Devialet 170

[Adrian]

Seriously cool system there...and looks v.good on the wall as well!!!

[Diapason]

Darek, everything has changed!

[tony]

Seriously cool system there...and looks v.good on the wall as well!!!

Think Adrian covers it accurately. I wont be showing that to Anne as I will be asked to explain the lack of wires and neatness!

[Darek]

Hello Everyone.
Thank you for a good words :) Yes Simon you are absolutely right everything is change :) paulb about the clock I make it few years ago and I really like it actually everything in my system was replaced except clock and TT.
I decided to downsize my system a little and rearrange my room as well a bit from B&W 800N to 804 diamonds thru Cremona's and from Classe pre power combination to Devialet thru Naim and Krell integrated units. Uhhhh long way but full of enjoyment.
Dave about the Chord blue CD it is transport with up sampling DAC upgraded to red specification. When I brought it have connected first time there was nothing special about this player but after few hours with and playing this same CD (actually this same song) I found right settings and in my opinion it sounding much better than any of my previous CD players like Wadia, Krell, Meridian and more.
I have it connected in to my D170 thru XLR digital from transport and with RCA after Chord DAC and in my opinion Chord DAC is more musical then DAC in Devialet.
Darek

[DaveF]

I found right settings and in my opinion it sounding much better than any of my previous CD players like Wadia, Krell, Meridian and more.
I have it connected in to my D170 thru XLR digital from transport and with RCA after Chord DAC and in my opinion Chord DAC is more musical then DAC in Devialet.
Darek

Thats quite interesting Darek. The Devialet DAC is still in use though as the Dev digitises everything. What's happening here is that the Dev DAC is faithfully reproducing the analog waveform produced by the Chord DAC in the first place, thus retaining its character. The Devialet is so transparent that it adds nor subtracts anything from the analog inputs.

Several posters over on hifiwigwam have reported this too. It opens up the possibilities of experimenting with various sources like tube CDPs and Cartridges.

My Clearaudio TT has never sounded this good before.

[Darek]

Dave yes you are right, but I still more like it thru 2x BNC 75 ohm sampling from 44.1 to 176 kHZ in to chord DAC then directly in to Devialet by XLR and 44.1. The difference is actually massive.
I love the phono stage build in to Devialet where I can adjust it in every way to match the cartridge and make yours TT sound amazing.

[DaveF]

Devialet have released a beta version of a major new firmware update to all the Devialet machines. I havent got mine yet but got a call from Cloney's about it.
My 110 unit will become a 120, adding 10 watts of power in the process and current owners of the 170 get additional 30 watts making theirs called the Devialet 200. They've update other internal processing too I believe.

They've also added something called SAM (Speaking matching) so you can tell the unit what speakers you have and it will automatically do the correct impedence matching. I'm sure not all speakers are currently supported at the moment though.

User reports have remarked on a very very clear improvement to the sound which is great given how good it was already.

The final version of this firmware upgrade with be released in middle of the month coinciding with an announcment at the Munich HiFi show I guess.

[Diapason]

I've been following this story in a few other places and it really does seem like everybody is very happy with this upgrade. The 500W dual monos are now 800W, apparently. Mad, Ted!

I still want one.

[DaveF]

Successfully upgraded my unit just a while ago. All seems working as expected. Still too early to tell if I hear improvements as I had system unplugged before the upgrade. Gonna leave it for a few hours playing away in the background before I come back to it. I doubt the extra wattage will make any difference in my case as the Audioplans arent power hungry at all but I believe they've improved other things with the upgrade so we'll see.

[DaveF]

Spent a fair bit of today listening to the new 120 after the upgrade. Absolutely no doubt about it that there is a change in the sound. The treble is a little smoother in vocals and possibly a little more ambience in certain recordings compared to before. Subtle enough though and the improvment is only there in certain recordings.

I only pop over to the Wam occassionally but I find it very very odd indeed that there is a small gang there that is rather keen to deride and dismiss this unit. Granted the 'Air' feature has had problems but everthing else works really well. I've had some really top end amps through my door over the years but the Devialet is one of the best I've had.