I bought the a Devialet Mania a few days ago and am absolutely blown away by its sound I own the Cabasse Pearl Akoyas for my office system and absolutely love that as well.
I will say the Mania is very close to the Akoya in terms of sound quality. The Akoya’s have slightly better midrange and highs, but the Mania seems ro have better bass when you compare 1 speaker against each other.
This year I am looking for speakers for my large living room so I originally thought I was going to step up to the Cabasse Pearls but now I am not sure if I should just get a pair of 108 Devialet Phantom 1’s. Any news of these being replaced with a new model any time soon?
What do you guys think?
Welcome to the forum.
A stereo pair of Phantom 1 108dB is so much better than a single one, and almost like different speakers. And if you set them up on stands and place them properly in the room, you will be rewarded with an excellent stereo system.
It is unlikely that there will be changes to the Phantom range. However, please note there are only users on the forum and we have no access to official information nor anyone from Devialet.
I have a pair of Phantom 103's on tree stands and it is the most amazing stereo IMHO.
Just spread them 6-8 ft apart, angle them inward 35 deg and the sound stage will snap into focus.
(02-Jan-2024, 22:10)MGremlin Wrote: [ -> ]I have a pair of Phantom 103's on tree stands and it is the most amazing stereo IMHO.
Just spread them 6-8 ft apart, angle them inward 35 deg and the sound stage will snap into focus.
how is the bass of these in a room that is medium size with 12' ceilings?
(05-Jan-2024, 06:03)GordonM Wrote: [ -> ] (02-Jan-2024, 22:10)MGremlin Wrote: [ -> ]I have a pair of Phantom 103's on tree stands and it is the most amazing stereo IMHO.
Just spread them 6-8 ft apart, angle them inward 35 deg and the sound stage will snap into focus.
how is the bass of these in a room that is medium size with 12' ceilings?
I have a pair of Phantom 103 as well in a 150 sqf room with high 22' ceilings, I listen at 40% volume most of the time, 80% if I want to party, I tried 100% for the fun and the entire house was shaking and would probably get hearing loss if I kept it at 100%. The entire house was shaking, every guest was mind blown, and I will add that I have reduced bass via the app, so you really don't have to worry about bass level, nothing can beat these things. I have a home theater with a dedicated 12" subwofer that still don't compete with the Phantoms.
(09-Jan-2024, 09:35)s3kelman Wrote: [ -> ] (05-Jan-2024, 06:03)GordonM Wrote: [ -> ] (02-Jan-2024, 22:10)MGremlin Wrote: [ -> ]I have a pair of Phantom 103's on tree stands and it is the most amazing stereo IMHO.
Just spread them 6-8 ft apart, angle them inward 35 deg and the sound stage will snap into focus.
how is the bass of these in a room that is medium size with 12' ceilings?
I have a pair of Phantom 103 as well in a 150 sqf room with high 22' ceilings, I listen at 40% volume most of the time, 80% if I want to party, I tried 100% for the fun and the entire house was shaking and would probably get hearing loss if I kept it at 100%. The entire house was shaking, every guest was mind blown, and I will add that I have reduced bass via the app, so you really don't have to worry about bass level, nothing can beat these things. I have a home theater with a dedicated 12" subwofer that still don't compete with the Phantoms.
wow ok good to know. I just wish the Phantoms had the automatic room correction feature like the Mania does which works great imo. I live in a large Florida open flloorplan house with 30x30 living room and 15' ceilings and the room is open to the rest of the house so no real boundaries. I am not sure how these would perform in there especially without room correction.
Has anyone heard the Pearls in comparison?
Sounds like you'll need both physical and digital room correction. As an aside, the specs of the Phantoms don't lie. Honestly, if you have the money just purchase them already.
I actually think the Phantoms will excel in your open plan. Many people have to reduce the bass in smaller rooms because it's so powerful.
I have them in my treated basement office and they are perfect. The Devialet app can play with bass and treble but they are admittedly very basic. I do wish the Phantoms had auto room correction but keep in mind these were designed and debuted years ago!
I have had both Gold Phantoms and Cabasse Pearl
The reason I switched is that the warrantee was coming up and the Devialets are not repairable. This is the only reason I switched from phantoms. Imagine a driver issue or amp issue in a couple of years and they are resigned to the scrap heap?
The Cabasse are really excellent though and have their “room correction” mode which isn’t really room correction it just sweeps the bass and lowers a certain range to account for room reinforcement
For both speakers you should measure them and add PEQ to dial out the problem frequencies that make the bass “boom” - usually there are one or 2 big peaks depending on room dimensions
You can also use a DSPEAKER anti mode 2 which is an amazing little fit and forget Device that sweeps and sets the PEQ for you
Only issue is you lose streaming then and need to stream to something into the DSPEAKER and out to the phantoms. If you could find a player with PEQ and measure yourself that would solve that
anyway - both great speakers but I think the Cabasse were more balanced and natural sounding
Also, if you use Roon, there are several PEQ settings for Phantoms you can use to tame any room related peaks.