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Devialet opinions, reflection.

mattgbell said:
Anyone who's tempted to dip their toe into the world of Devialet would be well advised to look out for a second-hand Devialet that's not been upgraded to the PRO level. There are a few of these about. They sell for around £3K upwards. Excellent value.
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They would be good value at that price, but I listened to the Le 250 and 250 Pro side by side and went for the upgrade. Well worth it, and also came with the streaming card upgrade (otherwise £1,300) when it is released.

Devialet is not something to 'dip your toe' into. If you are an incurable box swapper, don't bother unless you want to be cured. If you want great sound and never want to worry about a component system again, its a good long term bet.
 
It really does not cure you of tweaking .. it just shifts your tweaking from box/cable shuffling to stuff that makes a REAL and audible difference ... Positioning .. room treatment ..dsp ... room correction etc.
 
Interesting thread for me, as I've been thinking at moving to a decent 'one box' , or at least fewer boxes, system but the thought of shelling out £12.5 k in one go for say a 250 Pro is holding me back. What if I didn't like it? My current system probably cost about the same but getting it together was an incremental process. I must check out second hand Devialet prices!
 
If hifi is a hobby and not just a way to deliver good sound then buying all those boxes is the fun in it. There are certainly times I wished I had less wires, boxes and cleaning to do but isn't a Devialet a bit like buying a B&O system 30 years ago ?
 
There was a sort of inverted snobbery about B&O, along the lines that anything that looked that good couldn't be real hi-fi, but actually some of it was/still is really rather good. I suspect Devialet is like that.

In my case the desire to reduce box count is a bit of an age thing. I've done the 'hobby' bit and I'm becoming increasingly less inclined to mess around with complicated stuff. I want a simple unencumbered life. Devialet could be part of the answer?
 
MikeMA said:
There was a sort of inverted snobbery about B&O, along the lines that anything that looked that good couldn't be real hi-fi, but actually some of it was/still is really rather good. I suspect Devialet is like that.

In my case the desire to reduce box count is a bit of an age thing. I've done the 'hobby' bit and I'm becoming increasingly less inclined to mess around with complicated stuff. I want a simple unencumbered life. Devialet could be part of the answer?
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Indeed Mike. Most audio companies can only dream of having access to the facilities and engineering talent B&O have had at their disposal over the years.
 
I used the Devialet 400s for about 10 months but got cheesed off when they asked for a substantial sum to upgrade to the new 440s. Sold them and switched to MBL.

The sound is decent enough for the money and you cannot fault the looks and convenience. However, I believe that my MBL beats the Devialet if pure sound quality is the criterion.
 
The amps are great products. It does seem however that trying to milk the customer base is getting on people's nerves. These are supposed to be fit and forget products. The old audiophool model does not apply - either to the purchaser or the manufacturer.
 
MikeMA said:
Interesting thread for me, as I've been thinking at moving to a decent 'one box' , or at least fewer boxes, system but the thought of shelling out £12.5 k in one go for say a 250 Pro is holding me back. What if I didn't like it? My current system probably cost about the same but getting it together was an incremental process. I must check out second hand Devialet prices!
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You might also like to try this...

https://www.strictlystereo.com/shop-online/auralic-polaris-wireless-streaming-amplifier
 
MikeMA said:
There was a sort of inverted snobbery about B&O, along the lines that anything that looked that good couldn't be real hi-fi, but actually some of it was/still is really rather good. I suspect Devialet is like that.

In my case the desire to reduce box count is a bit of an age thing. I've done the 'hobby' bit and I'm becoming increasingly less inclined to mess around with complicated stuff. I want a simple unencumbered life. Devialet could be part of the answer?
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Yes a lot of truth in that. I did not say B&O were bad. And I agree about the age/simplify inclination.
For hifi people B&O, Devialet, Steinway etc just look a bit too much like lifestyle products that anybody with a lot of money would buy. Probably from Harrods rather than a hifi shop. And they kind of lock you in to a one brand approach which may be sensible, but some people don't like that.
 
My 2 used D premiers cost me just over 11 000 EU .. they have benefited from firmware upgrades BIG time and are now dual 500w monoblocks .. would cost me a further eu 7000 to get to 1000p status .. which is currently Eu 27000 .. I save eu10000 and get BETTER than the 1000pro as I have 2 masters..

At any rate..I and most of my pals that own Devialets could have bought anything else in its place .. most winced when asked to shell out eye watering prices for a bathroom scale .. by FAR the biggest reason they and I bought was the SQ .. thats what it took to reluctantly part with the moolah... that pain is long forgotten...
 
I am still delighted by my Devialets. I was never a keen box swapper though, the previous phono stage/ transport/DAC/preamp/monoblocks had been in place 15 years before I bought it/them (I started with a D-Premier then bought another and went dual mono).
I have had quite a few systems over the years and certainly think the Devialet is the least coloured amp I have heard. The treble is clear without being harsh or rolled off, the mid liquid and delightful and the bass the best of any amp I have tried.
I am using the phono stage and feel it, too, is linear and transparent, I have not heard one more so, but no euphonic colouration either (on any input).
On SQ I can't fault it, I have no problem with having the configuration on a SD card and not connected to the internet - as a computer person who wrote my first useful software in 1971 I am less and less confident of the security of any connected devices, perhaps getting old, but something with easy access and no police??????
So it isn't for people who enjoy evaluating loads of kit or anybody believing digital has incurable shortcomings, on pure sound quality and convenience it is the winner of the last few years IME and it will almost certainly last me the rest of my life.
 
sls4321 said:
I'm an Auralic fan, using an Aries with my Devialet 250 Pro. The Polaris looks excellent, but its amplification is not up the Devialet, nor is the phono stage. There are similar devices from AVM, the same cost as a 250 Pro without the remote.
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I have not heard the new 250 Pro, but I am sure that the Polaris would give the outgoing 120 a run for its money in sound quality terms, whilst also offering a broader feature set.
 
F1eng said:
I am still delighted by my Devialets. I was never a keen box swapper though, the previous phono stage/ transport/DAC/preamp/monoblocks had been in place 15 years before I bought it/them (I started with a D-Premier then bought another and went dual mono).
I have had quite a few systems over the years and certainly think the Devialet is the least coloured amp I have heard. The treble is clear without being harsh or rolled off, the mid liquid and delightful and the bass the best of any amp I have tried.
I am using the phono stage and feel it, too, is linear and transparent, I have not heard one more so, but no euphonic colouration either (on any input).
On SQ I can't fault it, I have no problem with having the configuration on a SD card and not connected to the internet - as a computer person who wrote my first useful software in 1971 I am less and less confident of the security of any connected devices, perhaps getting old, but something with easy access and no police??????
So it isn't for people who enjoy evaluating loads of kit or anybody believing digital has incurable shortcomings, on pure sound quality and convenience it is the winner of the last few years IME and it will almost certainly last me the rest of my life.
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Surprisingly I see that our Yamaha NS-1000Ms are now catered for by SAM. Frank, I know you have a pair - you don't fancy connecting them up to your Devialet and seeing what effect SAM has on them do you?
 
Strictly Stereo said:
I have not heard the new 250 Pro, but I am sure that the Polaris would give the outgoing 120 a run for its money in sound quality terms, whilst also offering a broader feature set.
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I've not heard the 120, only the Le 250. There are ex-demo 120's on sale for £3,000, less than the Polaris £3,500. However, the power supply and amplification in all Devialets is a lot more sophisticated than the Auralic supply and UCD180 boards. The improved power supply in the Devialet Pro makes a significant improvement to sound quality, having listened side by side.

The clever thing in the Polaris is the hybrid volume control.

I think the Polaris is over-priced, they are making the most of their brand value and the lack of serious competition. I think Onkyo/TEAC are bringing out something that will give it a run for its money.
 
One further point: viewed as amps (i.e. aside from all the other things they do), the Devialets are remarkably agnostic with regard to the speaker loads they can drive.

They have plenty enough grunt to drive low-sensitivity speakers dynamically. And they have such low noise that they work really well with high-sensitivity speakers. Over the last few months I've used my D200 with Vivid V1.5s, ATC SCM40s, and the new JBL 4429s. It was superb with all of them.
 
I'm actually not anti Devialet at all and can certainly see the appeal. However, for me, the space saving aspect is not one of the attractions and I rather like my ridiculous large stacks of varied boxes required to play acrecord :). I can certainly appreciate how others opinions would be diametrically opposite in this regard though.
 
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