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Apple Now Selling Devialet's $2,000 Phantom Speaker in Select Stores
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I had two Devialet Phantom Silver since juli this year and I really loving the big, clean and detail sound, that are coming out of them. They are truly amazing and I am coming from high-end HIFI with expensive amplifier, speaker and cables. I am never going back to traditional music HIFI with boxes, cables etc. Now I'm just waiting patiently for the Devialet Branch stands.
I use Tidal and it sounds great. But people who have the option to use Qobuz 24 bit music says they truly lift them to another level.
I use Tidal and it sounds great. But people who have the option to use Qobuz 24 bit music says they truly lift them to another level.
All those comments hating on the speakers.
I had the chance to hear them live and I actually did not know this brand nor the speakers.
But they will blow you away. The sound is incredible. All from one single small speaker.
You will only know when you have heard them in action... and then you will realize that you're comment on here was embarrassing.
I had the chance to hear them live and I actually did not know this brand nor the speakers.
But they will blow you away. The sound is incredible. All from one single small speaker.
You will only know when you have heard them in action... and then you will realize that you're comment on here was embarrassing.
Given that a US wall socket will only provide 120V*15A, this is 1800W max (assuming 100% efficiency, which is of course about 2x reality), so 3KW is clearly some instantaneous max peak.
Well, unless this is running off 220 or a dedicated 30A circuit or something...
You can buy better systems, for less money but apparently what they have been able to do is get the size down to a tiny package.
For my money I use much larger and cheaper "classic" speakers. The specs are better for less cost but the size is vastly different You could buy a 70's vintage Infinity Quantum 2 for 1/10th the price.
Reading the specs for these Pantoms I see they of 99db SPL at 1 meter. That is loud but but as loud as my 5 watt guitar amp doing a 12" speaker cabinet. (I have a 105 db/w driver in the cabinet)
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Well... I kind of like the deisign of it and do not at the same time. It seems to me, they have missed some small detail to make it look great instead of decent.
Well, the speaker reminds me of a glorified on-off switch from iOS prior to seven.
I really hope, it does sound incredible (taking into account their top notch amps).
But for now: the newly acquired Zeppelin Wireless from B&W does the trick in terms of sound and design for me...
Well, the speaker reminds me of a glorified on-off switch from iOS prior to seven.
I really hope, it does sound incredible (taking into account their top notch amps).
But for now: the newly acquired Zeppelin Wireless from B&W does the trick in terms of sound and design for me...
It's interesting to compare people's perception of quality now and 40 years ago.
Take for example images. People today are used to looking at photos on a cell phone screen or at best on a larger TV screen. It does NOT require a good camera nor much skill as a photographer to fully utilize all of the available image quality of these displays. In other words the screen is the bottle-neck in image quality. I tried something not long ago, I brought out an old 70's vintage Kodak slide projector and showed some very old 35mm slides. Most of the audience thought this was going to be horrible. But afterwords many took the time to say they were blown away by what they saw. None of the slides where much out of the ordinary. But they made a very bright analog display that has more contrast and a wider range of color than any screen they have seen. (Kodachrome 25 is REALLY good stuff) Comparable to what you'd see in a top tier movie theater. 40 years ago everyone was used to this level of image display quality but it is rare today.
The same applies to sound quality. People today are used to MP3 and earbuds and the built-in iPhone speakers. So when they hear a sound system that has specs comparable to a 40 year old home stereo system they are just blown away. The experience is just so different from what they are used to.
Take for example images. People today are used to looking at photos on a cell phone screen or at best on a larger TV screen. It does NOT require a good camera nor much skill as a photographer to fully utilize all of the available image quality of these displays. In other words the screen is the bottle-neck in image quality. I tried something not long ago, I brought out an old 70's vintage Kodak slide projector and showed some very old 35mm slides. Most of the audience thought this was going to be horrible. But afterwords many took the time to say they were blown away by what they saw. None of the slides where much out of the ordinary. But they made a very bright analog display that has more contrast and a wider range of color than any screen they have seen. (Kodachrome 25 is REALLY good stuff) Comparable to what you'd see in a top tier movie theater. 40 years ago everyone was used to this level of image display quality but it is rare today.
The same applies to sound quality. People today are used to MP3 and earbuds and the built-in iPhone speakers. So when they hear a sound system that has specs comparable to a 40 year old home stereo system they are just blown away. The experience is just so different from what they are used to.
I get your point, but that is a bit unfair.
You are comparing the top notch products in each segment from 40 years ago with phones from today.
The overall average sound quality has probably improved. My grandparents mostly listened to their kitchen radio which had awful sound compared to 320 mp3's on my pc.
These have been around for a little while now and have been universally praised by everyone, in single or dual set-ups. I had the chance to listen to a set-up in a hi-fi store in Abu Dhabi a few months ago as I had been looking at these for my apartment there. Unfortunately the sound was not for me - way too much bass. I may still try to get a home demo as i think the shop setting had a massive negative effect on the sound.
"For such a price, these speakers better blow women's clothes off!"
To be honest, they are about that strong... I live a block away from a very nice audio store in Manhattan, Stereo Exchange, and had the opportunity to give these a good listen a couple of months ago. They are incredibly impressive. Dismissing audio products, scorning marketing etc has become very in vogue over the last decade, I get the sense people think it some how makes them sound like an audiophile expert if they poo poo any new system that comes along that touts itself as the new great thing.
These speakers are about as close to that as you can get, for their size they produce an incredible sound!
(I do not own them, I would like too, but currently have BW monitors running through a good old fashion tube amp )
To be honest, they are about that strong... I live a block away from a very nice audio store in Manhattan, Stereo Exchange, and had the opportunity to give these a good listen a couple of months ago. They are incredibly impressive. Dismissing audio products, scorning marketing etc has become very in vogue over the last decade, I get the sense people think it some how makes them sound like an audiophile expert if they poo poo any new system that comes along that touts itself as the new great thing.
These speakers are about as close to that as you can get, for their size they produce an incredible sound!
(I do not own them, I would like too, but currently have BW monitors running through a good old fashion tube amp
)Ah so like Beats headphones. Overpriced, sold by apple, and inaccurate reproduction of the frequency spectrum/hyped frequencies while being promoted as high end audio. Got it.
No. Im comparing what was common now with what was common then. 40 years ago a 35mm film camera was what "everyone" used. They were all what we call today "Full Frame" bodies. Some were just point and shoots and others where SLRs. SLRs where actually more common then. The image quality from a 35mm film camera shooting Kodachrome was better then what most people have today. I'm comparing a common consumer camera to an iPhone. The old camera wins by quite a lot.
Same with stereo. If you had one at all 40 years ago there was a good chance it was some large very high efferent (and large) speakers driven by a vacuum tube amplifier. That is what they had back then. I'm not talking studio quarry pro level equipment, just home, consumer gear. It was much better then what most people use today.
I'm comparing the stuff that the average person used and was used to in the two eras.
In 40 ears we have made zero gains in quality. What HAS changed is the cost and size. Today it's cheap and tiny.
Well, it won't be 3,000 Watt RMS, because 3,000 Watt RMS in the same living room as yourself is something you won't survive :-( And the walls won't survive either. About 100 Watt RMS is the limit if you don't want the neighbours to put out a contract. Even if you live a mile from the nearest neighbour, with 3,000 Watt RMS environmentalists will enquire where all the dead birds come from.
Even 750 Watt is either terribly, terribly inefficient, or absolute overkill. That's going to a rock concert and holding your ears against one of the speakers on the stage.
Actually, you don't need thousands. You need a small amount of money, a wife that agrees with the plan, and you need to know what you are doing. It's mostly avoiding the extremes: Naked walls and curtains that swallow any sound. Especially if you have one on the left and one on the right. Put some plants against the naked wall, hang up some pictures. Replace super heavy curtains with something lighter. Bit of carpet and not stone floor. Things sucking up sound in _random_ positions.
Speakers so that you are at the top of a triangle with the speakers at the bottom of the triangle. Speakers aimed at you, tilted if necessary. On a stand that isn't rattling. (Standing large speakers on half cut tennis balls is optimal, but you might need something more compatible with whoever else lives at the home).
Not what I said at all. Too much bass FOR ME (I am used to a Cyrus pre/mono block set-up with Vienna Acoustics and PMC), and I am sure the shop set-up was a large factor in this too. These speakers have been praised unanimously since their launch. There is not one bad piece of publicity published about them. Someone I trust very much in the hi-fi world, with lots of experience of various pieces of kit and even DIY has stated that you would need to spend around $10,000 on a separates system to compete with these speakers. Devialet is a very well respected hi-fi brand, they are doing some very clever stuff and are very highly thought of and not considered over priced. It's not appropriate to compare any of their products to something like Beats or Bose.
Great, it's still $6000 CAD for the pair. That's right $3000 only get's you ONE, but wait, I have TWO ears. Oh right one unit has 2 drivers, how great do you suppose the stereo imaging will be if the source is coming from one location? How about phasing issues? Surely the design assumes the listener will be in a fixed (unknown) location to compensate for these issues, or it doesn't deal with them at all. I did look up the technical specs and saw that the frequency response was not as accurate as studio monitors costing less. The insides look really well engineered though.