Has anyone heard the Devialet D-Premier Integrated Amp/DAC

If you mean PS Audio mains filtering, I do not think it is a good idea. The Devialet has a very advanced power supply and filtering internally, and according to my experience it sounds best when directly connected to a wall outlet, without any filtering, or tricky mains distributor. All the mains regenerator, filtering units I tried in the last two years with it, just made its sound dead and lifeless.You can experiment with the power cables too, I found few shielded mains cables working very well, and few not shielded but very highly praised and well known cables not so well.

Not my experience, the P10 did improve the sound significantly. Or at least did it significantly reduce the variability of the sound I had been experimenting.

Cheers,
Bernard
 
Actually if you use the latest firmware 5.7.1 dropping the wifi connection is not a problem at all even with high resolution tracks and I play a lot of them all day. It works very well. You need high quality router, mine is an Apple Airport Extreme and it works really well. I do not have any other traffic on this wifi connection except the D-Premier remote from my iPhone. The regular wifi for internet in the room using a different connection and Ethernet cables.

Hello
7.7/1.5 is much worse for interferences. I am not sure if you have yourself listening for a long time but you should also feel the random cuts which happen from time to time (once a week in my case) and force you to move to a cable solution (Pure Music or Audirvana). When you read the French audiophile forum about D Premier you can see that most of the people have those issues whether or not they have a dedicated Airport Extreme or not, whether or not they have internet or not. Those cuts have nothing to do with internet and they will even happen if your Devialet is literally next to your router with your Mac also very close. It may be linked to some other external factors...
Regarding the AC, it looks like people using PS Audio 10 or 5 see some improvements too but this must me more subjective than cuts so we can always argue about that.
You might be one of the lucky one with no cuts so far; what is your external environment ?
Thanks
philoouu
 
Hello
7.7/1.5 is much worse for interferences. I am not sure if you have yourself listening for a long time but you should also feel the random cuts which happen from time to time (once a week in my case) and force you to move to a cable solution (Pure Music or Audirvana). When you read the French audiophile forum about D Premier you can see that most of the people have those issues whether or not they have a dedicated Airport Extreme or not, whether or not they have internet or not. Those cuts have nothing to do with internet and they will even happen if your Devialet is literally next to your router with your Mac also very close. It may be linked to some other external factors...
Regarding the AC, it looks like people using PS Audio 10 or 5 see some improvements too but this must me more subjective than cuts so we can always argue about that.
You might be one of the lucky one with no cuts so far; what is your external environment ?
Thanks
philoouu

My home is in a middle of a residential area, there are at least seven different wifi routers/connections crossing my room. There is a room and a wall between the router and my Mac Mini, the DP is in the same room as the router. It works very well, no reason to complain. Sometimes I leave it with a looped playlist for playing and it goes without a hiccup for days.

Regarding AC: every filter/mains regenerator I tried reduced the liveliness of the reproduction. No exception. YMMV, of course, I do not want to convince anybody, it is just my experience.
 
I can only confirm - the latest firmware works fine. I leave the Devialet for speakers break-in for several days, no problem at all. With previous firmware it was not so stable.

Vess
 
My home is in a middle of a residential area, there are at least seven different wifi routers/connections crossing my room. There is a room and a wall between the router and my Mac Mini, the DP is in the same room as the router. It works very well, no reason to complain. Sometimes I leave it with a looped playlist for playing and it goes without a hiccup for days.

Regarding AC: every filter/mains regenerator I tried reduced the liveliness of the reproduction. No exception. YMMV, of course, I do not want to convince anybody, it is just my experience.

You must be one of the lucky one using it intensively without any cuts. I have not only experiencing problems on my side but some of my close friends too so this is not only forum based stuff. I live on a high floor in a tower close to a RFI transmitter too... Anyway those cuts happens once every two weeks for a few hours than disappear. On the French forum I mentioned some people have those cuts in a room but not in another one... so it looks like it is difficult to explain (both location and timing).
philoouu
 
You must be one of the lucky one using it intensively without any cuts. I have not only experiencing problems on my side but some of my close friends too so this is not only forum based stuff. I live on a high floor in a tower close to a RFI transmitter too... Anyway those cuts happens once every two weeks for a few hours than disappear. On the French forum I mentioned some people have those cuts in a room but not in another one... so it looks like it is difficult to explain (both location and timing).
philoouu

Well, there you go, you are French! Just kidding, but sorry to hear about your problems.
 
I'm a little annoyed that he found that the AIR function both sounds worse and measures worse than other connections.

Me too Ekmanc. First Airsounds very good in my set up. But since a direct connection seemed better in the review (also according to some other reviews) it is in direct contrast to what Devialet were stating about Wifi being the best sounding input.

I started with SPDIF input to the D-Premier using a USB converter but sold that when Air came out. Admittedly I only had a single D-Premier at that point and with many changes in firmware and Air versions so I did not bother to do any direct testing myself.

I am now even more curious though to compare ways other than WiFi to send a signal to the D-Premier.

Seems like the two 'better' USB to SPDIF converters out there at the moment are Audiophilleo + Pure Power and the off-ramp 5 (off-ramp 4 used in the Stereophile review). Both purported to have very low jitter clocks which seems a vital ingredient for best signal input. Of course the computer source is also decent (Hardware & Software).

I am not sure to what extent the HDMI input can be utilised on the Devialet but would be interested if there is any potential for connecting a computer source to the D-Premier this way.

As a side note, I used to own a Modwright Transporter (slim devices transporter) and I always thought it sounded much better with ethernet compared to WiFi. It maybe that in theory Wifi should sound better, but in reality it does not due to the fact that it creates interference with internal components when activated. Devialet should have put a ethernet connection as an input since they were already implementing Wifi.

There is nothing wrong with the Air from what I am hearing, but if there is better sound to be had by using another input then I would like to know about it!

Anyone know about the HDMI input and if it can be used as an input that is at least as comparable to Air. Anyone else compared Air v's direct source connection.
 
(off-ramp 4 used in the Stereophile review).

One thing that came to mind is that the review was done with firmware 5.6 and Air 1.4. The dual Mono has had its power increased from 400W to 500W and a new Wifi protocol was added. The review would need to be updated to compare these changes. Maybe it could be done at the same time as the update on the D-Premier's phono stage .... Still the input issue requires more verification. Hopefully the 24/192 over Air will also be available soon.
 
24/196 over air sounds nice but I wonder how well that will work.

I have no problems at all playing normal red book files but 24/96 doesn't work very well it lags and skips a lot probably due to the huge amount of data transfer required and my wifi is capable of 40Mbit/s so I really doubt 24/196 is going to work at all over wifi.
 
24/196 over air sounds nice but I wonder how well that will work.

I have no problems at all playing normal red book files but 24/96 doesn't work very well it lags and skips a lot probably due to the huge amount of data transfer required and my wifi is capable of 40Mbit/s so I really doubt 24/196 is going to work at all over wifi.

Interesting that you have an issue with 24/96. I don't have any such issue. Once in a while I will have a cut-out for about 1 sec but it is not related to the ability to stream 24/96. 24/192 is a lot of data but Devialet appear to be confident they can do it, so proof will be when the release this promised function. Hopefully in 2013 we will see further firmware and Air upgrades that push the functionality and audio performance of the product to new heights.
 
Interesting that you have an issue with 24/96. I don't have any such issue. Once in a while I will have a cut-out for about 1 sec but it is not related to the ability to stream 24/96. 24/192 is a lot of data but Devialet appear to be confident they can do it, so proof will be when the release this promised function. Hopefully in 2013 we will see further firmware and Air upgrades that push the functionality and audio performance of the product to new heights.

The random cut-out happen whether I use 16/44 or 24/96. The cuts have nothing to do with the quality of the network as my network stays very strong all the time.
So Daz you are also having small cut outs ? How often do you have that and for how long ?
Thanks
Philoouu
 
So Daz you are also having small cut outs ? How often do you have that and for how long ?
Thanks
Philoouu

Yes, I have a single cut out (about 1 sec) on average about every hour of listening. This was with upgrading to Firmware 5.7/1.5. I do notice that with this upgrade Air is more stable and appears more solid with the exception of this issue. I will be emailing Devialet on this issue and hopefully it is corrected with the next software release.
 
Hi,

I experience cut outs too (latest firmware) - some traceable to use of our mobile phone (not cell phone - the type with a base wired into the house), using our microwave in our kitchen, and some traceable to other traffic demand on the network. I think this is not uncommon for wifi. The wifi is used to talk to two pads, two laptops and the amplifier and a repeater so I guess it can be busy at times (eg particularly when starting up another laptop there seems to be too much traffic and I get drop outs....)

Also I have another problem using Itunes in Windows - when a new track starts it will sometimes play a few seconds then re-start. It has always done this with various versions of firmware, and at least two different computers - no idea why - I'm guessing it is a windows/Apple thing and figure if i'm serious as should just get an old apple computer and use that instead my pc.

Finally, any time I've compared things I find the wifi to be slightly better than laptop to Stello U3 to AES/EBU to D'Premier - just a little livelier and clearer.

I'm sure there is much better but I find the amplifier quite remarkably good with no noticeable digital character overall ...... I am looking toward a more powerful amplifier though, but have yet to find the one to be an overall improvement despite trying a couple of highly respected amps. I have heard several negative comments about the D'Premier that don't correspond with my year's experience with the amp on two quite different but rather good pairs of speakers (JBL Everests and TAD CR1s). Sometimes the comments have been based on a brief listen at shows - having heard at least ten different demos at shows around the world myself, I can't say I have heard one that does the amplifier justice imho - no idea why - polluted power maybe?

Just my experience.....

murray
 
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Hi
In my case cuts are a little but different; it does happen once a week or once every two weeks. Cuts will be very intense like every 5 to 10 seconds and I will have to switch to cable solution. Then when the next day I switch back to wireless it is completely fine for another week or two. It is as if some neighbors were using some devices polluting my Devialet for a few hours; there can be many reasons for sure but it seems to come from externals reasons that does interfere specifically with the D premier; network is still very strong when it happens. Some people in their same house will have some cuts in their living room but not in their bedrooms... It is not possible to reproduce those incidents neither spend hours to count systematically those cuts so it is difficult to find a very clear pattern at this stage. I am sure Devialet team is aware of those issues; the weird thing is that it does never seem to happen during their shows ?
 
Hi
In my case cuts are a little but different; it does happen once a week or once every two weeks. Cuts will be very intense like every 5 to 10 seconds and I will have to switch to cable solution. Then when the next day I switch back to wireless it is completely fine for another week or two. It is as if some neighbors were using some devices polluting my Devialet for a few hours; there can be many reasons for sure but it seems to come from externals reasons that does interfere specifically with the D premier; network is still very strong when it happens. Some people in their same house will have some cuts in their living room but not in their bedrooms... It is not possible to reproduce those incidents neither spend hours to count systematically those cuts so it is difficult to find a very clear pattern at this stage. I am sure Devialet team is aware of those issues; the weird thing is that it does never seem to happen during their shows ?

It does not happen in my system, so it is not Devialet at shows only. To find out if it is a wifi problem in general or the PC/Mac, you can try to use an iPhone or iPad, iPod. If it does not happen with iOS, then the problem lies with the OS of the computer and not with Devialet or the wifi router itself.

I have no problem to play 96k/24 bit and 192k/24 bit reliably, at the moment 192k/24 bit will use the same bandwidth, as it will be converted to 96k/24 bit in real time by the OS before wifi streaming starts.

I am buffled somehow by the Stereophile article, I tried MSB UMT, M2Tech HIFace 2 and Weiss Int 202, 203, DAC 202 as SPDIF/AES converters from the PC/Mac, but found the wifi definitely better in every case we tried (my friends have the same view), than any of the mentioned SPDIF/AES converters, without the cable selection issue.
 
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It does not happen in my system, so it is not Devialet at shows only. To find out if it is a wifi problem in general or the PC/Mac, you can try to use an iPhone or iPad, iPod. If it does not happen with iOS, then the problem lies with the OS of the computer and not with Devialet or the wifi router itself.

I have no problem to play 96k/24 bit and 192k/24 bit reliably, at the moment 192k/24 bit will use the same bandwidth, as it will be converted to 96k/24 bit in real time by the OS before wifi streaming starts.

I am buffled somehow by the Stereophile article, I tried MSB UMT, M2Tech HIFace 2 and Weiss Int 202, 203, DAC 202 as SPDIF/AES converters from the PC/Mac, but found the wifi definitely better in every case we tried (my friends have the same view), than any of the mentioned SPDIF/AES converters, without the cable selection issue.

In fact I think the drop out problem rely not on OSX Montain Lion but on the Devialet AIR app. In my configuration the Devialet AIR app is set to be launch at computer start-up, but sometimes it doesn't and I have to do it by my-self.

It seems that Devialet is working on an other procedure to control and send the playlist to the D-Premier... Wait and hear.

Cheers

Yaduvent

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