Look, I've already qualified what I said, and both the original statement and the later, qualified statement were made in the interest of providing technical information, or "value to the forum" if you like. If you don't think this was of interest, fine, but the confrontational attitude is frankly a bit tiresome and unnecessary.
Let's see how this "vastly superior" new Devialet model faired in Stereophile test:
Here it managed to put only 8W when IM test was performed:
" I ran into problems when I tried to test for intermodulation distortion with my usual mix of 19kHz and 20kHz tones. The amplifier went into protection with sustained high-power, high-frequency tones, reducing the output level. The spectrum in fig.9 was taken at 8Wpc into 4 ohms, the highest power the amplifier would deliver continuously without its protection operating. "
And here it shows non-symmetrical behaviour between left and right channel:
"When I increased the bit depth from 16 to 24 with a dithered 1kHz tone at –90dBFS, the random noise floor dropped by >20dB in the left channel (fig.13, blue trace), meaning that the Devialet's digital inputs offer almost 20 bits' worth of resolution in this channel. However, the noise floor in the right channel (red trace) is higher than it is in the left and has an odd scalloped appearance. "
And here is how it did on jitter test:
"Finally, tested for its rejection of word-clock jitter with 16-bit USB data, all the odd-order harmonics of the LSB-level, low-frequency squarewave were below the level of noise (fig.16; their correct levels are indicated by the sloping green line). However, a pair of sidebands at ±120Hz to the sides of the peak that represents the high-level tone at one-quarter the sample rate can be seen, these power supply-related. Note that I had to reduce the volume to "–24" to make this measurement, to avoid the amplifier going into protection. "
Yep, I cannot think of a better word to describe this kind of performance than "superior".
Yes , start with the case then engineer the electronics to fit .
Good question. Firstly, I suppose I would never buy a $10000 amplifier when $150 amp like the A500 is perfectly adequate. But then, I'm a functionalist with no appreciation of 'nice things.' * However, if I were to buy such an amplifier, then I probably would short the outputs out if the spec said it was protected. Somewhat academic I grant, given my proclivities for buying what meets my spec, not just what I fancy.
The Phantom issue is the main reason I have no love for Devialet. I wonder just how repairable the amplifiers are except by putting a new board in that lovely case. Ditto all mobile 'phones and a lot of cheap modern electronics. They're cheap because they are machine-assembled and there's no provision for repair.
As I noted in my frequency response post, the power limiting seems dynamic. It is taking into account more than one factor to do that. So it is possible that the soundstage unit does the same thing under the same conditions I and stereophile tested.
There probably would of been conversations between the two parties and likely it was decided they'd leave it hidden in plain sight .
There probably would of been conversations between the two parties and likely it was decided they'd leave it hidden in plain sight .
Bit like the meetings any company might have with a marketing firm.
Maybe, but also consider that the unit you measured and also the one JA measured both fell way short of spec on THD+N. The Soundstage THD+N vs power graph is much closer to spec.
