Until I retired I didn't do much messing about with audio, just an occasional launch at a new product I fancied.
Back in the 70s I had a subjective experience which lead me to suspect that the then current view that everything was characterised by measurements and all amps which measured the same sound the same was suspect.
I had a Goodmans 1-10 tuner amp, the amp of which had one of the lowest distortion levels HiFi News had ever measured, and when I bought mine from the original Audio-T, on the 4th floor of 119 Oxford Street iirc, it came with a distortion test certificate done by Martin Colloms, who worked there then.
Some years later, probably 1974 or so I saw a Cambridge Audio P60 in the dealer in Huddersfield which I loved the look of and, having earned a bit of cash in my first job, I rather fancied buying it. I went into the shop and chatted to the owner. I was concerned that the P60 may not perform as well as the Goodmans because it only had about half the power. The dealer agreed to a home demo and I was amazed to find (it took a while since I wasn't expecting it) that the P60 sounded markedly better than the Goodmans and from then on I only bought stuff after I had a direct back to back comparison. (mind you, I have bought stuff that sounded no better but had new functions I wanted or looked nicer or was nicer to use). I even had the tag line for years "if it measures the same and sounds different you are measuring the wrong parameter"
Two things made me a sceptic of the subjective approach much more recently. When I retired I had more time, the one thing I had never been convinced by, both by listening and by an education in electronics, was hearing any difference between cables. I did carefully level matched comparisons of all the interconnects and speaker cables I had accumulated over the years. The only ones which sounded different to each other were those with filter systems built in, MIT and Goldmund. All the others were the same, regardless of price.
The second was all the talk about High Resolution digital and I only had CDs and an old CD transport/DAC. I decided I had better get a new DAC capable of playing these fancy new files, I had a home demo of a range of DACs from the Linn Klimax DS, Resolution Audio Cantata, Weiss 202 (?) and Metric Halo LIO-8. Again using carefully level matched comparisons the differences in sound between these 4 was absolutely minimal to zero and I am sure I would struggle to pick one from the other blind.
This was a slight surprise, but not a shock since as a keen amateur recordist of live concerts I had been surprised and pleased to find that a digital recorder captured a sound indistinguishable from the microphone feed whilst 20 years or recording using tape recorders had never done that, however much I upgraded my recorder.
So when the Devialet came along I had no compunction whatever about accepting that the digital side would be audibly transparent and the benefit of high power and vanishingly small output impedance would mean it was more likely to be transparent with any speakers than any of the expensive tailored kit available nowadays and that was what I was looking for.
Back when I worked with tape and record players I became used to differences in sound quality between items, some marked, particularly pickup cartridges. Now I am satisfied in my own mind that with a Devialet amp the limit will be the speakers and room, not the electronics, so whilst it has been my experience that SQ varied from component back in the day, and still does with speakers and rooms, I think it is now possible to buy an amplifier which does drive speakers without adding colouration or frequency response shifts - the Devialet.
Having written that I know there are plenty of enthusiasts who want to be able to mess about with the sound of their kit. One way is to use digital simulation plug ins, like pro recording engineers do, the other is to chose equipment which has the colouration you like, the latter method is more expensive but more popular
Quick edit. I know there are plenty of owners who believe there have been SQ differences with each update of the Devialet. I do not. There have been lots of functional updates, and more power, but when I updated my D-Premiers to an 800 I did them one at a time. When the first 250 came back before sending the D-Premier back to be updated to 250 (so the pair of 250s would become a 800). Careful level matched sound quality comparison showed no difference in SQ using the AES input on the sort of music I listen to.
When I changed from 800 to Original d'Atelier there was too long in time between comparisons for any confident assessment.
Back in the 70s I had a subjective experience which lead me to suspect that the then current view that everything was characterised by measurements and all amps which measured the same sound the same was suspect.
I had a Goodmans 1-10 tuner amp, the amp of which had one of the lowest distortion levels HiFi News had ever measured, and when I bought mine from the original Audio-T, on the 4th floor of 119 Oxford Street iirc, it came with a distortion test certificate done by Martin Colloms, who worked there then.
Some years later, probably 1974 or so I saw a Cambridge Audio P60 in the dealer in Huddersfield which I loved the look of and, having earned a bit of cash in my first job, I rather fancied buying it. I went into the shop and chatted to the owner. I was concerned that the P60 may not perform as well as the Goodmans because it only had about half the power. The dealer agreed to a home demo and I was amazed to find (it took a while since I wasn't expecting it) that the P60 sounded markedly better than the Goodmans and from then on I only bought stuff after I had a direct back to back comparison. (mind you, I have bought stuff that sounded no better but had new functions I wanted or looked nicer or was nicer to use). I even had the tag line for years "if it measures the same and sounds different you are measuring the wrong parameter"
Two things made me a sceptic of the subjective approach much more recently. When I retired I had more time, the one thing I had never been convinced by, both by listening and by an education in electronics, was hearing any difference between cables. I did carefully level matched comparisons of all the interconnects and speaker cables I had accumulated over the years. The only ones which sounded different to each other were those with filter systems built in, MIT and Goldmund. All the others were the same, regardless of price.
The second was all the talk about High Resolution digital and I only had CDs and an old CD transport/DAC. I decided I had better get a new DAC capable of playing these fancy new files, I had a home demo of a range of DACs from the Linn Klimax DS, Resolution Audio Cantata, Weiss 202 (?) and Metric Halo LIO-8. Again using carefully level matched comparisons the differences in sound between these 4 was absolutely minimal to zero and I am sure I would struggle to pick one from the other blind.
This was a slight surprise, but not a shock since as a keen amateur recordist of live concerts I had been surprised and pleased to find that a digital recorder captured a sound indistinguishable from the microphone feed whilst 20 years or recording using tape recorders had never done that, however much I upgraded my recorder.
So when the Devialet came along I had no compunction whatever about accepting that the digital side would be audibly transparent and the benefit of high power and vanishingly small output impedance would mean it was more likely to be transparent with any speakers than any of the expensive tailored kit available nowadays and that was what I was looking for.
Back when I worked with tape and record players I became used to differences in sound quality between items, some marked, particularly pickup cartridges. Now I am satisfied in my own mind that with a Devialet amp the limit will be the speakers and room, not the electronics, so whilst it has been my experience that SQ varied from component back in the day, and still does with speakers and rooms, I think it is now possible to buy an amplifier which does drive speakers without adding colouration or frequency response shifts - the Devialet.
Having written that I know there are plenty of enthusiasts who want to be able to mess about with the sound of their kit. One way is to use digital simulation plug ins, like pro recording engineers do, the other is to chose equipment which has the colouration you like, the latter method is more expensive but more popular
Quick edit. I know there are plenty of owners who believe there have been SQ differences with each update of the Devialet. I do not. There have been lots of functional updates, and more power, but when I updated my D-Premiers to an 800 I did them one at a time. When the first 250 came back before sending the D-Premier back to be updated to 250 (so the pair of 250s would become a 800). Careful level matched sound quality comparison showed no difference in SQ using the AES input on the sort of music I listen to.
When I changed from 800 to Original d'Atelier there was too long in time between comparisons for any confident assessment.
Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire
