Last minute Summer Devialet Event at OAC with Mathieu Pernot! 12 July 2018

[mdconnelly]

I will say this about the prior Expert line... I don't think of this as Devialet abandoning it at all... Few manufacturers would have made the effort to provide an upgrade path (albeit at a non-trivial cost). The prior gen Experts still sound awesome and I'm certain they will continue to do so for many years to come. Depending upon when a customer bought in may result in them feeling like Devialet didn't meet the update promises made in the marketing spiel. But hey, I've owned many audio products that were discontinued just a year or two later. That's just the inevitable march of technology (and marketing) into the future. But fortunately for us, Devialet did provide a means to march along with them in the form of the Pro & CI upgrades.

Many owners did jump to upgrade to the Pro when offered. Some chose not to. But the fact that many of us could and did, and many more will once again be able to speaks highly of Devialet's support for the existing customer base. I feel certain that to take the Experts to the next level, new tech was needed - in the form of the Pro and CI updates. For that, I'm grateful even though I had my 200 for just a year before the Pro upgrade was announced.

True, there have been many times over the last year or so that I felt quite frustrated with Devialet for their lack of communication and bug-ridden software, but I'm now a very happy Pro 440/CI owner, quite pleased with current sound quality and functionality and quite excited about what still may be coming in the future. There are always bumps in the road and Devialet has certainly managed to hit most every damn one of those potholes. But sometimes it's just better to just pay attention to the road ahead.