A lot of hot AIR from Devialet?

[IanG-UK]

Although “white noise”, in some form, predates the start of the most populated thread within Streaming some nine months ago, it is probably fair to say that it has been a more prominent issue over that latter period, following the changes from the D-Premier to the 120/200/250/400/800 series in the second half of 2013, and Firmware 7.1.1 in ~August 2014, along with AIR 2.1.2 in ~May 2014 and AIR 2.1.3 in ~October 2014.

Those events, taken together, should have been Devialet’s opportunity to finally nail AIR which is, after all, one of their four USPs along with ADH, SAM and EVO (which, in relation to the configurator, does not work in a robust manner either).

I’ve been dealing directly and patiently with Devialet over many months to try to help trace this fault, which Devialet claims affects 2% - 5% of users - but which I suspect impacts far more users - though many of those may have given up with AIR altogether.

The 2% - 5% level probably refers to those of us who are still persisting - after all, Devialet did assure us that AIR would give us the very best sound quality and was Devialet's best input.

Over the months, I’ve tried:

- my 800, my two 250s separately, and a brand new 250 on loan;

- an iMac source and a MacBook Pro source;

- four routers - a BT Home Hub, an Airport Extreme Time Capsule, an Airport Express Time Capsule and a Draytek 2860;

- two sets of ethernet cables;

- three different mains supplies - raw mains, a PS Audio PPP and a Shunyata Triton/Typhon;

- many different SD cards and configurations, including five different ones repeatedly; and

- ethernet and wifi using both hi-res and 16/44.1.

(These amount to almost 4,000 combinations and I have not tried them all(!) but I guess I have tried over 100 and they all produce white noise, some very quickly, others after a few hours.)

All were tried with encouragement from Devialet and based on the amazing admission that Devialet had no idea as to the cause of the white noise. I have personally committed huge amounts of time to try to narrow down the fault; including giving regular feedback to Devialet and its engineers.

But that engineering department is like a ‘black hole” - lots of information goes in and no feedback comes out. Indeed I suspect that my efforts have been futile and that it is quite possible that Devialet has known, for many months, that this problem is a software fault which they are unable to solve without major development work which would take much time and resource. But perhaps they have been unwilling to admit it.

I also suspect that “AIR1” might well have been the right architecture for this product; and what we have now, “AIR2”, might be irreversibly flawed. Maybe they really need to develop “AIR3” and that is not their priority …

… because, of course, they have largely abandoned development/maintenance of the newly titled “Expert” range (or should it be the “Incompetent” range) and, in a desire to make bigger profits quickly, turned their attention to Phantom and Dialog and Spark … where it is already clear that Dialog and Spark are very problematic.

I do find it a bit rich that they are giving priority to two new products which cost up to about £3,250 per stereo pair and abandoning a key element of a product costing up to £27,500.

It’s rather like a committed BMW 7 Series user finding that he is only able to drive his car in first gear for eight months with the manufacturer telling him to try the windscreen wipers or the radio to see if that cures it; when the manufacturer then goes off and spends all their time hurriedly developing a new cheap Mini - only to launch it and find that the wheels fall off once you start driving it.

To Devialet’s credit, they did try a brand new 250 in my home - with the same white noise results - and then they decided, either graciously or naively, to take back my 800s to be tested in the factory. It was no surprise to learn that they found no hardware fault. 

What I find most infuriating is that, in reporting that result to me, their email said:

"Our whole software team is temporarily dedicated to improving the early version of the Phantom software, as we are currently receiving some first-user feedbacks on issues that we can address immediately. Please be assured that once this heavy workload decreases, the next topical issue on top of our software team's agenda is going to be AIR.”

Or to put it another way:

“Our brand new customers, spending up to £3,250 with us, are more important than customers who have been with us for up to four years and have spent up to £27,500 and been brand advocates. But don’t worry, we will get to them eventually though it may take months. But you are used to it as we have done nothing for eight months already.”

I remember the original marketing for AIR: “The best cable is no cable”.

Now the best marketing for AIR should be: “The best Devialet is no Devialet”.

This product  gets the award for the very best and the very worst item of hifi I have ever bought.