Hello All,
Was talking to a local stereo dealer (he was a Devialet dealer in the past) about the 200 and he expressed concern about the excessive heat the units can generate and had concerns as to the long term performance of the unit.
Would anyone can to comment or share their perspective. Am getting closer to purchasing a 200 which would replace my Berkeley Alpha Generation 1 / Levinson amplifier, etc..
Thanks,
Warren
(12-Nov-2014, 21:27)Wdw Wrote: [ -> ]Hello All,
Was talking to a local stereo dealer (he was a Devialet dealer in the past) about the 200 and he expressed concern about the excessive heat the units can generate and had concerns as to the long term performance of the unit.
Would anyone can to comment or share their perspective. Am getting closer to purchasing a 200 which would replace my Berkeley Alpha Generation 1 / Levinson amplifier, etc..
Thanks,
Warren
Hi, I really wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Devialets typcially run warm to the touch but that's because the case is used as a heat sink. Few amps actually tell you what the internal temperature is and it would probably be a surprise to know how hot they're running - I mean, how hot do valve amps run!. My 200 rarely gets above an indicated 45 degrees and I often play my system LOUD. Devialets come with a five year warranty as well.
If you want to know more, there's a whole thread on this forum about it which you can find through the search function.
Mine runs hot (hotter that I like) only when in bypass mode where it runs continually flat out. In normal mode it doesn't run any hotter than conventional class A/B amps, cooler than most class-A but hotter than class-D.
I'd ask myself the question why is he no longer a Devialet dealer. Perhaps the dealer in question is seeding negative information because of some conflict/general Devialet dislike. Devialet has stated many times that heat is not a problem and the amps are also protected from overheating.
Of course no one really knows the long term performance yet since they're relatively short on the market but MTBF's can be calculated. I'd trust Devialet in this over your dealers opinion, dealers are wrong more often than right in my experience. (I mean why would anyone become a dealer if they really had real and valuable skills?
)
Exactly. Remember that body temperature is 37 degrees and a hot shower is 45 degrees (the typical Devialet temperature) and is only one eighth of the way from the former to water's boiling point. It's just that the case feels hot principally because it is so smooth.
I often get my amps very hot..... Nothing's gone wrong or blown up yet!
I do worry about design life sometimes though, but I have no idea at what temperature electronics start to suffer, my car, kettle, oven, boiler, run very hot all the time, no problem, but what are the facts with electronics at 60deg C?
Pass amps get very hot and are still longed lived.