04-Jul-2020, 21:59
Two thoughts:
1- The Devialet has a single input to output signal path. There is no way of separating the processing stages between phono processing and later stages and inserting external processing in the signal path. Once you select an input, the signal passes along a set path to the speaker outputs and there is no way of interrupting that path.
That means that if you use phono processing in the Devialet you have to do room correction before the Devialet so you would need to convert the unprocessed phono signal to digital, apply room correction without phono processing, convert the digital room corrected signal back to analog and pass that analog signal to the phono inputs on the Devialet and the analog signal the Devialet receives would have to be at a level it is capable of accepting. I don't know whether that is possible.
An alternative would be to pass the analog turntable output to an external digital phono stage, pass that digital output to another external device for the application of digital room correction, and pass the digital output from that device to a digital input on the Devialet for processing as a normal digital input. The Devialet would not provide phono processing with this approach but it would be simpler to implement.
2- There is an alternative and that is to use physical acoustic treatments rather than digital room correction and this has the advantage of simply letting you use the Devialet's phono input in the normal way with no external digital signal processing steps. There may be problems with this approach if your system is in your living room and your wife has a big say in the interior decoration aspects of how the room is set up because physical room treatments are both big and not overly physically attractive, they have to be placed in particular locations to work most effectively, and they definitely change the appearance of the room as a result. There is no way around that. I have a physically treated room for my audio system but it isn't my living room, it's a room set up as a dedicated listening room solely for listening to the audio system and the issues I just mentioned are not issues in this room. They may very well be in your room. The other problem is working out what treatment products you need and where to place them and you can find lots of competing advice on how to do that plus I can tell you from personal experience that it's possible to take the same products and place them in different locations of the same room and get different results, with some locations delivering different but good results and other locations just delivering bad results. Getting a good result which really satisfies you greatly is a bit of a trial and error approach and the trial and error process can take a lot longer than you may think.
Acoustic room treatment and digital room correction do different things and produce different audible results. There are some things that both of them do to the sound and there are some things that each do that the other cannot do. They are not interchangeable. My preference if I had to choose one, and I stress that this is my preference and others may very well disagree, is for acoustic room treatment. I suspect a combination of the two would be better than either singly but I've had no way of trying that. I do use digital room correction with the TV system I have in my living room and it works well, but the overall effect of the result is different to what I get in the acoustically treated room where the audio system is, so I do have experience with both. Digital room correction is a lot easier to achieve good results with and is a lot less visually disturbing in a living room than a collection of physical acoustic treatments can be, especially when some of those treatments are placed directly in front of windows and block the view. Physical acoustic treatments will not be a viable option for a lot of people but they are an option and they do offer benefits you don't get with digital room correction for those who can use them in their room.
1- The Devialet has a single input to output signal path. There is no way of separating the processing stages between phono processing and later stages and inserting external processing in the signal path. Once you select an input, the signal passes along a set path to the speaker outputs and there is no way of interrupting that path.
That means that if you use phono processing in the Devialet you have to do room correction before the Devialet so you would need to convert the unprocessed phono signal to digital, apply room correction without phono processing, convert the digital room corrected signal back to analog and pass that analog signal to the phono inputs on the Devialet and the analog signal the Devialet receives would have to be at a level it is capable of accepting. I don't know whether that is possible.
An alternative would be to pass the analog turntable output to an external digital phono stage, pass that digital output to another external device for the application of digital room correction, and pass the digital output from that device to a digital input on the Devialet for processing as a normal digital input. The Devialet would not provide phono processing with this approach but it would be simpler to implement.
2- There is an alternative and that is to use physical acoustic treatments rather than digital room correction and this has the advantage of simply letting you use the Devialet's phono input in the normal way with no external digital signal processing steps. There may be problems with this approach if your system is in your living room and your wife has a big say in the interior decoration aspects of how the room is set up because physical room treatments are both big and not overly physically attractive, they have to be placed in particular locations to work most effectively, and they definitely change the appearance of the room as a result. There is no way around that. I have a physically treated room for my audio system but it isn't my living room, it's a room set up as a dedicated listening room solely for listening to the audio system and the issues I just mentioned are not issues in this room. They may very well be in your room. The other problem is working out what treatment products you need and where to place them and you can find lots of competing advice on how to do that plus I can tell you from personal experience that it's possible to take the same products and place them in different locations of the same room and get different results, with some locations delivering different but good results and other locations just delivering bad results. Getting a good result which really satisfies you greatly is a bit of a trial and error approach and the trial and error process can take a lot longer than you may think.
Acoustic room treatment and digital room correction do different things and produce different audible results. There are some things that both of them do to the sound and there are some things that each do that the other cannot do. They are not interchangeable. My preference if I had to choose one, and I stress that this is my preference and others may very well disagree, is for acoustic room treatment. I suspect a combination of the two would be better than either singly but I've had no way of trying that. I do use digital room correction with the TV system I have in my living room and it works well, but the overall effect of the result is different to what I get in the acoustically treated room where the audio system is, so I do have experience with both. Digital room correction is a lot easier to achieve good results with and is a lot less visually disturbing in a living room than a collection of physical acoustic treatments can be, especially when some of those treatments are placed directly in front of windows and block the view. Physical acoustic treatments will not be a viable option for a lot of people but they are an option and they do offer benefits you don't get with digital room correction for those who can use them in their room.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
