Messages to Devialet

[David A]

I think a reason that they won't want to release the configurator secret sauce is that the amps are all essentially the same and my suspicion is it'd be possible to turn a 120 into a 200 via the config file by editing the power settings that are in there.  If it's as I suspect, that's going to cannibalise their sales on the expert series and it'll be the beginning of the end.

The only way it's going to happen is if someone reverse engineers the configurator IMO... and that's only a matter of time.

I think you're wrong. I suspect the code line that limits the power output is actually contained in the firmware which is why, when you start up in Factory Configuration mode, your amp tells you what model it is and why you're limited to the power rating for that model amp.

My guess is that the firmware contains code that basically says something like "set the power output to the wattage output for this model amp unless the config file contains a setting specifying a lower wattage output". I think that to increase the amp's output you would need to hack the firmware as well as simply editing the config file.

Even if you could do that, take a look at the difference in power output when you go dual amp. Looking at current models, the 140 gets a 50% increase to 210 watts, the 220 gets a 100% increase to 440 watts, and the 250 gets a 400% increase to 1000 watts. The reasons for those differences are because there are differences in the power supplies and heat sinking, Try and tell a 120 that it's a 200 and you are likely to run into problems which could damage the amplifier.

If you really want to be adventurous however, it's an open secret that the config file is a simple text file. You can open it in an ordinary text editor and edit it yourself, any time you like. I got confirmation of that when my 130 got it's CI board upgrade. Those upgrades were done locally here in Australia and Devialet had a technician visit my dealer for a couple of days. People took their amps in and dropped them off, and came back a day or so later to pick them up. I picked mine up, took it home, and created a new config file on the configurator but the amp wouldn't recognise it. Since the technician was still going to be at the shop for another day, I rang him and he asked me to email him my file. A little bit later he emailed it back to me with a message to say that it had got corrupted in the download and he had edited it to fix the problem. The edited file worked fine. Anyone who wants to spend a bit of time at it can create a number of different config files with the configurator, download them, and by comparing the lines relating to the different choices you make in the configurator, you can easily work out what you need to edit to change the power output limit in the config file. I doubt it would work because I think there will also be code in the firmware which would need to be edited and the firmware isn't text files so it will be written in some programming language but even if you can increase the output by simply editing the config file I would strongly recommend against it because the differences between the different amps and their outputs is related to more than just a couple of lines in the config file. There are hardware differences as well and exceeding the amp's rated output could damage the amp.

Basically, if you're willing to spend the time experimenting right now, you don't need to use the configurator, you could simply edit your config files in a text editor once you learnt to understand the way they are written. The only problem I can think of is if the config files contain some sort of check character generated by the configurator to tell the amp's opeprataing system that the file is genuine.