Devialet Phantom?

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I find it interesting how people who have never seen or heard the things could have such vociferous opinions about them. It reminds me of the very uncharitable, ignorant and insulting comments I often heard in the early years I was involved in tube audio before it was trendy and fashionable.

I've heard these several times over the past few years at Son et Image in Montreal, and while I would honestly state they are not my cup of tea I can with relative assurance touch on their novelty, and engineering which is not hard to see. It is a well executed and engineered device targeted at a specific (and yes well healed) market, it seems very well suited to home theater applications, it will play very loud, images pretty well and does bass better than you'd ever expect given the size. I was amazed at the excursion of the bass driver and those rigid diaphragms, they move more air than I ever expected.

Anyone who has ever tried to sell audio equipment in the audiophile market (ugh) knows that sizzle sells steak, and that means total marketing mumbo jumbo and technical BS. Not excusing this unfortunate trend, and I feel dirty every time I read the typical product brochure at one of these shows.
Visit any high end audio salon and you will be subjected to large doses of it in many cases.
 
From what I recall it uses a PCM1798 or similar from that same DAC series driving the class D amplification.

Devialets stand alone class D amplifiers have always been well engineered and are excellent no nonsense products.

Regardless of its visual appeal, or lack there of towards certain individuals, the internals have been well designed and thought out.
 
Devialet products seem to be very well made.
What is bearable with difficulty is the coarse marketing prose to promote them,
using a large amount of very dubious claims.

Devialet Phantom : an impressive speaker with 77 patents

Where are they ? Only less than ten Devialet patents can be found.

A few time ago, I had a look to the Devialet Current-Voltage converter.
It immediately remembered me of a current conveyor as used in Wadia CD player.

For the amp and the CV converter, at first sight, there is nothing really new.
 
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We have to remind than now even a good product can't be sold without a huge marketing... The product has also to look good, most people certainly are liking the look it has. Their markett are the Bang&Olufsen but in more fun and younger as it's less pricy, littlier: brillant as the real Estate is more and more expensive and the markett less restrictive than B&O. It's not by luck it can be found now in Apple Stores near IPhone : you enter in the "want to be" club with modern and looky wirelless products !

It is not made for us as we favor firstly the sounding result more than the pragmatic side of such product (good looking, valuation of the owner, even by the looking of the product when it is not playing : in fact when you have a Phantom somewhere : you only see this one like a Ana Barbara cartoon with Scubidu dog ! It is a known fact than a Phantom in a scotish castle is the main attraction, Entertainment !)

Well I'm surprised it is non reviewed by main Hifi review ? Ads problems 😉 !

French are traumatized with sperical shapes since Renault 14 car which launching marketing operation was totally wasted by the marketing people !

But the best spherical made in France is certainly the Sphere from Cabasse and this time it's more expensive than B&O ! Did you see a review elsewhere than in France from a hifi magazine for the Phantom?

La Sphère - Stéréo Haute Fidélité - Cabasse loudspeakers

Here I believe people are not outrageous but a little amuzed by the too much touchy marketing Hammer of the Phantom ! You can only have one Sphere, it's wifi, etc ! It has an integrated Cybernetic intelligence like if your speaker can tell in front of the reviewers at the end of the movie : "I AM Iron-Man" !

But it deserves more reviews in magazines imho as it's new ! We can see also than the old hifi markett is a little bit conservative and hifi-magazines protect mainly the products made on their sol ! We can see also Madame marketing for Aplle is very pragmatic and has not the shyness of hifi dealers ! Brillant girl imho !
 
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The amp described in the old AES paper is a class-d amp tha tis corrected at its output by a more precise linear amplifier (feed forward error correction). Component matching could be quite tricky as I could imagine. There was also an Austrian patent, where the correction signal of the linear amplifier is fed via the "cold end" of the output filter's cap (see more below).

The Devialet is basically an ordinary amp with a PWM controlled current source in parallel.

This one here is quite a good subscription of such an amp, preceding Devialet's patent :

https://www.pes.ee.ethz.ch/uploads/..._A_Novel_Switch-Mode_Power_Amplifier_scan.pdf

This is the basic devialet patent, it looks as if the devialet modulator is self-oscillating :

Patent US7545212 - Class ad audio amplifier - Google Patents

The oldest patent I have seen of such a device is more than 20 years old and was by some Australian guys, if memory serves me right.

This paper here is also interesting because it is written by the Austrian Prof who invented the principle where the correction signal is fed via the lowpass filter cap, but it does also show a switchmode assisted linear amplifier.

https://www.pes.ee.ethz.ch/uploads/tx_ethpublications/ertl_PCIM05.pdf

About 15 years ago I made SPICE simulations with switchmode assisted linear amplifiers where the modulator was using a clocked delta sigma topology. Although the simulation results looked promising I did never attempt to build one.

Regards

Charles
 
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Don't know IF it is better at all. The devialet amp as such has received a lot of good reviews. I wasn't able to hear one so far though.
The advantage of such topologies is that it is easier to build an amp with good specs that way.
I am still searching for that old Aussie patent with the self oscilationg topology. When I come across I will post a link as well.

Regards

Charles
 
Too big, you can always hide them behind Something like the speakers !

But too expensive for an amp... sure ! Not for all or my wallet either...

I bought a second hand amp Chord spm 1000 B because a hard speaker to drive, still with both for a long time ! It's a switching Something power supply as well !
 
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