, apart for the bass eq option which I believe is amplitude only. Have you got more info on this?

[ozthepoz]

I upgraded my D Prem because I didn't want to get left behind, technology wise.

I'm not convinced the SQ has improved dramatically, though I do prefer the sound of the upgraded model.

My speakers aren't (and won't be) sammed, so that's not really of any benefit; Still, with future upgrades to come, I'm pleased that I upgraded. Slightly annoyed the the software update I expected around Xmas was lost in the Phantom nonsense, but I believe there is a new version coming in May.

I intend to have this device for a long time, so for me it made sense to ensure I had the newer platform.

[Borgen]

I feel that Devialet has yet to deliver on the promise that made me do the upgrade. The message was that I needed to do the upgrade to get the DSP to be able to use the coming upgrades. I am still waiting for those upgrades to prove it was worth the upgrade.

As for sound I was quite happy with the old D-Premier, I feel there was a slight improvement, but not anywhere near defending the cost of the upgrade. As for connectors, I've used the USB and Ethernet and I am happy with that upgrade, but I didn't need that as I had a very stable AIR and good USB/spdif connector.

The principle reason for the extra DSP was SAM. If you don't need SAM the DSP update will probably never be necessary unless a room correction algorithm is added some day, and you want to use it.
My D-Premiers were updated one at a time, so I was able to compare the newly updated 240, as I think it was then, with the remaining D-Premier before I sent it for update. If there was any sound quality difference at all it was negligible into my speakers. Maybe harder to drive speakers would have benefited from the higher capacity power supply.
I still think of it as an update not an upgrade

Maybe it was me wanting to believe, but I was led to believe that there would be more to come than just SAM. I understand that they have other things to prioritize from a business perspective (new line of products). As for me, I am still waiting for more from the expert line...