Devialet - use of its phono stage

[FrantzM]

I am not your enemy Frantz

I know Roger but I can tell you that that little pizza box of electronics is rather scary. It is fine looking and come with everything except the speakers. It is digital all over but the sound is gorgeous in a surprising way.
I believe it deserves an audition. I did and am now officially a fan.

 

[microstrip]

I know Roger but I can tell you that that little pizza box of electronics is rather scary. It is fine looking and come with everything except the speakers. It is digital all over but the sound is gorgeous in a surprising way.
I believe it deserves an audition. I did and am now officially a fan.

Frantz,

I hope it was a blind and long audition to avoid the long term expectation bias and the "wow" effect.

BTW, you are one of the fans that considers that Devialet was great since the Devialet Premier or only after the last great revision?

 

[microstrip]

Unfortunately the thread on a Devialet is becoming a ridiculous digital versus analog contest. As no one is referring with details to his own experience or to an existing decent subjective review of the Devialet, referring both the negative and positive aspects - IMHO there is no perfection in stereo audio - we are moving sideways.

 

[microstrip]

(...) It is digital all over (...)

Sorry, it is not so simple. It is an hybrid structure (Analog Digital Hybrid amplification technology, ADH hybrid core), adding the characteristic analog distortions of an high quality class A amplifier at the output.

 

[RogerD]

I know Roger but I can tell you that that little pizza box of electronics is rather scary. It is fine looking and come with everything except the speakers. It is digital all over but the sound is gorgeous in a surprising way.
I believe it deserves an audition. I did and am now officially a fan.

Thank you Frantz. I listen to more digital than I want to admit to,as I must have over 3K of CD's. So Iam a big cheerleader of the best digital gear and future improvements. The day I can purchase a DDD CD and think it has all the qualities of analog is the day I never think about fooling with vinyl again. I will resurrect my vinyl rig someday,just because of the music only. As for tape it will be always my first love as the tape preamps I have are all glorious. As for the Devialet I am guilty of not knowing much about it. When it comes to audio equipment, simplicity is a great magnet for me,the simpler the better,who else would listen to a circa 1953 preamp and think it wonderful. When the time comes the Devialet will be on my list to audition.

Listen to Teldec's Tango Ballet & Maia de Buenos Aries,as they sound wonderful. I wish all digital sounded this good.

And Frantz what this review by JA says about clarity is what I'm talking about when I speak of a EMI noiseless system. There is 2 ways to skin the cat evidently.

"The words I kept jotting down in my auditioning of the D-Premier with all these speakers were clean and clear. Not clean in the sense of sterile or clear in the sense of cold, but "clean and clear" in that a wealth of recorded detail was apparent without in any way being spotlit or flung forward at the listener. For example, I have been a fan of blues singer Howling Wolf since I was exposed to his music by British blues bands a half century ago. But in all those years, only the Devialet driving the Sonys has made me aware of the slight increase in the reverb around the Wolf's voice in the "woo-hoo" chorus of "Smokestack Lightning." And with the KEF LS50s, the music stand being knocked over that brackets Lowell George's "20 Million Things to Do," from Little Feat's Hotcakes & Outtakes: 30 Years of Little Feat (CD, Warner Archives/Rhino R2 79912), was there in my listening room, virtual reality courtesy the D-Premier."

http://www.stereophile.com/content/devialet-d-premier-da-integrated-amplifier-page-2

This is the cutting edge of audio now...to reduce EMI in the signal path.
There is the Devialet way,to shorten the signal path by combining two different topologies.
Dartzeel uses the battery and circuit design.
FM Acoustics does extra shielding and by circuit design.

Extreme clarity reveals information that was always there just masked. It is not masked by distortion but by magnetic interference. Shorten the signal path to reduce EMI and this is what you get....

"Devialet's D-Premier amplifier is the most extraordinary product I have reviewed for Stereophile. Superb sound quality, future-proof design, everything you need in one box—it is the epitome of what a high-end audio product should be. Wow!"


Simplicity is the father of genius......the noiseless race is on except very few understand it.

 

[FrantzM]

Frantz,

I hope it was a blind and long audition to avoid the long term expectation bias and the "wow" effect.

BTW, you are one of the fans that considers that Devialet was great since the Devialet Premier or only after the last great revision?

Heard the "The Premier" too briefly to form a concrete opinion. It did sound good though . The last iteration I had the leisure to listen at length to it and it is IMO a true game change so flexible it is and the sonic advantages of it. Adding to that it sounds extremely good and doesn't ever seem to run out of power. To mitigate the effects of sighted audition, I tried to darken the room ...

 

[f1eng]

Getting back to the original question, the Devialet is the most natural and neutral sounding amplifier I have heard in my 50 years of using (and 38 years ago designing...) hifi whether phono, analogue or digital inputs are used.

I wouldn't hesitate to use the phono stage, though if you have a particular 'stage you particularly like the "colour" of I am witness to the fact that the colour will be maintained by using an analogue input.

 

[FrantzM]

Sorry, it is not so simple. It is an hybrid structure (Analog Digital Hybrid amplification technology, ADH hybrid core), adding the characteristic analog distortions of an high quality class A amplifier at the output.

The DeVialet thing is digital micro. Since we humans are not (yet?) able to listen to digital in all its unadulterated form there had to be some digital to analog conversion. I think that self-evident. The Devialet will convert any input to digital then re-process/convert the resulting string of digital to analog ... Digital all over

As

 

[mtseymour]

The Devialet phono stage is excellent. Happily sold my ARC Ref 2 and now use the Devialet phono stage.

This talk of heresey re conversion to digital and back is supposition and not based on actual experience.

I really wanted to love the Devialet. It's compact and it would be nice to get rid of my separates and mass of cables (my wife would be ecstatic). After reading all the reviews, i wanted to hear for myself. One local store used the Devialet 400 to drive a Magico S5. The system was in a small room (approx 12 x 20') with poor acoustics. Not surprisingly, the sound was bright and ill-defined. The 2nd store had the Devialet 200 in a very large room (over 20 x 40') driving the Revel Studio2 speakers. The 200 had enough power to fill the room and sounded pretty good on digital and analog source (a mid-end Nottingham setup).

The 2nd dealer was nice enough to give me a home demo. In a nutshell, the Devialet's phono section is good but not great. When I drove the 200 using my VPI/Tri-Planar Mk VII/Dynavector XV-1s/Pass XP-15, the sound was noticeably less resolving, dynamic and involving. Transients were blunted and low level details (eg. hall ambience, decay) were less clearly defined. I changed the ADC conversion from 96 to 192kHz, but that only raised the noise floor. To be fair, my analog rig is more expensive than the Devialet.

For audiophiles who don't listen to analog critically or extensively, the Devialet is a really good option. It's actually a bargain. It's just not fair to expect the Devialet to match a stand-alone phono stage that cost over $3,000. If you want to get the Devialet and sell your Ref 2 or XP-25, please send me a PM!

 

[Chuck Lee]

I was using a Manley Steelhead,now I've got the Devialet 250 Pro.
I'm not using my tube servoamped Acoustat4's either.
I now use Spendor SP1/2R2.
So, it's a different system, but I still use the same LP's and I don't think the digital transformation by the Devialet is doing any harm.
I liked the Steelhead's cartridge loading scheme, but the Devialet is something else.
I like the options- mono, EQ curves to suit the record company,all from the remote,still discovering how much this machine offers.
If there's a downside to going from analog to digital and back to analog I haven't heard it.