Any guesses on what the magic is?

[mackintire]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/heres-what-a-speaker-with-77-patents-sounds-like-107295919044.html

At first I thought it was some sort of a isobaric linkwitz device blutooth speaker in a box....a no limit expense type design, what do you all think?

[Hank]

AS a Marketing major many, many years ago, I say the Marketing phrases are pure magic:dancenana:
Hmm...long rod pole piece driving back-to-back obviously heavy "cones" and they are detailed? Magic definitely needed.

[---k---]

I had the pleasure to listen to a series of songs, including Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” Beyoncé’s “***Flawless,” and Stan Getz and João Gilberto’s “Girl from Ipanema.” All were incredibly balanced, shockingly clear, and very loud.

Yeah, that's a review. And where was this listening done? On the show floor? I place no faith in the writer. She is probably also impressed by Bose.

but the core of this futuristic speaker’s innovation is based on something called analog/digital hybrid architecture. This method of making things louder combines the technologies of both analog and digital amplifiers to provide crisp, linear sound in the space of a compact speaker.

So, they are taking digital audio from your iPhone and keeping it digital, and converting to to analog at the final stage for the speakers? Not very new and innovative. And oddly, the core doesn't include any mention of the drivers.

All marketing if you ask me.

[andy19191]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/heres-wha...295919044.html

At first I thought it was some sort of a isobaric linkwitz device blutooth speaker in a box....a no limit expense type design, what do you all think?

I think it is about 10" high, so it looks like a pair of 8" drivers plus whatever is on the front. It should be loud enough.

[5th element]

It may not be innovative, bluetooth devices have been around for a long time (streaming digital audio), but there are only very few devices out there that will actually perform D/A conversion as part of the amplification (class D) process. This does have some advantages, which are largely academic if the system is done correctly (ie a separate, traditional D/A stage is in no way a bad thing), but as far as I can see all this analogue/digital hybrid stuff could simply be the fact that the device receives a digital signal from your mobile device rather than an analogue one. This is definitely beneficial, but it's not exactly patent worthy.

Moving on to other stuff though, a high power class D amplifier, a pair of push/push mounted high excursion and high power drivers, a lot of EQ and a strong enclosure will be able to provide a lot of bass in a small space. Sure it wont go ridiculously loud but if done correctly it will offer very good bass. B&W did a similar thing in their PV1 sub, this is just a spin on the same thing. What I am unsure about is how this thing manages to reproduce the mid range and high frequencies in an decent enough fashion. Those speakers on the side wont be good up very high at all.

[andy19191]

What I am unsure about is how this thing manages to reproduce the mid range and high frequencies in an decent enough fashion. Those speakers on the side wont be good up very high at all.

My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the annular white ring around the tweeter is the midrange.

[gbegland]

There's a mixture of over-the-top marketing hype and real, honest to goodness engineering going on here guys:

http://en.devialet.com/phantom/

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/615-devialet-unleashes-phantom/

[---k---]

Solid engineering yes. Anything truly new? I doubt it. It looks like they just took existing concepts and packaged them together in a unique box. I would like to see the list of 77 patents.

[5th element]

Looking at it a bit more in depth it seems like they are using a standard DAC from TI, the PCM1798. So it's basically a wireless receiver coupled to a standard DAC and followed by some class D amplification. From a quick browse of the white paper the analogue/digital crap they were talking about is nothing but marketing hype. All it is is a current input class D amplifier, there is no analogue to digital conversion going on inside the amplifier, the conversion occurs entirely within the TI DAC, which is, contrary to their hype, not the highest performance DAC on the market, it's not even TI's highest performance DAC.

The class A part of the spec is pretty worthless too, just throwing around the usual 'Class A' statement to make a product sound more attractive. The truth is that pretty much most small signal circuitry in analogue signal processing is carried out with class A biased stages, unless the utmost in low power is required. It provides the highest linearity and small signal stages are so low power anyway that it doesn't exactly cost you anything. Most traditional power amplifiers run almost all the parts to their functionality, excluding the output stage, within class A anyway, it's the output stage that's important. This gets rid of the dreaded crossover distortion. Class D amplifiers do not suffer from crossover distortion to start with, at least not within their output stage, I mean they suffer from other things, but it's not quite the same thing.

[Hank]

I'll stick with my Sonos 5 for background music. Sounds damn good for a small unit.

[wkhanna]

I already read a bunch about this new offering & its variants. LINK

Not my cup of tea, but if I could could afford such things, a fully optioned Devialet 200 would be close to an "end-game" for me.

LINK


Another LINK to Devialet's white paper for the Phantom

[5th element]

I wont deny the fact that Devialet have actually managed to come up with an attractive option towards the whole compact entertainment centre style thing, but imo they'd have been much better off keeping the Phantom unit as a sub only and adding in two separate satellites for decent stereo reproduction. The phantom might be absolutely awesome, but simply because it's mono would discount it from my shopping list.

[wkhanna]

Funny coincidence that just this past weekend I had the opportunity to finally audition the Devialete 200.

This thing is for real.

Consider a DAC in the realm of a NAD M51, a digital amp in the realm of Hypex, a stellar phono section, no need of IC cables & just one power cable all in a form factor just slightly bigger than laptop.

It makes the idea of purchasing & wiring up separates seem downright silly when you consider the price & the fact that it sounded frick'n amazing.

JMHO YMMV

[craigk]

all I know is that there are amps are about as good as you get. if this is anything like there other products I can not imagine it being anything less than very good.

[5th element]

It's a PCM1798 DAC, nothing shabby, but certainly nothing state of the art either, I am not knocking this, the 98 is a very competent DAC. And it's mono, this is my main gripe with the product. It does an awful lot to be admired, but it needs to be stereo otherwise, imo, what's the point?

Interestingly the PCM1794 is TIs state of the art version of the PCM1798, it costs quite a bit more, at least comparatively, to the PCM1794, but it puzzles me, in the case of the Phantom, why they would skimp on a product costing a couple of thousand dollars.

[andy19191]

It's a PCM1798 DAC, nothing shabby, but certainly nothing state of the art either, I am not knocking this, the 98 is a very competent DAC. And it's mono, this is my main gripe with the product. It does an awful lot to be admired, but it needs to be stereo otherwise, imo, what's the point?

I presume if you want stereo you buy two of the things. The spec says you can synchronise 1 to 24 of them.

[Jonasz]

On the other hand, we're used to stereo but what says stereo is correct? Very few real live stereo recordings out there, at least in my shelf...

[Steve Goff]

Any guesses on what the magic is?

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