27-Nov-2014, 14:06
A year ago, I had a dealer demo of the 240 vs the 500, with my chosen speakers, KEF Blades. At the time I thought that there was indeed an improvement with the 500, but I thought it was quite small and not worth the considerable extra cost, so I bought a 240. One year on, and my dealer offered a loan 250 for a weekend, this was towards the end of the 10% discount offer Devialet were making for the slave.
On the Saturday with the loan slave, I made up a 3 hour playlist of tracks, the plan was to spend Saturday listening to the 800 with this playlist, making listening notes. Then on Sunday, re listen on the 800 to all the tracks with interesting listening notes, then revert back to the 250 for comparison, playing the full playlist. Having made this plan my expectation was that I would again just hear a very small difference and would not be buying.
About 15 minutes through the playlist on the Saturday with the 800, I was beginning to think, this sounds superb! I did wonder if I was kidding myself (auditions like this mess with your mind), but I had more or less made my mind up to buy the slave there and then. Anyway, I continued listening to the entire playlist, revisited about 40 minutes of tracks with the 800 on Sunday, then listened to the entire 3 hour playlist again back with the 250. The difference was clear, the 800 was better. Overall it just sounded more effortless, and to me sounds like it has a much higher definition, higher resolution sound, more natural, or less "grain" as some would say. I took a lot of trouble doing the comparison, and for me I can state that yes, the 800 was a clear step up. As an example, when listening to one track on the 800, I made a listening note regarding the female vocal sounding very special. Back with the 250, I couldn't work out why I thought it was so special before. There were some qualative points to note as well, one track with the 800 was causing an item of wooden furniture at the back of the room to resonate, this didn't occur with the 250! So something was different. People use many strange terms to describe improvements in sound quality (to this day I have no idea what "more air between notes" actually means), but in summary, the 800 is more natural, effortless, higher resolution and sounds "fuller", magnificent sounding music sounds more magnificent and so on. One point to note, the key to good hi fi is matching the speaker with the amplifier, so the delta between a 250 and 800 could vary enormously between different speakers. I can only really comment for the 800 with KEF Blades.
The problem is, you mention "Tremendous warmth like tube", now I suspect that going to an 800 might go a small way to filling this gap with maybe slightly fuller bass, but tube like warmth? No, probably not.
In a way it looks like you have answered your own question. You like the sound of the Tidal and the McIntosh, so it's a question of how much cash you want to spend, and you view on lots of big boxes. (very nice looking big boxes, I would say) I'm not sure that the Devialet will provide the "warmth" you are after. The 800 will perhaps move you closer? As ever it is a case of trying a home demo, you might find the 800 fills the gap, you might find that to your ears it makes little difference, who knows? Worth a home demo of the 800 I would say, but reading between the lines of your original post, perhaps something from the McIntosh range might suit you best for the money?
On the Saturday with the loan slave, I made up a 3 hour playlist of tracks, the plan was to spend Saturday listening to the 800 with this playlist, making listening notes. Then on Sunday, re listen on the 800 to all the tracks with interesting listening notes, then revert back to the 250 for comparison, playing the full playlist. Having made this plan my expectation was that I would again just hear a very small difference and would not be buying.
About 15 minutes through the playlist on the Saturday with the 800, I was beginning to think, this sounds superb! I did wonder if I was kidding myself (auditions like this mess with your mind), but I had more or less made my mind up to buy the slave there and then. Anyway, I continued listening to the entire playlist, revisited about 40 minutes of tracks with the 800 on Sunday, then listened to the entire 3 hour playlist again back with the 250. The difference was clear, the 800 was better. Overall it just sounded more effortless, and to me sounds like it has a much higher definition, higher resolution sound, more natural, or less "grain" as some would say. I took a lot of trouble doing the comparison, and for me I can state that yes, the 800 was a clear step up. As an example, when listening to one track on the 800, I made a listening note regarding the female vocal sounding very special. Back with the 250, I couldn't work out why I thought it was so special before. There were some qualative points to note as well, one track with the 800 was causing an item of wooden furniture at the back of the room to resonate, this didn't occur with the 250! So something was different. People use many strange terms to describe improvements in sound quality (to this day I have no idea what "more air between notes" actually means), but in summary, the 800 is more natural, effortless, higher resolution and sounds "fuller", magnificent sounding music sounds more magnificent and so on. One point to note, the key to good hi fi is matching the speaker with the amplifier, so the delta between a 250 and 800 could vary enormously between different speakers. I can only really comment for the 800 with KEF Blades.
The problem is, you mention "Tremendous warmth like tube", now I suspect that going to an 800 might go a small way to filling this gap with maybe slightly fuller bass, but tube like warmth? No, probably not.
In a way it looks like you have answered your own question. You like the sound of the Tidal and the McIntosh, so it's a question of how much cash you want to spend, and you view on lots of big boxes. (very nice looking big boxes, I would say) I'm not sure that the Devialet will provide the "warmth" you are after. The 800 will perhaps move you closer? As ever it is a case of trying a home demo, you might find the 800 fills the gap, you might find that to your ears it makes little difference, who knows? Worth a home demo of the 800 I would say, but reading between the lines of your original post, perhaps something from the McIntosh range might suit you best for the money?
