21-Nov-2022, 23:30
Re the comments above by @Mohmm and @mdconnelly :
It's now 5 years since Devialet gave us the CI board. I bought my 130 Pro prior to the release of the board when they were advertising the board as a free upgrade for Expert Pro purchasers and promising a list of features. In that 5 years they have delivered some but not all of the features promised and they have given us 2 major features which were not promised by making the amp Roon Ready and delivering the Sweet Room room correction facility. They also have not given us any firmware updates in 2 years.
As it stands there are still a couple of features initially promised which have not been delivered, there are bugs in the software including bugs introduced with the Roon Ready and Sweet Room features which have not been fixed, there are issues with the online configurator which have existed for a long time and haven't been fixed. We had 3 years of progress following the release of the CI board and then things just stopped. Development of other products including the design and production of new products has gone on during that time. They were doing it during the first 3 years after the CI board was released and they have continued doing it since the last Expert Pro software update 2 years ago.
If we consider work on the Expert Pro range as "walking" and work on the design and production of new products as "chewing gum", they've shown us that they are capable of waking and chewing gum at the same time but they seem to have given up on walking. I have no idea why. They're still happy to advertise and sell Expert Pros and I assume they're still making them unless they've stopped making them because they've got a warehouse full of unsold Expert Pros sitting there waiting for orders.
There's a lot of annoyed owners here and elsewhere venting about the lack of attention to the Expert Pro range and the outstanding problems. If they've got a store of unsold Expert Pros they're trying to sell with their advertising then selling them is only going to get progressively harder if the amount of annoyance on public display keeps growing and it does seem to be growing.
They may not care about the annoyance. They may be busy working on a new amp range to replace the Expert Pro, one which delivers the promised but not yet delivered features that Expert Pro owners were led to expect and which also fixes the bugs they want to see fixed. I don't think that any of us current Expert Pro owners would feel positively disposed to pay for an upgrade for our Expert Pros in order to get the promised features which have not been delivered and the bugs which have not been addressed fixed in firmware which won't run on our Expert Pros. They would have to offer new features and functionality over and above what we were promised for the Expert Pro range plus a big enough improvement in performance to justify the cost of the upgrade if they wanted to get me to upgrade and I suspect a lot of other owners would feel the same.
If they don't deliver what was promised for the Expert Pro range and fix the problems with it, why would any current Expert Pro owner trust them to deliver on promises made in respect of a new range and to address software issues that may occur with that range? Trust is built on performance and their performance with the Expert Pro range has not been trustworthy. As for owners of previous model amps who have not upgraded, would they trust Devialet to deliver on promises about a new range having seen the experience of owners of Expert Pros?
One thing is obvious and that is that on one level Devialet do not listen or care about their customers. They provide extremely good service when it comes to fixing hardware faults, I've benefited from that service when my amp stopped reading SD cards, but they don't seem to care about software problems and they don't seem to care about delivering those promised features which have still not been implemented.
My bottom line: if you're happy with your amp and it's doing what you want it to do (I'm happy and my amp does what I want), then keep using it and don't hold out any expectations for anything more than what you've got. If you're not happy with your amp, especially if it's not doing everything you want, then consider looking for an amp which will do what you want and which will make you happy. If Devialet bring out a new model amp and offer upgrades then consider carefully before upgrading. If what you're paying for in the upgrade is basically nothing more than getting the rest of what was promised for the Expert Pro along with fixes for the bugs in the Expert Pro software, then those are things you should not have to pay for because those are things that Devialet owes you right now. They owe you the yet undelivered features they promised and they owe you fixes for software bugs. Those things should be delivered to all current Expert Pro owners and delivered at no cost.
Regardless of that, would I buy another Devialet amp? A bit over 5 years ago when I bought my Expert Pro it was one of a very few amps offering what it did and it was also one of the best performers in my view. Now there's a lot more amps offering the same features as the Devialet, some doing some things better than the Devialet (room correction is one area where some amps do better), and some of those amps appear to be as good or better than the Devialet in performance, and at least some of those amps don't come with the baggage of the manufacturer's failure to deliver on promises and bug fixes. Devialet would have to compete with a lot more competition on the performance and features front if I buy another amp than it did when I bought mine a bit over 5 years ago and I would definitely be inclined to choose a more trustworthy manufacturer than Devialet is proving to be.
It's now 5 years since Devialet gave us the CI board. I bought my 130 Pro prior to the release of the board when they were advertising the board as a free upgrade for Expert Pro purchasers and promising a list of features. In that 5 years they have delivered some but not all of the features promised and they have given us 2 major features which were not promised by making the amp Roon Ready and delivering the Sweet Room room correction facility. They also have not given us any firmware updates in 2 years.
As it stands there are still a couple of features initially promised which have not been delivered, there are bugs in the software including bugs introduced with the Roon Ready and Sweet Room features which have not been fixed, there are issues with the online configurator which have existed for a long time and haven't been fixed. We had 3 years of progress following the release of the CI board and then things just stopped. Development of other products including the design and production of new products has gone on during that time. They were doing it during the first 3 years after the CI board was released and they have continued doing it since the last Expert Pro software update 2 years ago.
If we consider work on the Expert Pro range as "walking" and work on the design and production of new products as "chewing gum", they've shown us that they are capable of waking and chewing gum at the same time but they seem to have given up on walking. I have no idea why. They're still happy to advertise and sell Expert Pros and I assume they're still making them unless they've stopped making them because they've got a warehouse full of unsold Expert Pros sitting there waiting for orders.
There's a lot of annoyed owners here and elsewhere venting about the lack of attention to the Expert Pro range and the outstanding problems. If they've got a store of unsold Expert Pros they're trying to sell with their advertising then selling them is only going to get progressively harder if the amount of annoyance on public display keeps growing and it does seem to be growing.
They may not care about the annoyance. They may be busy working on a new amp range to replace the Expert Pro, one which delivers the promised but not yet delivered features that Expert Pro owners were led to expect and which also fixes the bugs they want to see fixed. I don't think that any of us current Expert Pro owners would feel positively disposed to pay for an upgrade for our Expert Pros in order to get the promised features which have not been delivered and the bugs which have not been addressed fixed in firmware which won't run on our Expert Pros. They would have to offer new features and functionality over and above what we were promised for the Expert Pro range plus a big enough improvement in performance to justify the cost of the upgrade if they wanted to get me to upgrade and I suspect a lot of other owners would feel the same.
If they don't deliver what was promised for the Expert Pro range and fix the problems with it, why would any current Expert Pro owner trust them to deliver on promises made in respect of a new range and to address software issues that may occur with that range? Trust is built on performance and their performance with the Expert Pro range has not been trustworthy. As for owners of previous model amps who have not upgraded, would they trust Devialet to deliver on promises about a new range having seen the experience of owners of Expert Pros?
One thing is obvious and that is that on one level Devialet do not listen or care about their customers. They provide extremely good service when it comes to fixing hardware faults, I've benefited from that service when my amp stopped reading SD cards, but they don't seem to care about software problems and they don't seem to care about delivering those promised features which have still not been implemented.
My bottom line: if you're happy with your amp and it's doing what you want it to do (I'm happy and my amp does what I want), then keep using it and don't hold out any expectations for anything more than what you've got. If you're not happy with your amp, especially if it's not doing everything you want, then consider looking for an amp which will do what you want and which will make you happy. If Devialet bring out a new model amp and offer upgrades then consider carefully before upgrading. If what you're paying for in the upgrade is basically nothing more than getting the rest of what was promised for the Expert Pro along with fixes for the bugs in the Expert Pro software, then those are things you should not have to pay for because those are things that Devialet owes you right now. They owe you the yet undelivered features they promised and they owe you fixes for software bugs. Those things should be delivered to all current Expert Pro owners and delivered at no cost.
Regardless of that, would I buy another Devialet amp? A bit over 5 years ago when I bought my Expert Pro it was one of a very few amps offering what it did and it was also one of the best performers in my view. Now there's a lot more amps offering the same features as the Devialet, some doing some things better than the Devialet (room correction is one area where some amps do better), and some of those amps appear to be as good or better than the Devialet in performance, and at least some of those amps don't come with the baggage of the manufacturer's failure to deliver on promises and bug fixes. Devialet would have to compete with a lot more competition on the performance and features front if I buy another amp than it did when I bought mine a bit over 5 years ago and I would definitely be inclined to choose a more trustworthy manufacturer than Devialet is proving to be.
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
