@guillaume: really disappointing and misleading thoughts from your side:
Out of my experience, I trust that they did extensive market research for the 1000 pro utilizing their expirienced marketing department and by actively contributing to the existing forums.
Outcome: yeah wee need a box full of marketing hoax and we are sure to find enough people to spend 30k on this.
But for the time being they are getting prepared for loosing the game on Thursday which immidietly will lead to a premature August Holliday period.
They recently bought (as ebooks)
_ how to ruin my brand in three easy steps
_ ignoring social media made it easy
_ DLNA for dummies (2002 edition)
(05-Jul-2016, 08:03)Mka Wrote: [ -> ]@guillaume: really disappointing and misleading thoughts from your side:
Out of my experience, I trust that they did extensive market research for the 1000 pro utilizing their expirienced marketing department and by actively contributing to the existing forums.
Outcome: yeah wee need a box full of marketing hoax and we are sure to find enough people to spend 30k on this.
But for the time being they are getting prepared for loosing the game on Thursday which immidietly will lead to a premature August Holliday period.
They recently bought (as ebooks)
_ how to ruin my brand in three easy steps
_ ignoring social media made it easy
_ DLNA for dummies (2002 edition)
LOL
Picking up on Guillaume's thought for the day, I was wondering how many current D800's started life as a D240/250, and were then later upgraded to a D800 with the purchase of a companion. The point being that when the D400 appeared in 2014, the 250 more or less disappeared from Devialet's website, and although you could still buy a D250, conventional wisdom was that the D400 was a better buy. So how many people bought a 'straight' D500 or D800, rather than going D250, companion later? I have no idea, but I would say that it is clear that the D400 must have stalled D250 sales, and thus stopping people going for the more financially gradual route of D250, then D800. Take myself as an example, I bought a D240 in 2013, I did audition the D500 but at the time could not justify the extra cost, but then in 2014 I bought a companion to make a D800. I recon that if the D400 was available in 2013, I would have bought that, and I would have a D400 now.
So this begs the question of what will the final model range be? Will there be a replacement for the D250 pushed as the ultimate one box solution? The D350 Pro Plus or something? Thinking though the effect the arrival of the D400 would have made on 250 sales, and thus upgrades to D800's, I'm wondering if the D1000's market could indeed be a little saturated. Does this matter? Maybe not, perhaps enough lovely profit will be made upgrading existing D800's and D-Premiers.
As for the new DAC..... OK, I have no idea what the new DAC specification is, I have simply read the same marketing nonsense as everyone else. However, there have been a few posts re support for DSD, DXD and so on. OK, I get this, but one point to keep in mind is that the ADH core, the very essence of a Devialet, is native PCM. So any DSD support will be via conversion prior to feeding the ADH core. Unless I'm very wrong here, true native DSD with a Devialet would be impossible. One point to note though, having heard the staggeringly good performance of a D800 being fed DSD via a dCS front end, I'm not sure if this matters too much in the real world. I'd take real world performance over paper specs every time.
Well, to be a little bit more realistic than my previous post, they are probably facing an interesting conundrum.
Luxury markets for high-end hifi equipment are located in Asia and the US. I do not know how they have been doing there, but judging by the standard of quality they are offering in terms of service, they must have a hard time selling ; and looking at the exports of luxury watches to Asia, I can guess that the economic situation is not really favorable in this respect as well.
In Switzerland, when you talk to people with serious knowledge of the high-end market, they will disqualify Devialet as a life-style equipment, not a hifi product. So people who sell it aggressively are lower-end retailers, with little expertise in high-end, which does not help raising the brand image. Having bought a D900 makes me look like an original individual to say the least. In six months, they still have not sold the second D900 (049/100)... Anyone interested ?
This does not make it a very favorable conjuncture for selling high-end products and Guillaume's point about D1000 might prove right.
But another way to look at this is to raise the question of their genuine interest in the HiFi market. Devialet is a technology company, not a high-end HiFi company. So Expert range is probably a technological window for their know-how and the D1000 probably is the high-end of this technological window. Whether it sells or not might not be the point... And the D1000 costs approximately the same to build as 2 x D120. Not such a big deal hu ?
I didn't think there would be takers for the OdA, and OK they didn't all sell and some are owned by dealers, but it seems enough people could justify the 25 grand or whatever. So maybe the 1000 will sell - some people just have to have the top of the line model whatever it is, so I guess Devialet are counting on them. And Devialet has a surprisingly loyal fan base - I'm sure other brands scratch their heads in bewilderment at how Devialet manage to do so much wrong in terms of embracing their customers, yet maintain such extreme loyalty.
Did the OdA ever make it onto the website btw? It's kind of like it never existed... More exclusive maybe?
(05-Jul-2016, 08:56)SwissBear Wrote: [ -> ] (05-Jul-2016, 08:03)Mka Wrote: [ -> ]@guillaume: really disappointing and misleading thoughts from your side:
Out of my experience, I trust that they did extensive market research for the 1000 pro utilizing their expirienced marketing department and by actively contributing to the existing forums.
Outcome: yeah wee need a box full of marketing hoax and we are sure to find enough people to spend 30k on this.
But for the time being they are getting prepared for loosing the game on Thursday which immidietly will lead to a premature August Holliday period.
They recently bought (as ebooks)
_ how to ruin my brand in three easy steps
_ ignoring social media made it easy
_ DLNA for dummies (2002 edition)
LOL
Funny!
Additional suggestions for their reading list:
-"How to turn DLNA and UPNP into three letter acronyms".
-"Launching products with all the components ready and working - how do people do it?"
(05-Jul-2016, 09:51)Hifi_swlon Wrote: [ -> ]And Devialet has a surprisingly loyal fan base - I'm sure other brands scratch their heads in bewilderment at how Devialet manage to do so much wrong in terms of embracing their customers, yet maintain such extreme loyalty.
I think the answer to this one is simple. Back in 2013 I really did not want to buy a Devialet, there were a few reasons that it did not appeal to me. However, after auditioning a whole range of rival products as a choice to power my chosen speakers, I came to the conclusion that the Devialet was easily the best for the money. It's that simple at the end of the day. If a rival manufacturer comes along and offers something better, I'd jump ship. It not a case of brand loyalty.
(05-Jul-2016, 09:51)Hifi_swlon Wrote: [ -> ]I didn't think there would be takers for the OdA, and OK they didn't all sell and some are owned by dealers, but it seems enough people could justify the 25 grand or whatever. So maybe the 1000 will sell - some people just have to have the top of the line model whatever it is, so I guess Devialet are counting on them. And Devialet has a surprisingly loyal fan base - I'm sure other brands scratch their heads in bewilderment at how Devialet manage to do so much wrong in terms of embracing their customers, yet maintain such extreme loyalty.
Did the OdA ever make it onto the website btw? It's kind of like it never existed... More exclusive maybe?
Good point re the O d'A never making it on the Devialet website. In fact the O d'A marketing effort was pretty low-key and restrained, something I didn't really understand given that this was an anniversary product.
On your other point I think you're being a little harsh but I'll leave it there as I don't want a confrontation. You're entitled to your views after all.
Guillaume
(05-Jul-2016, 09:02)Confused Wrote: [ -> ]As for the new DAC..... OK, I have no idea what the new DAC specification is, I have simply read the same marketing nonsense as everyone else. However, there have been a few posts re support for DSD, DXD and so on. OK, I get this, but one point to keep in mind is that the ADH core, the very essence of a Devialet, is native PCM. So any DSD support will be via conversion prior to feeding the ADH core. Unless I'm very wrong here, true native DSD with a Devialet would be impossible. One point to note though, having heard the staggeringly good performance of a D800 being fed DSD via a dCS front end, I'm not sure if this matters too much in the real world. I'd take real world performance over paper specs every time.
I don't think there is necessarily a problem with converting DSD to PCM inside the Devialet. Whilst we are seeing more and more native DSD DACs on the market highly esteemed DACs such as the Soulution 560 convert DSD to PCM. As you say real world performance is more important than specs here.
It shouldn't be such a big issue for the Devialets to process DXD which is PCM after all.
And whilst we are at it would be nice to see a selection of digital filters, à la dCS. Even the T+A DAC 8 DSD has different filter types (FIR 1 & 2, Bez 1 & 2).
Guillaume
I might be totally wrong (I often am), but it feels like Devialet is slightly confused in terms of what they are trying to do. On one side they are trying to address the "high end lifestyle" market with Phantom and on the other side they are trying to address the 3% early adopters of high end hifi that wants to push the boundaries of amplifier/ DAC solutions. I do not see how the positioning of the new offering aligns with phantom, it is as if the arms and the legs of Devialet moves in differnet directions.
If they had managed to push streaming and software solutions as drivers of the new expert offering then that would have made sense to me. Then I would see this as a broadening of the existing market, making their existing product target new customers. The way they are doing it now, I believe they are milking the existing customer base and losing some percentage of customers on each iteration.
But then, what do I know....