Phantom Reactors are NOW AVAILABLE!

[Hifi_swlon]

Finally heard one in the same Devialet store.

What can I say, I wasn’t expecting to ascertain much in that environment, and I didn’t. To be honest I was totally and utterly underwhelmed. ‘Unreasonable sound’? Absolutely......

Should be able to stereo and multi-room in Spring 2019 with a firmware update apparently.

Was it that bad?

Like I say, it’s a terrible environment to listen even casually - I think they’re counting on loudness (which didn’t blow me away) and the woofer dance. Not sure what more anyone could take away from the experience it might as well have been a Bose or something. Heard the higher wattage one. Pumped at 75% and full volume, both levels sounded like a torturous distorted mess.

Who knows how they sound in a better environment, but it didn’t leave me desperate to find out. But if I see them elsewhere I would listen just out of interest.

I’ll be amazed if their stores are profitable or sell more than a handful of devices. At about £2k for a stereo pair (not that you can play stereo yet) there’s a lot of choice for the casual listener. The store was empty. The Apple store round the corner was jam-packed.

Beyond that it’s just unfathomable that they couldn’t get stereo capability working for launch. It’s not like this is their first audio device, and knowing what I do of the brand - even my biases aside - it rings alarm bells.