Audiophile people have difficulty with Devialet because it cannot be judged by their normal criteria. This became clear to me after meeting their Chief Engineer.
Firstly, it started with a bored telecoms engineer designing the perfect amplifier (or his version of one) in his spare time. It was an A-D hybrid, which as a Quad user sounded remarkably familiar. He then designed a really very good power supply. So he had some patented technology and decided to get together with some folks and make an audio product. Completely the wrong way, because most audio companies have nothing new to offer but customers to keep happy, whereas they had something good and no audio company. He partnered with a finance guy and product designer, two things often lacking in audio companies.
So they sit down and decide how an audio system should work - small and aesthetic (can be hung on the wall), all inputs and outputs customisable, software driven, all digital processing (no pure analog path) all elements designed purely to technical specifications. No claims to be "voiced" etc., it just takes signals from anything and amplifies them as accurately as possible with the minimum amount of distortion.
A key factor was almost fully automated manufacture, which keeps costs down and meant it could be made in France, not China, with optimum quality control and customer service. No soldering irons in sight.
Worst, audiophiles can’t really critique individual components and you can’t look inside and everything really all works together.
dCS aren’t much different, they’d had their ring-DAC for years before they went into audio.
A major design factor was creating the best remote control on the planet. I’m told it has a huge impact on regular (non-audiophile) customers.
I like it. It works for me. It’s hidden away so I don’t look at it, but the space saving is also a major issue. People who like stacks of boxes, cables and tweaking should look elsewhere.
