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First impressions
#21
(16-Mar-2015, 12:09)f1eng Wrote:
(15-Mar-2015, 13:08)stonedragon Wrote: Its amazing because you might think everything would be a muddle since the drivers are not spaced out as in a conventional speaker, but it works. How it does it, I'm not sure

In fact the reason it does it is because of the speaker layout and shape.
Spaced drive units on the front of a rectangular box is a poor way to make a speaker, but using traditional manufacturing methods is by far the cheapest and easiest to make.
The Phantom spherical front prevents the diffraction errors inherent in all box speakers, and the co-axial mid/treble driver with the bass units on the side is much nearer to a point source than box speakers so will have much more accurate imaging capabilities.
Using conventional techniques it is monumentally expensive to make a speaker the ideal shape whereas Devialet have achieved it at a modest price with The Phantom.
B&W with their most expensive speakers address the problem as best they can without coaxial drivers by putting both the mid driver and tweeter in near spherical separate enclosures, but it is not as ideal as the Phantom.

Cabasse have a statement product, which I would guess was the inspiration for the Phantom but I could be wrong:-

http://www2.cabasse.com/cabfx2012/la-sphre-2?lang=en

it is £75,000 per pair...

Thanks for the explanation. You are right about the Phantoms, they are erringly similar to the Cabasse. Well as they say imitation is the best kind of flattery.
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#22
I may be wrong, but if the sphère is close from a shape perspective, I find that the blades from KEF are closer from a transducer setup perspective, combining a coaxial tweeter and mid and having the woofers on the side working in phase opposition.
MacBook Air M2 -> RAAT/Air -> WiFi -> PLC -> Ethernet -> Devialet 220pro with Core Infinity (upgraded from 120) -> AperturA Armonia
France
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#23
(16-Mar-2015, 21:08)Jean-Marie Wrote: I may be wrong, but if the sphère is close from a shape perspective, I find that the blades from KEF are closer from a transducer setup perspective, combining a coaxial tweeter and mid and having the woofers on the side working in phase opposition.

I quite agree, they tend towards a combination of these two.
Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire

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#24
I received my single nonSilver Phantom few days ago and on first listen, was floored by the bass but the upper to mid range was feeling flat (due to mono?) and overly bright. Naturally I thought it needs some burn-in. Loaded up XLO System Burn-In disc and let it go on for 2 days. Sat down for a listen this morning and noticed no difference. Swap out the existing ugly yellow power cable and plugged my custom made IEC power cable. Feels slightly better in terms of dynamics but still overly bright. Do I have a dud ?
Current: Phantom Silvers, Oppo 105D (Toslink), Raspberry Pi + Digi+, ROON
Pre-Phantom: PenAudio Rebel2, Nuforce MCH-2C5, Oppo 105D (Analog)
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#25
Here is a short first impression Phantom vs Devialet 120 w/ Audio Physic 25+
https://curved.de/news/devialet-vs-audio...ten-231686

(sorry, only german)

best
/mattes
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#26
from the article they said this...

the sound of the Phantom looks much more precise, clear, almost surgically. It is amazing that the clean sound (measured in peak as 102 db) even at high volume without distorting clean and out of the speakers penetrates. It is just louder.

I noted this because of trashken comments about the speakers being 'bright'.

It struck me today that on certain tracks the clarity is so much 'up there', with nothing left out that such a presentation could be thought as 'bright'. Personally I don't think so. It is just that these speakers eke out the last bit of detail in a track and are not forgiving and will reveal a recording with surgical precision. Some may like that sort of sound others may not, but for me it suits me just fine; because I've heard things on recordings that I simply did not know where there. I know that might sound very clichéd but it is true with the 'Phantoms' (btw, try 'Hotel California' on the album 'Hell Freezes Over' by the 'Eagles - brilliant set at about 50 - wow!!!)
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#27
(22-Mar-2015, 22:26)stonedragon Wrote: from the article they said this...

the sound of the Phantom looks much more precise, clear, almost surgically. It is amazing that the clean sound (measured in peak as 102 db) even at high volume without distorting clean and out of the speakers penetrates. It is just louder.

I noted this because of trashken comments about the speakers being 'bright'.

It struck me today that on certain tracks the clarity is so much 'up there', with nothing left out that such a presentation could be thought as 'bright'. Personally I don't think so. It is just that these speakers eke out the last bit of detail in a track and are not forgiving and will reveal a recording with surgical precision. Some may like that sort of sound others may not, but for me it suits me just fine; because I've heard things on recordings that I simply did not know where there. I know that might sound very clichéd but it is true with the 'Phantoms' (btw, try 'Hotel California' on the album 'Hell Freezes Over' by the 'Eagles - brilliant set at about 50 - wow!!!)
I fully agree! It is absolutely phantastic how rich the Phantoms sound. You can listen to almost any music at high and at low volumes. The sound image stays stable and neutral. Also the soundstage stays constant. 
A strange behaviour occurred to my stereo setup two days ago what could explain some of the 'disappointed' experience some reported here. They listened to the Phantoms either in Paris or London and reported back that the soundstage was small compared to a setup with the expert system. I cannot comment on this but experienced that I was listening to a 'strangely' configuered Phantom pair a few days ago. I found out through some testing with in-phase and out-of-phase played white noise from a Test CD that in the out-of-phase white noise track only one phantom was playing while the in-phase track played on both Phantoms. I used Spark and played the Test CD from Qobuz. Similarly, the left channel was strongly attenuated, specifically the bass when I played the same out-of-phase white noise track through an apple TV via Toslink on the Phantoms. On another Apple TV all was playing fine on my old analog system. So I could track down that apparently only one Phantom was playing the correct stereo channel while the other Phantom played in mono. This obviously resulted in cancellation of the out-of-phase signal. In conclusion: It could happen that one of the phantoms was configured as mono, even though I am rather certain I did not configure it as single nor as middle speaker, but as one of the stereo pairs in Spark. After I resetted the system and reconfiguered it again all worked well, with great sound stage and both speakers playing the out-of-phase track. It is quite clear the the sound stage is compromised when the two Phantoms are not configured as pair of left and right speakers and the buggy Spark might cause some problems there. This might be the reason that some were not so impressed about the soundstage and others are. in my case the soundstage of the Phantoms is wider and better defined than on my B&W 802 that so far impressed me exactly inthis criterion.
So from time to time test your configuration if out-of-phase tracks play well in stereo configuration.
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#28
Thanks for this post perhaps Devialet will read this also
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#29
@Streamy: these phantom speakers would be as good as, even better than a pair of speakers at 15 K€?
It is quite surprising. A bit crazy.

Can you describe your impressions on the comparaison between both of them (phantom vs B&W 802 D)?
It could be really interesting to put words on what you feel are the main differences.

Thanks. ?

Fred
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#30
what is bass diameter on phantom? 8 inches? is there any need for sub?

Im more and more interested in this speakers.
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