Devialet's newest technology...?

[IanG-UK]

I always had an impression that the ghost of Peter Walker was influencing Devialet with the ADH "current dumping" design, but with the Phantom there are a further three parallels:

1. They explicitly mention the "straight wire with gain" philosophy in the white paper.

2. The Phantom tries to follow the Quad ESL ideal of a point source.

3. The Phantom is near-spherical. Peter Walker was keen on spherical speakers as a concept and researched a spherical ESL which was never productionised.

As far as inspiration goes, they could do far worse....

The most significant thing of all for me - along with all other DXXX owners - is that in the Phantom the ADH is now on an ASIC, bringing a step change in cost of production. There now isn't any reason why Devialet couldn't license this (think B&O ICEPower) for a whole slew of much cheaper products from many manufacturers which could rival the DXXX in SQ.

Great for Devialet, but if you've shelled out a lot of hi-end beer vouchers for a D1, then paid again to get it upgraded to a D250, it's going to suck when you can buy the same SQ from Logitech for next to nothing.

The pivotal difference is that Peter Walker developed his designs over many years before public launch, most noticeable in my era and his with the 405 and the ESL63. Devialet have launched their Phantom and Dialog offerings at a time when a key element of all Devialet amplifiers simply does not work.