Audio Science Review of Expert 200.

[David A]

Seems they got the unit back with zero communication from Devialet.
No comment about why it had failed.
No comment about the measurements that seem to make a lie of Devialets claimed specs.
Why?

Poor form on Deviaet's part. But I guess we've all become inured to their lack of communication.

I would refer you to my comment in post #124 of this thread, to quote:

Do I expect Devialet to respond and clearly explain all this?  OK – If Devialet respond directly stating something like “yes, it is an inherent aspect of ADH, they can only produce 20W at 20kHz”, then I would be so surprised I would gladly eat my remote.

So a narrow escape for myself, I can continue using my remote for its intended volume adjusting purposes, and have a nice sandwich for lunch instead.

Joking apart, although not surprised by this, I am disappointed that there was zero response from Devialet.  Not even a mention of why it failed?  If it was mine I would at least like to know what needed to be replaced or if a particular item was repaired. I would have expected at least something.  Also, checking in at ASR it looks like they do not intend to perform any measurements on the repaired unit.  Personally, I would have been very interested to have seen this done, in particular to see if the phase shift issue was still there (rather than maybe being a quirk of a failing unit), plus I would have liked to have seen ASR's measurements via the digital input.

But now we shall never know!

@ssfas - I have to agree with you that it is impressive that the unit was repaired and returned within three weeks, and at no charge.  This actually gives me a degree of confidence in terms of long term ownership as the end of my 5 year warranty slowly approaches.  Plus, as subjective comments are permitted here, mine is sounding good too!

I'm glad you enjoyed your lunch  :-)

I'm also not surprised. The CI board upgrades were done at dealers' premises here in Australia by a Devialet technician from Hong Kong who travelled around the country. I had trouble correctly seating an SD card in the SD slot after I got mine back. Cards worked but I had to push them in "just right" and I sometimes had to remove the card and reinsert it in order to get things to work. Eventually after some months I couldn't get it to accept a card. While removing the card on one occasion when things stopped working, I dropped the card and when I picked it up from the floor I found a mini SD card under it. I don't own or use any mini SD cards, I had no idea where it came from but there was only one possibility, it came out of the SD slot along with my normal SD card so I can only assume that the technician doing the upgrades was using a mini SD card in an adapter for the OS installation at the end of the upgrade and his mini SD card became detached from the adapter when he removed it after the upgrade and the mini SD card remained inside the slot making it difficult for me to insert my card successfully. and this ended up damaging the slot. I contacted Devialet and had to send the amp back to France for repair. I sent the mini SD card along with it and a note about what had happened. I got the amp back repaired, along with the mini SD card, and no explanation of what the problem had been. The amp now accepts SD cards with no problems. I still have no idea where the mini SD card came from apart from my supposition that the technician was using it for OS updating during the upgrade, no idea whether the mini SD card caused the problem or it was something else and, if it was something else, what the problem was. All I know is that I got the amp back and whatever was causing my SD card problems had been fixed.

Devialet can be very uninformative but they're very good at fixing hardware problems. It's a shame about the response to fixing software issues.

Addition: I've been playing with audio for 50 years now and I've probably only had to have a component repaired half a dozen times in that period. I've only ever got a response with a comment on the repair once. A disc jammed in my first CD player back around the end of the '80s and I had to send it off for repair to get the disc removed. The player came back along with my disc and a note which said something like "removed the disc, the player is working fine but the disc is awful". That was a comment on what the technician thought of the music on the disc, the disc still worked fine after its adventure.

I don't think it's usual to get any comments about a repair but I wish it was.