Any feedback on Phanotom from Paris and/or London?

[ozthepoz]

I think Devialet were expecting "Expert" owners to want Dialog.  Why else would Devialet themselves announce that Dialog would work with the Expert range "via USB initially" at the Phantom / Dialog launch last year?

Under pressure from legacy owners looking for something new?
The experience they have had will show them legacy owners will want extra functions they had never planned
I still believe that Dialog is part of the Phantom system and making it work with the legacy amps will be of secondary importance to Devialet and certainly can not be done at the expense of the Phantom system, perhaps not an afterthought but almost certainly not a principle aim of the Dialog concept.
Probably the same with the remote.

I for one would be happy as a "legacy owner" with a product that worked reliably as advertised.  Although I don't suffer from problems with AIR as badly as others have reported, it is still not without problems streaming 16/44 material from an Apple machine using Apple network components as recommended by Devialet.

Devialet themselves have muddied the waters, and perhaps created a rod for their own back, by suggesting that Dialog is a work-around for these problems.  That's not the solution I want; Devialet need to fix AIR so that the Expert range is a properly-working product in its own right.

As to future enhancements to the Expert range: that would be fine and dandy provided they don't mess up what's already been delivered, but personally I don't demand or expect anything more than what was promised when I bought the equipment.

My main worry is that there will always be a "next big thing" like Phantom that diverts engineering resources away from fixing what Devialet have already delivered.  Will we be having a similar disscussion in a year's time about flakiness in Phantom, Dialog or Spark that Devialet haven't got time to fix because they've been working so hard on something that's going to sell to yet another much wider audience?

Sorry to be a bit pessimistic, but that's how it feels to me at the moment.

I agree; I'm delighted with my 250 as it is and even if there are no major improvements, it's still my amp of choice.

The way I see it, the expert line is still their flagship range, with the 400/800 dual mono config setup at the top of the tree from an SQ perspective (as well as multiple inputs, flexibility etc). As good as the phantoms may be, they are still a one size fits all solution and I certainly can't see them replacing my ML electrostatics any time soon. I'm sure that goes for many of us who own speakers that suit our tastes, music and listening environment.

I'm sure the phantoms will be a great money-spinner; the product/price is right and they will clean up in the £1.5k - £5k market. This can only be good news for the company and for us expert owners.

It does feel a bit like we've been forgotten in the phantom hype, but I suspect that by the time Munich comes around, the expert line will get some tasty improvements.

So I'm feeling reasonably optimistic.