Just came back from Wilmington, where I auditioned the Phantom at Overture Ultimate Home Electronics. First off, let me say that Roni at Overture was very accommodating and provided excellent customer service. I can high recommend both the store and him in particular.
Background on my own experience/tastes so you know where I'm coming from: I primarily listen to classical. My current system is a NAD D 7050 ($1000) driving Golden Ear Triton Seven tower speakers ($1400/pair). (Other speakers I've owned in the past include the Paradigm Signature S1 and the Usher Audio BE-718.) I'm very happy with the system, but considering upgrading to Golden Ear's Triton Five towers ($2000/pair). But the idea of the Phantoms, with the ease of use it promised, seemed very intriguing. Total cost for a pair plus Dialog is about more than the Triton Fives and the NAD, but close enough to make an interesting comparison of two different ways to spend about $3000-$4300 for good sound that also involves a minimum of components and cables.
I'd expressed interest in the Phantom a few months ago to Roni, and he called last week to let me know they had a demo pair of Phantoms in the store for a limited time. So I made it to Wilmington, with the Apple Lossless files on my iPhone and some CDs as backup.
First impressions - The Phantom is a bit smaller than I imagined. The look is very high-tech and futuristic (when I saw the first pics at the end of last year I thought it was a new vacuum cleaner from Dyson!), perhaps not an obvious fit for all decors, but attractive in its own way. The Phantom seemed to stay quite cool to the touch. However, the Dialog (which was also bigger than I imagined) runs rather warm, as others on this forum have reported. The plastic bits do not get alarmingly hot (although I did not get close enough to check for any "burning plastic" smell). But the two long metal vents on the top of the Dialog definitely get too hot to touch for more than a second or two.
Operations - The Phantoms and the Dialog were all on firmware 1.2.0.0. The Spark app was less buggy than I expected; I guess they've fixed many of the bugs. I was able to connect to the demo Phantoms quite easily. I didn't care for the way the app makes you add everything to the playlist first (even the optical input gets added as a playlist item - meaning switching to optical is a two step process: first add to playlist, then make it play by double-tapping in the playlist). Several times my music (all of it Apple Lossless) would not play. I didn't experiment long enough to tell whether it was specific files, or random. At one point it seemed like the Phantom would not play Beethoven and Brahms, only Chopin and Saint-Saens, so maybe it has a French bias?
Sound - Surprisingly good. The sound is good enough to be used for serious listening. Getting this quality of sound (including bass and dynamic capability) from such a small enclosure is a real technical achievement. But contrary to the (rather ridiculous) marketing hype, the Phantom doesn't sound anywhere near as good as $50,000 system. It doesn't even sound as good as the best $5000 speakers, although of course those don't have amplification. The overall sound was quite neutral, bass was both tight and plentiful (and no, the bass drivers don't pulse much with most program material). Imaging was decent but not spectacular - I thought the image was on the small side, though reasonably precise. The mids and treble, while good, did not have quite the openness and airiness of the best speakers even in the $2000 price range, some of which do have beryllium tweeters. As others have pointed out, in a way it's too bad that Devialet solved the big challenge of getting bass and volume out of such a small cabinet, seemingly overcoming physics in the process, but put in a tweeter of seemingly conventional design. Perhaps there's room for a Phantom Diamond? Or Be(ryllium) Phantom? Anyway, I don't want to be too harsh here. The Phantom does sound very good, and most people (whose tastes will be different from mine) will be enormously impressed. But I'm just pointing out that the Phantom doesn't come close to meeting the claims made for it by Devialet's marketing. I guess that's what makes it marketing - though there are definitely approaches other than Devialet's in-your-face, sometimes outright ridiculous approach.
Dealbreakers - Up front, a disclaimer that the dealer calls this a "prototype." But the firmware has already gone through several revisions, and the users who bought the Phantom up to now (mostly Europe, presumably) have already served as beta testers for months. But the demo Phantom displayed several behaviors which I found unacceptable. First, there were issues with wireless performance. The Phantom would cut out momentarily often, though not always, when a person stood near it or touched the back of the unit. And then there were other times when the music would cut out briefly or have audible "clicks" not on the recording, even when no one was standing nearby or touching the unit, again presumably due to problems with the wireless. This happened even when playing music through the optical input on the Dialog. Disappointing considering how much Devialet touts the robustness of the wireless connection between the Phantoms and the Dialog. Perhaps most seriously (for me), the both of the Phantom speakers made a faint but definitely noticeable noise that I would describe as slightly scratchy, similar to the physical noise a CD/DVD player would make in spinning the disc (but we were able to rule out that possibility; the noise definitely came from the speakers). The noise would start as soon as music was played, and end just a few seconds after music ended (or paused). The noise was present regardless of what recording I played, and regardless of whether the music was from my iPhone or from CD (through the optical input). The noise is definitely not present on the recordings. (The volume of the noise was constant, regardless of the volume setting, again indicating that the noise is not from the recordings - and all the recordings I used for audition were very well-engineered, recent digital classical recordings.) We even hooked up the Phantoms via Ethernet to make sure it wasn't a problem with the wireless, and the noise still was present. Again, it's fairly faint, probably not noticeable if you have an AC (or other source of ambient noise) going, and probably not if you play pop/rock recordings that is mostly one constant volume, which would cover much of the noise. But it is definitely noticeable if you play well-engineered acoustic recordings, with quiet passages, in a quiet environment.
The bottom line for me - Impressive on many levels, but the Phantoms seem to still be in beta (or even alpha), making them hard to recommend at this time for critical listeners who really care about the quality of their music reproduction. Even setting aside the unrealistic expectations created by Devialet's marketing, there are some problems that I find hard to overlook at over $4000 for the stereo pair and Dialog, though I recognize others may have different views. But these issues should be fixable. Sonos has demonstrated it's possible to make a reliable wireless music system. I hope Devialet gets there too - and their speakers are already well ahead of Sonos' products in terms of sonics (as they should be, at this price).
Background on my own experience/tastes so you know where I'm coming from: I primarily listen to classical. My current system is a NAD D 7050 ($1000) driving Golden Ear Triton Seven tower speakers ($1400/pair). (Other speakers I've owned in the past include the Paradigm Signature S1 and the Usher Audio BE-718.) I'm very happy with the system, but considering upgrading to Golden Ear's Triton Five towers ($2000/pair). But the idea of the Phantoms, with the ease of use it promised, seemed very intriguing. Total cost for a pair plus Dialog is about more than the Triton Fives and the NAD, but close enough to make an interesting comparison of two different ways to spend about $3000-$4300 for good sound that also involves a minimum of components and cables.
I'd expressed interest in the Phantom a few months ago to Roni, and he called last week to let me know they had a demo pair of Phantoms in the store for a limited time. So I made it to Wilmington, with the Apple Lossless files on my iPhone and some CDs as backup.
First impressions - The Phantom is a bit smaller than I imagined. The look is very high-tech and futuristic (when I saw the first pics at the end of last year I thought it was a new vacuum cleaner from Dyson!), perhaps not an obvious fit for all decors, but attractive in its own way. The Phantom seemed to stay quite cool to the touch. However, the Dialog (which was also bigger than I imagined) runs rather warm, as others on this forum have reported. The plastic bits do not get alarmingly hot (although I did not get close enough to check for any "burning plastic" smell). But the two long metal vents on the top of the Dialog definitely get too hot to touch for more than a second or two.
Operations - The Phantoms and the Dialog were all on firmware 1.2.0.0. The Spark app was less buggy than I expected; I guess they've fixed many of the bugs. I was able to connect to the demo Phantoms quite easily. I didn't care for the way the app makes you add everything to the playlist first (even the optical input gets added as a playlist item - meaning switching to optical is a two step process: first add to playlist, then make it play by double-tapping in the playlist). Several times my music (all of it Apple Lossless) would not play. I didn't experiment long enough to tell whether it was specific files, or random. At one point it seemed like the Phantom would not play Beethoven and Brahms, only Chopin and Saint-Saens, so maybe it has a French bias?
Sound - Surprisingly good. The sound is good enough to be used for serious listening. Getting this quality of sound (including bass and dynamic capability) from such a small enclosure is a real technical achievement. But contrary to the (rather ridiculous) marketing hype, the Phantom doesn't sound anywhere near as good as $50,000 system. It doesn't even sound as good as the best $5000 speakers, although of course those don't have amplification. The overall sound was quite neutral, bass was both tight and plentiful (and no, the bass drivers don't pulse much with most program material). Imaging was decent but not spectacular - I thought the image was on the small side, though reasonably precise. The mids and treble, while good, did not have quite the openness and airiness of the best speakers even in the $2000 price range, some of which do have beryllium tweeters. As others have pointed out, in a way it's too bad that Devialet solved the big challenge of getting bass and volume out of such a small cabinet, seemingly overcoming physics in the process, but put in a tweeter of seemingly conventional design. Perhaps there's room for a Phantom Diamond? Or Be(ryllium) Phantom? Anyway, I don't want to be too harsh here. The Phantom does sound very good, and most people (whose tastes will be different from mine) will be enormously impressed. But I'm just pointing out that the Phantom doesn't come close to meeting the claims made for it by Devialet's marketing. I guess that's what makes it marketing - though there are definitely approaches other than Devialet's in-your-face, sometimes outright ridiculous approach.
Dealbreakers - Up front, a disclaimer that the dealer calls this a "prototype." But the firmware has already gone through several revisions, and the users who bought the Phantom up to now (mostly Europe, presumably) have already served as beta testers for months. But the demo Phantom displayed several behaviors which I found unacceptable. First, there were issues with wireless performance. The Phantom would cut out momentarily often, though not always, when a person stood near it or touched the back of the unit. And then there were other times when the music would cut out briefly or have audible "clicks" not on the recording, even when no one was standing nearby or touching the unit, again presumably due to problems with the wireless. This happened even when playing music through the optical input on the Dialog. Disappointing considering how much Devialet touts the robustness of the wireless connection between the Phantoms and the Dialog. Perhaps most seriously (for me), the both of the Phantom speakers made a faint but definitely noticeable noise that I would describe as slightly scratchy, similar to the physical noise a CD/DVD player would make in spinning the disc (but we were able to rule out that possibility; the noise definitely came from the speakers). The noise would start as soon as music was played, and end just a few seconds after music ended (or paused). The noise was present regardless of what recording I played, and regardless of whether the music was from my iPhone or from CD (through the optical input). The noise is definitely not present on the recordings. (The volume of the noise was constant, regardless of the volume setting, again indicating that the noise is not from the recordings - and all the recordings I used for audition were very well-engineered, recent digital classical recordings.) We even hooked up the Phantoms via Ethernet to make sure it wasn't a problem with the wireless, and the noise still was present. Again, it's fairly faint, probably not noticeable if you have an AC (or other source of ambient noise) going, and probably not if you play pop/rock recordings that is mostly one constant volume, which would cover much of the noise. But it is definitely noticeable if you play well-engineered acoustic recordings, with quiet passages, in a quiet environment.
The bottom line for me - Impressive on many levels, but the Phantoms seem to still be in beta (or even alpha), making them hard to recommend at this time for critical listeners who really care about the quality of their music reproduction. Even setting aside the unrealistic expectations created by Devialet's marketing, there are some problems that I find hard to overlook at over $4000 for the stereo pair and Dialog, though I recognize others may have different views. But these issues should be fixable. Sonos has demonstrated it's possible to make a reliable wireless music system. I hope Devialet gets there too - and their speakers are already well ahead of Sonos' products in terms of sonics (as they should be, at this price).
