28-Jul-2015, 21:16
I thought the very popular "Most irritating issue as of now" thread could do with a little balance. So hear we have a thread where we can show a little love.
I purchased my D240 back in 2013. (Following which it has become a 250 then an 800) I chose the Devialet purely because it offered the best sound quality I could find partnered with my chosen speakers, I auditioned many alternatives, some at higher price points, but ultimately picked the Devialet because it sounded the best. At the time I had no interest whatsoever in it's looks, the "one box solution" aspects (in fact this put me off, I liked the idea of being able to upgrade DAC's later etc), the offer of future upgrades, shiny chrome or anything else. (Although I must admit the remote was love at first sight) The choice was made on sound quality, within reasonable budget limits, alone.
Then came the power upgrade, OK, this was not that exciting, going from 240 to 250 wpc, but in no way a bad thing. Next was SAM. Now this was a big upgrade for me, not that my system was lacking in bass, but SAM gave improved bass accuracy and even managed to improve the mids and stereo imaging, which was a big supprise and a delight. I quickly became a SAM fan. This makes me think, if I chose the Devialet on SQ in the first place, and then get SQ upgrades, then what a fine choice this little amp is proving to be.
Come 2015, completely out of the blue, Devialet deliver RAM. For me, someone with a significant amount of old vinyl, RAM is an absolute gift! We all love the odd upgrade, and if I had a different amp, I could see myself spending a substantial amount of cash on an external phono stage that would allow me to select the phono equalisation curve for specific records. With Deialet, it arrives out of the blue and for free, the joy! Not only that, but rather than messing around with endless configuration swaps, I can now experiment quickly, easily and live, with cartridge loadings, gain and other settings. Extraordinarily good!
Devialet AIR, which I must admit has taken a little work to get it stable with my PC, is in itself a remarkable achievement, the sound quality this offers, together with all the flexibility of streaming from a PC is utterly remarkable.
Going back to my original point regarding sound quality, overall the various firmware updates have steadily improved the sound quality, considering the high level of the starting point, I can barely believe this is possible. I could go on ....
On top of all this, is the fun factor. I sometimes think what life may have been with a pair of Chord mono blocks or similar. How utterly dull! None of the fun of the upgrades, no comparing firmware, no redoing speaker placement due to SAM, no doing this again because SAM 2 is different, none of the delight of getting the configurator to work, nothing!
Plus, how dull would the Chord Electronics forum be? Every post would be along the lines of "I turned on my amplifier and it just worked", or "there have never been any upgrades and it still sounds and works exactly the same as it did last month, last year, for ever in fact". What fun is that, you just wouldn't bother would you? Which means neither would you get to know all the lovely, knowledgeable and sometimes slightly bonkers folk on here.
So that is my I love Devialet post. What's the betting this thread never catches the post count in the "most irritating" thread though? (about 2/17 I reckon, if anyone wants a bet)
I purchased my D240 back in 2013. (Following which it has become a 250 then an 800) I chose the Devialet purely because it offered the best sound quality I could find partnered with my chosen speakers, I auditioned many alternatives, some at higher price points, but ultimately picked the Devialet because it sounded the best. At the time I had no interest whatsoever in it's looks, the "one box solution" aspects (in fact this put me off, I liked the idea of being able to upgrade DAC's later etc), the offer of future upgrades, shiny chrome or anything else. (Although I must admit the remote was love at first sight) The choice was made on sound quality, within reasonable budget limits, alone.
Then came the power upgrade, OK, this was not that exciting, going from 240 to 250 wpc, but in no way a bad thing. Next was SAM. Now this was a big upgrade for me, not that my system was lacking in bass, but SAM gave improved bass accuracy and even managed to improve the mids and stereo imaging, which was a big supprise and a delight. I quickly became a SAM fan. This makes me think, if I chose the Devialet on SQ in the first place, and then get SQ upgrades, then what a fine choice this little amp is proving to be.
Come 2015, completely out of the blue, Devialet deliver RAM. For me, someone with a significant amount of old vinyl, RAM is an absolute gift! We all love the odd upgrade, and if I had a different amp, I could see myself spending a substantial amount of cash on an external phono stage that would allow me to select the phono equalisation curve for specific records. With Deialet, it arrives out of the blue and for free, the joy! Not only that, but rather than messing around with endless configuration swaps, I can now experiment quickly, easily and live, with cartridge loadings, gain and other settings. Extraordinarily good!
Devialet AIR, which I must admit has taken a little work to get it stable with my PC, is in itself a remarkable achievement, the sound quality this offers, together with all the flexibility of streaming from a PC is utterly remarkable.
Going back to my original point regarding sound quality, overall the various firmware updates have steadily improved the sound quality, considering the high level of the starting point, I can barely believe this is possible. I could go on ....
On top of all this, is the fun factor. I sometimes think what life may have been with a pair of Chord mono blocks or similar. How utterly dull! None of the fun of the upgrades, no comparing firmware, no redoing speaker placement due to SAM, no doing this again because SAM 2 is different, none of the delight of getting the configurator to work, nothing!
Plus, how dull would the Chord Electronics forum be? Every post would be along the lines of "I turned on my amplifier and it just worked", or "there have never been any upgrades and it still sounds and works exactly the same as it did last month, last year, for ever in fact". What fun is that, you just wouldn't bother would you? Which means neither would you get to know all the lovely, knowledgeable and sometimes slightly bonkers folk on here.
So that is my I love Devialet post. What's the betting this thread never catches the post count in the "most irritating" thread though? (about 2/17 I reckon, if anyone wants a bet)
