It fascinates me to see how threads often develop. My 2019 prediction thread started with some predictions, then it became a bit of a "wish list" thread, then as the year developed, and not much happened with any of the wishes, or anything else much for that matter, the thread then became a place for people to have a good moan about Devialet.
This thread seems to have a slightly different emphasis. there are some predictions, but now it is becoming more a state your opinion about Devialet thread, rather more interesting and subtle than straight forward moaning. So in the spirit of this thread, I shall advise my opinion and then my prediction.
The general sentiment here appears to be something along the lines of Devialet have abandoned any development of the Expert range, the competition is marching forward with fine new kit, and very soon many will have caught up with Devialet. Presumably the products catching up will be cheaper, and the next step is Devialet get left behind, the last decades big thing, now worthless on the second hand market.
I can see this point, but for me the reality is a little different. Before buying my first Devialet (D240), I spent a few years visiting many of the UK's HiFi shows, visiting many dealers, and listening to as much kit as I could in a quest to find the right items for my perfect next system. My main focus was not on amplifiers though, it was speakers. The thing is, typically you can listen to a given pair of speakers with two different but similarly priced amplifiers, and you might discern a small difference, listen to two similarly priced speakers with the same amplifier, and the differences by comparison to swapping amplifiers can be considerable. So this was my main focus, find the right speakers. My feeling was that if I got the speaker choice right, finding appropriate electronics to drive them would be trivially easy by comparison. Anyway, the hunt for new speakers went on for a number of years, with nothing I listened too actually tempting me to make the jump and purchase. Then I listened to the KEF Blade, and that was it, I fell in love and the speaker selection was made. From that point onwards, it was a case of deciding what electronics to buy to drive the Blades. The first demo I had with the Blades was with a Devialet D240, so this was my benchmark in terms of performance and cost. I then listened to a number of amplifiers with the Blades at the same dealer, I also travelled to every UK dealer within about a 200 mile radius of my home that could offer a demonstration with the Blades. I did not listen to every amplifier / DAC combination on the planet, that would be impossible, but I did audition just about everything that was possible. This was a lot of effort, and the result was that pretty much everything I listened to I did not like quite as much as the Devialet. It has to be said though, some of the alternatives did come close. And that is the point I think, speakers varied wildly in terms of sound and performance, amplifiers were different, but not so much. Thinking back over this experience, one thing that strikes me as being fairly remarkable is that Devialet then came up with the Pro upgrade, a small iterative improvement maybe, but considering the Expert was already holding its own against the competition, getting a decreeable improvement was quite an achievement I think, I can't think of many of the competition that have achieved similar over the same period of time.
I think there could be a reason for this too. The Expert was pretty much the same amplifier as the original D-Premier, the first ADH product. So from a design perspective, I can see the R&D being done, the product being brought to market, then you have a period of time where the designers start to think of areas the design could be improved. These ideas are tried in the Original D'Atelier, and then emerge as the Pro range. I do not know, but I suspect, that the Pro might be pretty close to the optimum that an ADH amplifier could be. Of course there must be some scope to improve sound quality, but I suspect not much. Indeed, my view is that taking the HiFi market and "high end" as a whole, I have not heard anything that is significantly better than the Pro. I have heard lots of good stuff, equipment that maybe offers a slightly different flavour to the Pro, I can think of some systems I have listened to that remind me of the qualities of the Pro, but nothing that is definitively better.
Much talk of the NAD M33 here, and I think with some justification. Class D offers lots of power for relatively little money (in HiFi terms), and the sound quality of Class D products does seem to be getting better all the time. Obviously I have not listened to a M33, but I can think back to when I listened to a system with Vivid Giya G3's and Mola Mola electronics. This sounded punchy and powerful, with little hint to my ears of any Class D issues. This is not low cost class D though, I think the Mola Mola mono blocks and DAC costs somewhere between 440Pro and 1000Pro money, but it perhaps hints at what NAD has the potential to produce. I doubt that the NAD will turn out to be definitively better than Devialet though, in terms of pure sound quality, accuracy and transparency etc. Personally, I think this is simply not possible. Indeed, I think that considering only sound quality, a current Expert Pro will continue to sound just about as good as anything else new emerging for very many years. Other products will offer a different "flavour" that some will prefer, this has always been the way, but the pace of development in terms of actual amplifier performance will be fairly slow. The only trend I can envisage is that equivalent levels of performance might emerge in lower cost products.
Think about the above statement. Devialet Pro's already offer far more power than anyone needs. So what are we looking for in an improved product? Distortion at full power reduced from 0.00025% to 0.00015%? This is my point, in terms of significantly better sound quality from an amplifier, the scope to improve from todays products is necessary limited.
So that's sound quality, but what about features? Here I think NAD have got it right, they are producing a decent quality amp, but when it comes to adding tricky software type stuff like room correction, they are simply subcontracting this out to Dirac, one of the established experts in the field. A sensible approach I think. This then makes me wonder, could Dirac be made to run on the EVO platform or CI Board? I am sure that this would be possible, but it isn't going to happen is it? This is the frustration, there is just so much that could be done with the Expert, but Devialet look like they are not interested. Of course, from a practical point of view, any Devialet user can simply accept the reality, and if they want Dirac, buy a Dirac box, or maybe run room correction convolutions in Roon, there are many options and many possible solutions.
So as a general prediction, in five years time there will not be any products that offer definitively better sound quality performance than a Pro, but there will be a number of products that get very close, at a lower price, with better features. Time will tell. (I look forward to reading this back in 2025)
Getting back on topic, now for my Devialet predictions for 2020. For the Expert Pro range, I predict that nothing whatsoever will happen. The main action in 2020 will be iterative improvements with the Phantom operating system.
In 2021, we should see that the Phantom operating system is starting to get more mature, more features, more stable, better functionality. Later in 2021, we will see the new operating system rolled out into the Pro range.
By 2022, Devialet's in car systems will be getting more mature. Due to the nature of car audio, these systems will rely heavily on room correction (car correction?) type DSP, we have already seen this demonstrated with Devialet's partnership with Faurecia Clarion, Devialet's "3D Premium Sound". This technology will trickle down into the Phantom / Pro single operating system ecosystem, offering room correction and a range of other DSP products.
In the period 2020 to 2022, Devialet will keep selling the Pro, and keep advertising the Pro, it will remain the premium audio "halo product" that will be used to help sell the in car stuff to long suffering motorists.
I have no idea what will happen in 2023, trying to predict that would be silly.
I shall sign off with an off topic aside, this week I happened to be talking to a Naim owner, he was having a very Devialet like sounding moan about some software issues, so its not just Devialet. Then later in the week, I was reading about all the vey grumpy Sonos owners who are upset that some "legacy" products will no longer be supported, this includes products sold as recently as 2015. So its not so bad in the world of Devialet, and things are not that much better elsewhere, and the Expert and Pro do sound very good indeed. Roll on 2023 folks!
This thread seems to have a slightly different emphasis. there are some predictions, but now it is becoming more a state your opinion about Devialet thread, rather more interesting and subtle than straight forward moaning. So in the spirit of this thread, I shall advise my opinion and then my prediction.
The general sentiment here appears to be something along the lines of Devialet have abandoned any development of the Expert range, the competition is marching forward with fine new kit, and very soon many will have caught up with Devialet. Presumably the products catching up will be cheaper, and the next step is Devialet get left behind, the last decades big thing, now worthless on the second hand market.
I can see this point, but for me the reality is a little different. Before buying my first Devialet (D240), I spent a few years visiting many of the UK's HiFi shows, visiting many dealers, and listening to as much kit as I could in a quest to find the right items for my perfect next system. My main focus was not on amplifiers though, it was speakers. The thing is, typically you can listen to a given pair of speakers with two different but similarly priced amplifiers, and you might discern a small difference, listen to two similarly priced speakers with the same amplifier, and the differences by comparison to swapping amplifiers can be considerable. So this was my main focus, find the right speakers. My feeling was that if I got the speaker choice right, finding appropriate electronics to drive them would be trivially easy by comparison. Anyway, the hunt for new speakers went on for a number of years, with nothing I listened too actually tempting me to make the jump and purchase. Then I listened to the KEF Blade, and that was it, I fell in love and the speaker selection was made. From that point onwards, it was a case of deciding what electronics to buy to drive the Blades. The first demo I had with the Blades was with a Devialet D240, so this was my benchmark in terms of performance and cost. I then listened to a number of amplifiers with the Blades at the same dealer, I also travelled to every UK dealer within about a 200 mile radius of my home that could offer a demonstration with the Blades. I did not listen to every amplifier / DAC combination on the planet, that would be impossible, but I did audition just about everything that was possible. This was a lot of effort, and the result was that pretty much everything I listened to I did not like quite as much as the Devialet. It has to be said though, some of the alternatives did come close. And that is the point I think, speakers varied wildly in terms of sound and performance, amplifiers were different, but not so much. Thinking back over this experience, one thing that strikes me as being fairly remarkable is that Devialet then came up with the Pro upgrade, a small iterative improvement maybe, but considering the Expert was already holding its own against the competition, getting a decreeable improvement was quite an achievement I think, I can't think of many of the competition that have achieved similar over the same period of time.
I think there could be a reason for this too. The Expert was pretty much the same amplifier as the original D-Premier, the first ADH product. So from a design perspective, I can see the R&D being done, the product being brought to market, then you have a period of time where the designers start to think of areas the design could be improved. These ideas are tried in the Original D'Atelier, and then emerge as the Pro range. I do not know, but I suspect, that the Pro might be pretty close to the optimum that an ADH amplifier could be. Of course there must be some scope to improve sound quality, but I suspect not much. Indeed, my view is that taking the HiFi market and "high end" as a whole, I have not heard anything that is significantly better than the Pro. I have heard lots of good stuff, equipment that maybe offers a slightly different flavour to the Pro, I can think of some systems I have listened to that remind me of the qualities of the Pro, but nothing that is definitively better.
Much talk of the NAD M33 here, and I think with some justification. Class D offers lots of power for relatively little money (in HiFi terms), and the sound quality of Class D products does seem to be getting better all the time. Obviously I have not listened to a M33, but I can think back to when I listened to a system with Vivid Giya G3's and Mola Mola electronics. This sounded punchy and powerful, with little hint to my ears of any Class D issues. This is not low cost class D though, I think the Mola Mola mono blocks and DAC costs somewhere between 440Pro and 1000Pro money, but it perhaps hints at what NAD has the potential to produce. I doubt that the NAD will turn out to be definitively better than Devialet though, in terms of pure sound quality, accuracy and transparency etc. Personally, I think this is simply not possible. Indeed, I think that considering only sound quality, a current Expert Pro will continue to sound just about as good as anything else new emerging for very many years. Other products will offer a different "flavour" that some will prefer, this has always been the way, but the pace of development in terms of actual amplifier performance will be fairly slow. The only trend I can envisage is that equivalent levels of performance might emerge in lower cost products.
Think about the above statement. Devialet Pro's already offer far more power than anyone needs. So what are we looking for in an improved product? Distortion at full power reduced from 0.00025% to 0.00015%? This is my point, in terms of significantly better sound quality from an amplifier, the scope to improve from todays products is necessary limited.
So that's sound quality, but what about features? Here I think NAD have got it right, they are producing a decent quality amp, but when it comes to adding tricky software type stuff like room correction, they are simply subcontracting this out to Dirac, one of the established experts in the field. A sensible approach I think. This then makes me wonder, could Dirac be made to run on the EVO platform or CI Board? I am sure that this would be possible, but it isn't going to happen is it? This is the frustration, there is just so much that could be done with the Expert, but Devialet look like they are not interested. Of course, from a practical point of view, any Devialet user can simply accept the reality, and if they want Dirac, buy a Dirac box, or maybe run room correction convolutions in Roon, there are many options and many possible solutions.
So as a general prediction, in five years time there will not be any products that offer definitively better sound quality performance than a Pro, but there will be a number of products that get very close, at a lower price, with better features. Time will tell. (I look forward to reading this back in 2025)
Getting back on topic, now for my Devialet predictions for 2020. For the Expert Pro range, I predict that nothing whatsoever will happen. The main action in 2020 will be iterative improvements with the Phantom operating system.
In 2021, we should see that the Phantom operating system is starting to get more mature, more features, more stable, better functionality. Later in 2021, we will see the new operating system rolled out into the Pro range.
By 2022, Devialet's in car systems will be getting more mature. Due to the nature of car audio, these systems will rely heavily on room correction (car correction?) type DSP, we have already seen this demonstrated with Devialet's partnership with Faurecia Clarion, Devialet's "3D Premium Sound". This technology will trickle down into the Phantom / Pro single operating system ecosystem, offering room correction and a range of other DSP products.
In the period 2020 to 2022, Devialet will keep selling the Pro, and keep advertising the Pro, it will remain the premium audio "halo product" that will be used to help sell the in car stuff to long suffering motorists.
I have no idea what will happen in 2023, trying to predict that would be silly.
I shall sign off with an off topic aside, this week I happened to be talking to a Naim owner, he was having a very Devialet like sounding moan about some software issues, so its not just Devialet. Then later in the week, I was reading about all the vey grumpy Sonos owners who are upset that some "legacy" products will no longer be supported, this includes products sold as recently as 2015. So its not so bad in the world of Devialet, and things are not that much better elsewhere, and the Expert and Pro do sound very good indeed. Roll on 2023 folks!
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
