Please help - My devialet D-premier sounds crap

[Confused]

Thanks again all.….

I think the problem was my room. The high reverb and reflection, coupled with the boomy bass was probably killing the clarity. Having shifted to a different room, and using REW to measure and position my speakers as well as my seating position has greatly aided sound quality. Iam keen on adding room treatment next. Can't go overboard, and have to keep it subtle. So will start with a super thick carpet and some GIK art panels at first reflection points.

Thanks for providing the white paper celts, was a enlightening read. I have already contacted devialet customer care for the upgrade to a CI250, unfortunately they have temporarily stopped taking D-premier's for upgrade, and have conveyed that they will contact me, when they start accepting upgrades again. So will certainly keep and eye out for that.

Thanks for the links ogs. Have downloaded all the Firmware versions from your link. And have upgraded the firmare to version 10.1.0 as suggested, will start listening tomorrow morning.

I take this opportunity to thank everyone for the help

This is actually quite an interesting little story.  It looks to me like you were reasonably happy with your set-up and room, but the addition of a D-Premier, rather than simply making the expected incremental improvement, did something very different.  The better amp initially did little more than reveal other issues, primarily problems with the room.

There are some people that say all modern DAC's an amps sound the same.  This little tail shows that that is a very long way from reality.  Welcome to the "rabbit hole" by the way!