Phantom Gold Review in HiFi Choice

[yabaVR]

I wonder if SAM becomes less effective (and in fact more obtrusive) as one goes up the speaker chain? Or maybe some speaker designs are just not as amenable as others.

That's just our experience (a group of 3 D-owners). Every time we fire up SAM you would loose all the finest details in music and stage build up. It's like cutting away the room around the instruments. For the quick shot hearing you can locate the sound objects more precisely but you loose all their connection to the room they were recorded in. They get loose. If you hear further on you notice that the whole composition of the music get's lost. It's no more homogeneous.

If you think of it from the theoretical point it (SAM etc.) has to be malicious to the music because you are altering the music signal to accomplish a correction of speaker parameters. It's just the wrong way working (against the stream). You have to alter the speaker itself to get the music signal untouched, because doing the way SAM and digital room correction does it, is like cutting through the 3D matrix of the musical signal and altering every object of sound even roomreflections recorded (be it for the timeline or frequencies, both).
You are swirling everything in the musical 3D matrix up through space    ( I have no other words for it, difficult to describe, but I hope you get the idea).

gui

Hi Gui,
I notice that your signature says "200 (mod)". Have you had it upgraded, or modified it yourself? If you don't mind me asking, what did you do to it? What effect has it had on SQ? Is it something that the rest of us might benefit from?

Cheers,

Alex.

Sure. But it's only for the brave and strong hearted.

My belief is that not even Devialet knows what their amp-circuit is capable of SQ-wise. They did a fabulous job inventing/meassuring the whole thing, but then messed it up using the cheapest binding post, using this filtered IEC inlet, using only pin-connections with the ciruit boards and chromeplating the chassis instead of just polishing or anodizing the aluminum.

Now with the Pro-Series they at least got rid of the pin-connection with the Power Filter Board therefore the D's got much more impact and directness. SQ got more real.
Within the pics you can see some of the mods I made. There is a very special other mod but it's not for the public yet being very uncommon...especially for non-believers 

How do all this modifications sound? It's like the D's are getting alive the first time. Power feels like it is at least doubled (I know it's not, but this D got thrust like...). Details are increased in every aspect (directness, transparency, bandwidth). Stage? Now there is a stage...and it's stable. Stability is a very special subject you will get with these mods...and bass. I really never heard a bass so transparent yet so powerfull,controlled and deep. You can hear so many nuances of bass (even with electronic music) it's stunning.
In fact my D200 one time eventually shut off when performing some chinese drums at a WA Sophia 3. There were no distortions you could hear (but it was loud, someting near +xxdB)...it just made "klick" and the D200 was off. Has anybody achieved this with his D ?

I know everybody uses this words when something is improving. So to say...you have to hear it for yourself. At the moment there are 4 D's here in Berlin (2xD200, 2xD250) that got these modifications (one out of the new box of a customer ) and I am keen to compare one to a D800/D440/D1000 just to know where they can qualify.

gui

p.s. the modified parts can ever be improved and will be in the future.