Firmware 8.1.2 released

[Floyd67]

Dr Tone, Jean Marie.  Thanks for the input!  However, yesterday I was very frustrated.  I'm not actually that keen on this SD card swapping malarkey, but I will make the effort to try anything, just for the peace of mind that the system is as optimised as possible when I'm back in "just enjoy the music mode".  When I tried 8.0, this did not work properly due to the SAM & dual mono bugs that Devialet have now owned up to.  Thankfully I was too slow and missed 8.1 completely!  Yesterday what should have been an hour or so, setting up and swapping SD cards combined with a bit of critical listening, turned in to much more time, frustration and annoyance!

To be clear, 8.1.2 / SAM KEF Blade / D800 sounds DREADFULL.   It not a case of the bass being not quire right, maybe some fine tuning needed, but something that with just a few seconds listening become very apparent that something was badly wrong.  In the quest for information gathering, I tried more or less everything I could think of!  SAM at 0% reduced the issue, but the issue was still there, much the same was true with toggling the subsonic filter on.  What did work was turning SAM off, this eliminated the problem, but of course eliminates what should be the benefits of SAM.



What appeared to work well, was running the new KEF Reference 5 SAM profile.  Yes I know that running SAM for the wrong speaker might be considered a sin, but the ref does share the same drivers as the Blade, so there is method in my madness.  The thing is, that this appears to work well, and all the bass issues I have described are gone.  Even the Blade 2 SAM profile was miles better and eliminated the fundamental problem, and the Blade 2 does have different bass drivers, similar design but slightly smaller.

Now if switching from what should be the correct SAM profile to a "close enough" one, eliminates a serious problem, I can only conclude that there is something wrong somewhere in the Blade SAM profile.  What I think has happened is that the error in the SAM profile was sat in the background with the 7.x.x firmware, maybe causing a few minor issues occasionally, with SAM 2, these issues have been brought massively into play.  I recall the feedback from OAC's SAM Lab training session with Devialet "Dynamic compression is now based upon signal as opposed to volume. You should find deep bass at high levels".  My suspicion is that this tweak in SAM 2 has taken an error in the Blade SAM profile and magnified it massively.  I believe that some final adjustment with SAM 1 was done "by ear", if true, this could explain why an error in the SAM profile could be dialled out to a degree?

I suspect that the mild issues I have noticed over the last few months may be related to an error in the SAM profile, although SAM was an improvement for me, so I think the profile is maybe 90% of what it should be, with some kind of error in the last 10%.

Obviously there is a degree of speculation in what I have written here, but I am trying to put what information I have together as logically as possible.  It will be interesting to see how Devialet respond to this.  (I suspect I will be told that Devialet are wonderful and their engineers are working very hard to resolve this matter)

Also, the good people of OAC have offered to try SAM V2 / 8.1.2 on their demo Blades.  I think if a Devilaet "Premium" dealer reports that something is wrong, this might just carry a lot more weight than little old me having another whinge.  It will be interesting to see how this one pans out, its amassing how complicated things can get with an amplifier, I'm starting to look lovingly at my old Arcam Alpha 10 / 10p's, which are sill in my house, relegated to surround sound duties, I never had so much fun with the Arcams, although they did break down a lot!

Why am I bothering to write all this?  Well for one I think it is at least moderately interesting.  (other readers may disagree, I know)  Also, I'm speculating that the issue with the Blade SAM profile might be a one off error.  Then again, it is just possible that it is not.  If anyone else has noticed that SAM 2 problematic, then maybe there are more gremlins out there.  I don't want to start a wave of panic and paranoia, the most likely thing is that this is unique to the Blades, but I will keep all those that might be interested posted with any significant updates.

Now I have a decision to make, I'm sick to death of messing with SD cards etc, but do I go back to 7.1.3 with a possibly flawed SAM profile (which sounded good!), 8.1.2 with the Ref 5 profile (which also sounds good), or simply leave SAM off until all is resolved.  The purist in me says SAM off until resolved, but on a quick listen last night, the Ref 5 SAM profile actually sounded really good, and given that this is an identical driver to the Blade this might make sense from a technical perspective.  There is even a long and short port Ref 5 profile to choose from.  (Although I suspect I will have gone quite insane by lunchtime, another loving look at the old Alpha 10's, which funnily enough just played music)

To be honest, I'll just be glad when all this is sorted out.

To some extent I can empathise with you. Software in my experience is rarely perfect and yes it's a bit of a ball ache to faff around with, but at least Devialet offer us the flexibility and choice of what FW to use. You wouldn't get that with many other manufacturers.