UK event with Mathieu Pernot - 17 July

[GuillaumeB]

I wasn't exactly sworn to secrecy but I had already heard as such from a dealer. He got it from the tech that did the CI installs so it's more than a year old information. So the Expert's development is on the back burner.

It's one thing to look at this from our point of view but for Devialet, if they can only find x amount of capable engineers, commercial survival forces them to work on new products. The Expert as is though, can't be sold as a new product because half of the stuff it's meant to do doesn't work as promised. I've had mine since before the extra power, SAM, Roon and the CI board so for me it's all a bonus, whether it works or not. If I were to buy one now and things just didn't work as they should, I would probably take it back to the dealer.

All this makes me wonder; If Devialet aren't going to develop on with the Expert range, is there a plan for a new series? That would be weird because the CI board still has so much to offer. I can only see one way forward with the Expert and that is develop it to its limits; Proper Roon integration, Tidal, Qobuz, room correction, new app with all the bells and whistles. That way, if someone was looking for a super integrated, it would be a very tempting amp. Like it used to be, in the good old days.

Tidal and Qobuz integration won't happen as it takes ~2 years of development effort (each). By contrast, Spotify Connect took only 12 days to implement by Devialet

I still have a marketing email from Devialet (Jul 13, 2017) regarding upcoming features on the Core Infinity board:



This was said in 2017. How many of these numerous capabilities do we have today in 2019?

To be fair Roon RAAT integration wasn't in that CI email. Given their "limited" resources it made a lot of sense for them to focus on Roon and effectively outsource the control point side of things.

I do appreciate however that many will be disappointed by the lack of native support for Qobuz and other services, especially if these were promised.

Guillaume