Munich 2018

[David A]

You have to give it some time. Devialet has been kind to invite some of the forum members so that they had the opportunity for a meet and greet plus an info session with some of the engineers / experts. They have discussed high level what they feel is important and what is likely to come. And now on this forum it is shared among a larger community.

Devialet sending out a mass email communication with some vague info is not smart with so many forum members inspecting cautiously the hardware and software. I am sure they are working hard internally - led by the new CEO - on a technical roadmap and a marketing roadmap and a customer experience roadmap and so on. These things take a few months.

I respect everyone's opinion but I find it a pity coming to the forum and reading (again) complaints. Some things have been said enough imo. And don't forget that many are also happy just as it is. Like me. I just have one source to the Devialet and it has always been running fine. I like the sound and I'm even 2 firmware updates behind (I think). Couldn't care less. It sounds good and I hope improvements will still come but for now there is sufficient pro compared to the cons.

I'll disagree. I'm not as annoyed with Devialet as John is but I'm also not happy with their communication.

There's a saying that goes something like "begin as you intend to continue". It's not appropriate in many cases but if one of the ways you wish to continue is with better communication then I do think beginning with better communication than you've been providing is the way to begin and I haven't really seen a change.

There may be a lot of members on this forum but I'd be prepared to bet that the number of members on this forum is less than half of the number of Devialet owners by a good margin so beginning with a session for forum members at Munich is ignoring the majority of Devialet owners. That isn't a good communication strategy, especially when they could have had a presence at the Munich show and engaged with many more people. OK, the new CEO only came on board a couple of months before Munich, probably a bit early for organising a presence at the show so maybe next year, but "official" communication from Devialet hasn't really changed since the new CEO started and if he's beginning the way he wants to continue that would indicate a commitment to no change.

I accept that as you say, many are happy just as it is but that doesn't mean that what would make the others happier won't make those who are happy just as it is a little bit happier. 
The way it is can't be expected to satisfy every new customer, in fact I'd guess that it will satisfy the same proportion of new customers as it satisfies existing customers and it would be a positive move to satisfy a higher proportion of customers than are presently satisfied. I think that's especially the case when what we're talking about is communication and better communication is a relatively low cost move compared to the cost of hardware and software development and providing better service to owners with issues.

As for it being a pity coming to the forum and reading complaints, it's generally accepted that the level of complaints posted in online forums is higher than other posts simply because people tend to use forums to air issues. A forum in which everybody just posts "isn't it great" type comments is an incredibly uninformative and uninteresting forum, and a forum that isn't likely to provide as much benefit to members as one in which complaints and issues get aired. Responses to complaints and issues often hold information which is useful to those who haven't posted their concerns but are searching to see whether others have the same problem and whether there are solutions to those problems. Nobody posts useful information about solutions when there hasn't been an issue raised. I actually think that seeing issues and concerns raised is a sign of a healthy forum. It's easy to skip over the complaints that either don't interest you or aren't relevant to your own situation  but knowing that those issues have been raised can sometimes be useful down the track if you find yourself  having the same problem and knowing what some users are concerned about could be especially useful to Devialet if they want to know where they could improve their user's experience with their products. Complaints can and do hold useful information for everyone including Devialet.

If Devialet don't have someone following forums like this one on a regular basis then I think they should. They don't have to contribute but they will find useful information here that they won't get from their own direct email and phone contact with owners and that information could help them improve which then benefits all users.