Devialet Expert 200 Amplifier, DAC and Streamer Review

[Thomas savage]

There's a great deal of communication between hifi mags and manufacturers and distributors, the nature of which is quite shocking as is the influence one has on the other .

You can bet your arse anything resembling that kind of situation will never happen here. If that means the odd company gets blindsided or just fails to respond so be it , while unfortunate it's a small price to pay .

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

Whilst it would be lovely of Devialet to offer to fix the amp (and they are missing an opportunity to foster good-will by not doing so), they seem to be well within their rights to refuse.
I don't really see the problem with that.

However, the thing that is more damaging IMHO, is the awful measurements. They seem to make a mockery of the company's claim that "Devialet engineers have been able to achieve the best performance ever measured, at all power levels".
This should be high on their priority list (modulo the health crisis in France, of course)

 

[mi-fu]

I *guess* they are more than happy that this sample is broken. Then many people may just think: It is just a bad sample.

What if they agree repairing it or sending it another sample, the measurement turns out to be equally bad? The damage would be even bigger.

Exactly because they know what they are doing (and they know their products), so they choose to ignore it.

 

[infinitesymphony]

As much as I love ASR, I doubt the majority of Devialet's target market will care enough to do the research that would point them here.

Devialet have nothing to gain and plenty to lose by acknowledging this thread: proliferation of the belief that their equipment is not high-end after all, an uptick in RMAs from customers who now believe their units might have issues, etc. This will happen even if they do decide to send a sample that ends up performing better. "Is it a golden sample? Did they fix an issue that all of the older revisions have?"

 

[Doodski]

"Is it a golden sample? Did they fix an issue that all of the older revisions have?"

Is it a bad ground, protection circuitry falsely engaging/frying or simply bad design? Seen all the above causing a plethora of bizarre issues and they all required extensive mods and repairs. All manufacturers with major model issues I've mass modded and mass repaired want it kept secret.

 

[amirm]

That's not quite what I said. I said Devialet might have given you guidance on testing so as to avoid blowing up their amp.

That's like saying a car magazine contacts the manufacturer to see if they are allowed to test 0 to 60 time! Do you not understand the nature of the test I ran? It is the most common and typical power test run by anyone for an amplifier. Any amplifier that fails under it has a design problem. Here actually the amp did not die but the control processor as the display is dead. No way would they know what would cause that or else they would not have shipped the unit as is.

You are acting like every audio device is different and requires some special knowledge to test it. If so, it is a wonder you all as consumers know how to use them!

 

[amirm]

As much as I love ASR, I doubt the majority of Devialet's target market will care enough to do the research that would point them here.

It doesn't have to be the majority. The majority don't read stereophile review yet the company volunteered to have them test their amps.

 

[petrik]

I left this on. This is what hifinews had to say about it:

View attachment 56331

Seems to be something that would impact low level signals more than max power with a steady state input.

That said, its dynamic nature could explain the max compression (bug or feature).

I would like to ask that why did you leave the DPM on? The DPM, SAM, and ICM must be disabled during the measurements as far as I know. Unless of course if you want to see how these features affect to the measurements. It would be interesting to see if you could make the measurements again with these features disabled.

How did you configure the analogue input, was the input max level set properly to avoid clipping?

 

[amirm]

You think Devialet is trying to silence you. They're just exercising due care to not, in effect, invite everyone and his uncle with a website to experiment with their products and then come to them expecting help when things go south.

What's with these random arguments? Silence me? What the heck???

Company has immediately responded to my communication twice -- something the owners said they would never do. I am waiting now to see if their management decided to do something. So your theory of anyone and their uncle getting their attention is wrong. This site has about on million page views a month. It is not some random side on the Internet. Here is how we compare with stereophile:

We are the graph in blue that is growing. Orange is stereophile which is not. On average someone spends 7 minutes here versus 2 minutes on stereophile. They have been around many more years than we have. So to be where we are shows that people are coming here and are highly interested in what we have to say.

Companies can ignore us and that would be fine. We have many to choose from. But don't for a moment compare us to some random guy on the web.

 

[amirm]

I would like to ask that why did you leave the DPM on? The DPM, SAM, and ICM must be disabled during the measurements as far as I know.

How do you know? Do you have measurements with and without? And what if the unit had been damaged by me turning that off? The arrow would point at me for not using it properly, would it not?

 

[Doodski]

This site has about on million page views a month.

KooL. I was wondering and was going to ask today although now I know.

 

[petrik]

How do you know? Do you have measurements with and without? And what if the unit had been damaged by me turning that off? The arrow would point at me for not using it properly, would it not?

Good point. Maybe the best solution would have been discussing with them before taking the measurements. So that you would have known what settings should have been used. I got this information simply by just asking from them.

Sorry, I don't have the measurements with/without. I would very much like to see those!

 

[Koeitje]

What's with these random arguments? Silence me? What the heck???

Company has immediately responded to my communication twice -- something the owners said they would never do. I am waiting now to see if their management decided to do something. So your theory of anyone and their uncle getting their attention is wrong. This site has about on million page views a month. It is not some random side on the Internet. Here is how we compare with stereophile:

View attachment 57378

We are the graph in blue that is growing. Orange is stereophile which is not. On average someone spends 7 minutes here versus 2 minutes on stereophile. They have been around many more years than we have. So to be where we are shows that people are coming here and are highly interested in what we have to say.

Companies can ignore us and that would be fine. We have many to choose from. But don't for a moment compare us to some random guy on the web.

That's a short visit time for Stereophile, and I know my contribution to it: I just skip straight to the measurements and ignore the sales pitch in front of it. I read what @John Atkinson has to say and try to read between the lines there. I understand he will never point out the flaws like you do here, but I respect that they still publish measurements.

How do you know? Do you have measurements with and without? And what if the unit had been damaged by me turning that off? The arrow would point at me for not using it properly, would it not?

Technically those protections did stop you from doing more harm to it .

 

[Deleted member 65]

Good point. Maybe the best solution would have been discussing with them before taking the measurements. So that you would have known what settings should have been used. I got this information simply by just asking from them.

Sorry, I don't have the measurements with/without. I would very much like to see those!

Can you share your conversation with Devialet?

 

[infinitesymphony]

Technically those protections did stop you from doing more harm to it .

Ah yes, the old "lifetime" warranty.

 

[Doodski]

Technically those protections did stop you from doing more harm to it .

Protection circuitry with experienced electronics techs is renowned for frying and causing major issues and that includes microprocessor issues. I often think of the STR-AVxxxx series from Sony as a reminder. Protection circuitry transistors and resisters all fry, bake the circuit board and cause major issues all over the amplifier/receiver. Imagine the very circuitry that is supposed to prevent a cascade failure causes that and more and that includes intermittent failures that don't show up often. Protection circuitry can be the bane of a techy or owner.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Devialet knows about this review and its results, so far have not responded. Let's wait ... These days are not very conclusive to immediate and swift responses. Everything is to a crawl everywhere and as they say in French " Ils on d'autres chat a fouetter" .. peut-être... Perhaps... They will have to at some point. This is not a great result for this particular sample, considering the numbers they flout on their website:

AUDIO PERFORMANCE MEASURED IN STEREO

• 0.0005%
  THD+NOISE (HARMONIC DISTORTION) AT FULL POWER UNDER 6Ω
• 0,00025%
  THD AT 10W UNDER 6Ω
• 130 dB
  SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO
• 0.001Ω
  OUTPUT IMPEDANCE

that much will be said... Until another is tested, we are left with this data set (poor performance). Are there other independent tests of Devialet integrated/ multi-purposes devices (amps/streamer/ADC/DAC/Phono pre)? Would like to know how they compare.

Just read a post. if some settings result in such poor showing. It means that under those conditions the user is also getting poor performance ... Something the manufacturers would make them aware of...

Devialet, la balle est dans votre camp.

 

[Soniclife]

Protection circuitry with experienced electronics techs is renowned for frying and causing major issues and that includes microprocessor issues. I often think of the STR-AVxxxx series from Sony as a reminder. Protection circuitry transistors and resisters all fry, bake the circuit board and cause major issues all over the amplifier/receiver. Imagine the very circuitry that is supposed to prevent a cascade failure causes that and more and that includes intermittent failures that don't show up often. Protection circuitry can be the bane of a techy or owner.

With the Devialet, because the signal is always digital before the amp the protection should be mainly digital, it can mute before it amplifies a problem signal, not after, it should be the ideal way to protect the amp, and the speakers, on top of this it has at least 3 temp sensors to monitor itself. And having a DAC before the amp means that max voltage sent to the amp is known as well. It's a design that should lead to perfect protection, until the computer loses the plot when things could go very wrong.

 

[Soniclife]

Company has immediately responded to my communication twice -- something the owners said they would never do. I am waiting now to see if their management decided to do something.

If they don't come back to you again within a reasonable time (whatever that is these days) you could try ringing them if you haven't already, as it's so easy to fail to communicate with a ticket system.

North & South America
(844) 975-6718

Monday-Friday 10am - 6pm (EDT)

 

[Doodski]

With the Devialet, because the signal is always digital before the amp the protection should be mainly digital, it can mute before it amplifies a problem signal, not after, it should be the ideal way to protect the amp, and the speakers, on top of this it has at least 3 temp sensors to monitor itself. And having a DAC before the amp means that max voltage sent to the amp is known as well. It's a design that should lead to perfect protection, until the computer loses the plot when things could go very wrong.

Dang Class D gets me again. Not used to thinking in class D terms yet. I suppose in addition to all this this it has a PWM power supply for fast switching protection too.