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INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER Integrated ADH bridged mono amplifier. Rated at 900W/6ohm Made by: Devialet SAS, Paris, France Supplied by: Devialet UK Ltd Telephone: 07469 717778 Web: http://en.devialet.com Price: £22,900 Devialet Original d’Atelier Six years on from HFN’s review of Devialet’s inaugural D-Premier amplifier, the brand’s new flagship fairly bristles with connectivity and boasts three times the power Review & Lab: Paul Miller Blink and you’ll have missed the latest firmware update, feature release or new product to have slipped from the digital divas in uptown Paris. While all attention has been focused on the brand’s astonishing all-inone Phantom music player/loudspeaker, Devialet’s engineers have not ceased refining the core technology that launched its inaugural D-Premier ADH (Analogue/ Digital Hybrid) amplifier [HFN Apr ’10] to such overwhelming acclaim. Greater flexibility, a revised digital amp stage and PSU to deliver more power, and a glorious rose/copper-gold mirror coating are the headline features of this new, limited edition model dubbed the Original d’Atelier (literally, studio or workshop). Only 100 samples of this Wi-Fi enabled and DSD-compatible £22,900 amplifier will be produced, and this is likely to be the only in-depth review, but we’ve featured it for one very important reason: almost every new advance flagged by Devialet is inevitably trickled-down through its ‘Expert’ range in very smart order... TAKING THE HEAT In common with the silver-mirrored ‘Le 800’ monoblocks, the Original d’Atelier’s milled-from-solid casework is culled from a solid billet of alloy, affording it better heatsinking over the slimmer 120, 200 and 400 models. Externally the chassis is readily distinguished by the aforementioned copper-gold finish, a glorious colour that’s extended to Devialet’s iconic table-top RF remote with its weighted rotary. Internally, however, the thermal performance of the 900W/6ohm-rated Original d’Atelier has been further reinforced by a new cast alloy enclosure for the switchmode PSU (the fluted black box, top left in our inside shot) and a doubling of the thermal exchange area between the key PCBs and internal metal surfaces. Devialet’s DPM (Dynamic Power Management) utility allows its custom switchmode supply to track the demands of the audio signal – it’s the ‘green’ option and assists in reducing waste heat, but even sitting idle the Original d’Atelier can get very warm. If you switch DPM off, it’s worth physically separating the two units. Two other key facilities significantly extend the versatility of this and Devialet’s other top Expert amps. SAM, or Speaker Active Matching, now in v2 guise, allows users to implement a software model of their loudspeaker’s low frequency performance, provided it’s one of the 600+ currently listed on Devialet’s website. SAM adapts the audio data in real time to accommodate issues of group delay, low frequency extension and maximum output. RAM, by contrast, stands for ‘Record Active Matching’ and is a fine-tuning utility for a similarly huge number of MM and MC pick-ups. It even includes standard RIAA (1953 and ’76) alongside 11 other legacy equalisation curves! DEFINE YOUR DEVIALET The operation of the Original d’Atelier may be extensively customised via Devialet’s online ‘Configurator’ [see http://en.devialet. com/configurator/welcome]. Not least, this graphical web script allows owners to define the three pairs of RCAs (analogue line/phono, digital input or output), the maximum power output, and Wi-Fi network settings for the AIR module. The Wi-Fi antenna is visible through the top surface of the amp and while I’ve used this option to achieve glitch-free streaming of music files up to 96kHz/24-bit I’d still recommend sticking with the hard-wired network or USB connections for ‘serious’ listening. RIGHT: Devialet’s Analogue/Digital Hybrid output sits at the heart of this amp, surrounded by an equally innovative switchmode PSU (top left), network and USB inputs (bottom right) REPrinted FROM HI-FI NEWS | www.hifinews.co.uk 032-035 Devialet Original d'Atelier_v8_PFSPCBPM.indd 32 2/9/16 4:05:11 PM
Owners are able to save their personal settings onto an SD card which is loaded into a reader on the rear of the amp. Using the middle ‘Bass’ button on the remote control it’s also possible to adjust various of these settings on the fly – including the SAM level (0-100%), mute, absolute phase, subsonic filter, ICM (Intelligent Cinema Mode), DPM, high pass and input trim for line inputs, and RAM (eq, input sensitivity and loading) for the MM/MC phono input. Enabling or disabling inputs, however, can only be achieved via the Configurator utility. I have found some slight subjective advantage in disabling the Wi-Fi, S/PDIF, network and analogue functions when intending to use either this amp, or the ‘Le 800’, via its USB port with, in this instance, the Melco N1A media library [HFN Aug ’15]. Depending on the range of inputs you really intend to use, it’s worth defeating the rest. Oh, and I’ve one request of Devialet – when are we going to see THE ‘MAGIC WIRE’ ‘It’s a digital instrument that projects a huge analogue vista’ some visual feedback of level or input on that big, blank space in the centre of the handset’s dial? pOWER WITH PANACHE Interestingly, I felt less inclined to invoke Devialet’s ‘Speaker Active Matching’ – already available for B&W’s 802 D3 loudspeakers [HFN Dec ’15] – with the Original d’Atelier than I had with its lowerpowered ‘Expert’ stablemates. Sure enough the deep, almost subsonic bass rhythm and thrilling samples that bind Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Symphony’ [Blue Lines (2012 remaster), 96kHz/ 24-bit download] ripped from my B&W 802 D3s as if it were preparing to tear the drivers from their frames. With SAM, of course, the amplifier is programmed to take the loudspeaker to its limits, but never beyond, and yet the performance was just a little freer, more refreshing with SAM removed from the configuration. Bass, you see, is neither in All Devialet’s ADH amplifiers represent a unique twist on Quad’s ‘feedforward’ Class A/B Current Dumping technique, first applied in its 405 power amp over 40 years ago [Wireless World, Dec ’75]. In this new-age implementation, a very high quality analogue Class A (voltage) amplifier is directly coupled to the speaker while a digital Class D stage provides the current to maintain this voltage across the speaker load. Hence the term ‘ADH’ or ‘Analogue/Digital Hybrid’. In practice the Class A preamp is a transconductance stage that converts the current output of the amplifier’s PCM1792 DACs into a voltage. By keeping all its processing in the digital domain until the final output, Devialet has engineered an analogue stage with a minuscule signal path. It calls this its ‘Magic Wire’. It’s this Class A voltage preamp – not the rugged Class D dumpers – that defines the quality and performance of the amplifier as a whole, and this includes the filtering of its switched PWM output. So, unlike conventional Class D amps, the Original d’Atelier is free of an invasive LC filter network just ahead of its speaker outputs and its performance remains unaffected by speaker load impedance. ABOVE: Each rose-gold coated Original d’Atelier case is fashioned from a single alloy casting – 32mm thick, gently radiused and polished to a perfect mirror finish. White gloves are supplied! short supply or under-damped with this hugely capable incarnation of ADH in the driving seat. Midband clarity, too, is typically breathtaking. This particular quality of the Original d’Atelier’s CV was illustrated by two tracks in particular – Livingston Taylor’s ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ [World’s Greatest... Chesky 96kHz/24-bit download] and Gregory Porter’s ‘God Bless The Child’ from Be Good [Motéma 233488]. The closed-miked, whistled harmonies of the former sounded exquisitely realistic, and it took little very imagination to feel his breath tickling my cheek as it passed by. Porter’s throaty baritone, by contrast, I could feel in my chest, the tails of each word revealing a dark and ambient acoustic lit only by the booming power of his voice. Once again, the Devialet amp – and B&W 802 D3s – crafted an astonishingly open and polished sound, sharply focused but never ‘sharp’, always in control but never coerced. The resonant colour of instruments and voices alike were painted true-to-life, its depiction that of a large format photograph rather than the euphony of an impressionist oil. READY, STEADY, GO... Moreover, the Original d’Atelier has an indefatigable energy, a robustness that refuses to be blunted by the most ferocious of recordings. And by ferocious I don’t mean messy, although it’ll unpick the densest of recordings with the best of ’em. Listen to Yello’s Touch [Polydor, 48kHz/ 24-bit DVD-A rip] and the terrifying pace of reimagined classics like ‘The Race (2008)’ will, loudspeakers permitting, thunder forth with a disarming intensity. www.hifinews.co.uk | REPRinted FROM HI-FI NEWS 032-035 Devialet Original d'Atelier_v8_PFSPCBPM.indd 33 2/9/16 4:05:20 PM
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