To Jeff Fritz,
I have a question for you based on your experiences reviewing the Devialet 120 and 400. I recently auditioned a pair of Vivid Giya G2s driven by a Devialet 200 and also by Tenor 350M monoblocks with an MSB DAC. Both combinations used an MSB transport. The audition was in a room similar to my own listening room. (I also heard G3s driven by a Devialet 120, which sounded spectacular, but in a very different type of room.) The G2s driven by the Tenor and MSB front end was easily the best sounding system I have ever heard. The G2s driven by the Devialet 200 sounded anemic in comparison. They had far less bass control or impact. Unfortunately, the Tenor and MSB front end is well beyond my price range. The G2 with Devialet 200 is in my price range and I might be able to stretch to a Devialet 400.
I was wondering if you could provide some thoughts comparing the Devialet 120 and 400. What improvements beyond dead silence and spectacularly low IMD does the 400 provide? How much more control does the 400 have on drive units, particularly in the bass regions? How much improvement is there in bass impact and control moving from the 120 to 400?
Unfortunately, auditioning the G2 and Devialet 400 is a problem as the dealer is over 1000 miles from where I live. So before asking a dealer to spend hundreds shipping items to me to try out I want a pretty good idea of what I’m likely to hear.
Thanks,
Richard
Australia
In my experience, the basic sounds of the Devialet 120 and the 400 are very, very similar. Bass control, transparency, and overall purity are close to indistinguishable from each other. It really is only in the areas of headroom that the 400 is clearly superior. Now, the monos do have better distortion specs, and I do think with the right music and the right speakers you might hear that, but the 120 is so low in distortion itself that it is likely to be better than anything else you might have heard in that regard. So, in short, I found the 120 and 400 very close to each other in terms of sound.
So the bottom line is that if you truly did not like the Vivids as driven by the 200, you probably won’t like them driven by the 400. There may be something to the tube sound in the Tenor amps that attracts you, and that's perfectly legitimate. So if I were you I would try to replicate that as closely as you can. . . . Jeff Fritz
