Describe the Devialet Sound

[Damon]

IME
Transparent.
Clear without harshness, open without brightness, clean unexaggerated bass without overhang.

If you like extra added colour from your electronics it is not for you...

Yes, exactly this. 

I remember reading a pieces in Stereophile some time ago, in a review I think by J. Atkinson, in which he said that the job of a power amplifier should be the easiest of all components; take a signal and make it louder (or amplify it) without doing anything else to it. I thought that point was obvious, but I hadn't really thought about it until he stated it so simply. Auditioning the Devialet I realized that all the other gear I had owned, or listened to, added its own tonal colour, and emphasized certain parts of the music, or of the original signal.

The Devialet reveals the music that you put into it. It does not make bad recordings sound good. Compressed music files- crappy music files  in other words- are more apparently crappy. My Naim gear was not as ruthless in this respect. I'm more disappointed with the sound quality of discs of some of my favourite music than I was before, but that simply demonstrates that the Devialet gives a more truthful rendering of the input signal. Those discs are crappy. I just didn't realize how compressed they are.

BTW, I feel that I also get more emotion from recordings than I did before. Hearing Sarah Vaughan sing 'Key Largo' or 'Whatever Lola Wants' is still amazing. Close, clear and immediate.

And I'm using a D120. I'd expect more space, dynamics and authority from a D400. But who has space to store two boxes?