Review: Devialet Phantom

Let’s get the name out of the way first: Devialet (pronounced: duv'-ē-a-lay). Now, say it with that insouciant and slightly louche delivery that makes every French word sound like a depraved sex act.

Unless you’re a European history scholar, there’s no reason Devialet should sound familiar. It’s a nod to Monsieur De Vialet, an obscure French writer who penned some deep thoughts for the Encyclopédie, that famous 28-volume opus celebrating the Age of Enlightenment.

Of course, Devialet also happens to be the company in Paris that makes pricey, reference-grade amplifiers. Because why wouldn’t you name your $18,000 French amp after an 18th century French intellectual?

The knee jerk is to dismiss this as some pretentious, aspirational brand flaunting style over substance. But consider this: In fewer than five years, Devialet has racked up 41 audio and design awards, far more than any competitor. Its flagship product, the D200, is a serious hi-fi hub that bundles amp, preamp, phono stage, DAC and WiFi card into a thin chrome package as minimalist as a Donald Judd sculpture. How thin? On the audio show circuit, the D200 is known as the “pizza box.”

For hardcore audiophiles, weaned on button-laden tube components the size of cinder blocks, that’s radical. Industry oracles like The Absolute Sound, though, are onboard. The D200 made the cover of the magazine’s February issue. “The Future Has Arrived,” trumpeted the unlikely cover line. Finally, here was a world-class integrated amp as chic as it was practical, the iMac of the audiophile world.

Comparing Devialet to Apple isn’t a stretch. Both companies develop innovative technologies, wrap them in pretty packages, and sell them in stores that make customers feel like they’re traipsing through a gallery. The original Devialet showroom, which occupies the ground floor of an Eiffel building on rue Saint-Honoré, is Parisian shelter porn at its best. There’s also a Shanghai branch. A New York outpost will open by late summer. Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and Berlin will follow in September.

This fancy audiophile startup may not have a $147 billion war chest like its Cupertino counterpart, but it’s incredibly well-funded for such a niche company. The four original investors are all billionaires, including fashion mogul Bernard Arnault and his Champagne-fuelled luxury juggernaut LVMH. Encouraged by Devialet’s rapid success, these VC bloodhounds just funded a $25 million marketing budget. Arnault envisions Devialet as the default sound system for fabulous people from DUMBO to Dubai.

When Devialet announced late last year that it was introducing “a new category of audio products,” the industry braced itself. These French guys had already created a new integrated amp to usher hidebound audiophiles into the 21st century. What would they come up with next?

Developed under a cloak of secrecy, the aptly named Phantom turned out to be the answer. Unveiled at CES in January, this one-piece music system, with its miniscule footprint and sci-fi aesthetic, is the company’s breakout bid: Devialet Lite. The Phantom incorporates the same proprietary tech used in the celebrated D200, but it’s priced to move at $1,950. That may seem outrageous for a small Wi-Fi player, but compared to everything else in the Devialet product line, it qualifies as an inflation buster.

If the company rhetoric is only half-true, the Phantom may even be a steal. According to Devialet, the Phantom reproduces the same SQ as a full-size $50,000 stereo system.

What kind of audio geek goodness does this gadget offer? No phono stage for starters. So forget about plugging in a turntable. The Phantom doesn’t do vinyl—what it does, though, is wirelessly stream 24-bit/192-kHz digital files in all their lossless, hi-res glory. And it does so without tower speakers, preamps, power conditioners, or any of the other electronic exotica that audiophiles glom onto with such irrational and maniacal abandon.

This being Devialet, expectations are high for the Phantom. Early indications suggest this thing is more than PR blather. Both Sting and hip-hop producer Rick Rubin, two industry heavyweights not easily impressed, offered unpaid endorsements at CES. Kanye, Karl Lagerfeld, and Will.i.am are on the bandwagon too. Beats Music CEO, David Hyman, sounded downright flackish. “This small beautiful object will create a sound in your house that is just staggering,” he raved to TechCrunch. “I’ve heard it. Nothing comes close. It can knock your walls down.”

Keep in mind that these early impressions must be tempered because they’re based on demos conducted in a Las Vegas hotel suite with poor acoustics, droning A.C., and enough ambient noise to fill a cocktail party soundtrack.

Is the Phantom really a breakthrough product? Does it produce, as Devialet humbly states, “The best sound in the world—1,000 times superior to current systems”? (Yes, it really did say that.) Before shooting the copywriter, remember: This is the same country that invented the Cartesian coordinate system, Champagne, antibiotics, and the bikini. Dismiss the French at your own peril.

As if “1,000 times superior” didn’t sound awesome enough, Devialet claims it has been able to coax even better performance from the Phantom. Since its European release earlier this year, the company has tweaked the DSP and software to improve SQ and provide a “more intuitive and plug-and-play user experience. ”The first two new and improved models destined for American shores found its way to the WIRED offices. To find out if Phantom 2.0 lives up to all the hype, keep scrolling.

The Phantom box is decorated with four artsy photos: a bare-chested male model with yakuza tats (because Devialet is cool), a bare-chested female model showing major side boob (because Devialet is sexy), four Roman Corinthian columns (because ancient architecture is classy, and so is Devialet), and a cresting ocean wave framed by an ominous gray sky, an obvious reference to the Albert Camus quote: “There is no end to the sky and waters. How well they accompany sadness!” (Because Devialet is French and if they don’t reference Camus, who will?)

Remove the slip cover, flip open the hinged box, and there, nestled inside—protected by a plastic shell, and plenty of high-density, form-fitting Styrofoam—is the object of our lustful desire: the Phantom. When Ridley Scott ships his Alien eggs from Pinewood Studios to Bollywood for Prometheus X: The Musical, this is exactly how he should do it.

Decent presentation. Just the thing you’d expect after dropping two grand.

One thing the Phantom has going for it is what audiophiles call WAF: wife-acceptance factor. The DAF (designer-acceptance factor) isn’t bad either. If Tom Ford sketched a Wi-Fi music rig for his Richard Neutra house in L.A., this is what he’d come up with. The Phantom is so small and unobtrusive—the 10 x 10 x 13-inch footprint is positively stealth—it will blend into the background of any Wallpaper-approved décor. Move it front and center, though, and this sexy ovoid is capable of turning even the most jaded heads.

Would the Phantom suit a more traditional interior design scheme? That depends. Upper East Side chintz, pimped out with Biedermeier? No. Shaker: Gutsy, but doable. Palatial, Louis XVI? Absolutely. Think of the final scenes of 2001. Actually, this thing is very Kubrick. The EVA space pods in 2001 could pass for Phantom prototypes.

Despite the resemblance, project director Romain Salzman insists the unit’s distinctive silhouette is a classic case of form follows function: “The design of the Phantom was totally driven by acoustic laws—co-axial speakers, one source point, architecture—just as the design of a Formula-1 car is driven by aerodynamic laws.” Devialet spokesperson Jonathan Hirshon, concurs. “The physics of what we’re doing demands a sphere. It was just a happy accident that the Phantom ended up looking beautiful.”

An exercise in minimalism, the Phantom is as Zen as industrial design gets. The nod to embellishment is the small, coaxial speaker cover. This laser-cut squiggly, which resembles a Moroccan motif, is actually a tribute to Ernst Chladni, the 18th century German scientist known as the “father of acoustics.” His famous experiments with salt and vibrating pulses resulted in surprisingly complex geometric designs. The one Devialet appropriated is the pattern created by a 5907 Hz pulse. Visualizing sound by cribbing a Chladni resonance pattern—that’s smart design.

As far as controls go, there’s only one: the reset button. It’s quite tiny. And, of course, it’s white, making it difficult to find on a monochromatic body. To locate this elusive dot, slowly caress the side of the Phantom with your fingertips, as if reading an erotic novel in braille. When you feel a carnal sensation course through your body, press firmly. That's it. All other functions are controlled through your iOS or Android device.

There aren’t any distracting line-level inputs to sully the organic form factor either. They’re concealed behind the power cord cover, which slips into place and doesn’t jiggle around like most plastic parts affixed to Big Box audio hardware tend to do. Buried within is the connectivity cubby: one Gbps Ethernet port (for dropout-free hardwire streaming), one USB 2.0 (Google Chromecast compatibility is rumored), and one Toslink port (for Blu-ray, game consoles, Airport Express, Apple TV, CD player, etc.). Très chic.

There is one regrettable design flaw: the electric cord. Dieter Rams and Jony Ive demand to know why white wasn’t specified. Instead, sprouting from the Phantom’s sleek, wind tunnel body is a hideous looking greenish-yellow—OK, chartreuse—cable that looks like something found in aisle four at Home Depot, attached to a Weed Wacker. Quelle horreur!

For those put off by the plastic shell, don’t be. The high-gloss, polycarbonate material is as hard and rigid as an NFL helmet. At 23 pounds, the Phantom also has the heft of a small anvil. This density hints at the substantial components within, which should placate the audiophile curmudgeons who equate heavy components with high quality.

Fit and finish are what they should be at this price point. The case seams are vise tight; the chrome metal accents are sturdy; and the shock-absorbing base, made of a beefy, synthetic material, looks like it would damp even Richter scale tremors.

The internal build quality would pass Military Spec. The central core is cast aluminum. The custom drivers are also fashioned from aluminum. To ramp up power and ensure linearity, all four speakers are paired with neodymium magnet motors strung with super long copper coils.

The case itself is lined with braided sheets of Kevlar acoustic insulation, which keeps the circuit boards running cool and makes the Phantom literally bulletproof. The onboard heat sink, blended into the side of the unit like frosting on a cake, is equally formidable. You could crack coconuts with those heavy cast fins.

One more thing: Many who have seen the Phantom operating in fetishistic exploded view mode have marveled at the lack of internal wiring. Actually, except for the voice-coil leads imbedded in the drivers, there aren’t any wires inside the Phantom. That’s right, no jump elements, no cables, no wires, no nothing. Every single connection is managed by circuit boards and other electronic components. That is some audacious electrical engineering and speaks to the mad genius ethos that Devialet has become famous for.

According to company press release, it took 10 years, 40 engineers, and 88 patents to R&D the Phantom. Total cost: $30 million. Not the easiest fact-check. Still, that figure seems a tad high. A significant chunk of that investment was probably used to cover the onerous second arrondissement rent and develop the D200, the machine that the Phantom borrows its tech so liberally from. This isn’t to suggest that the Phantom was done on the cheap. It’s no easy task to miniaturize all those circuit boards, shoehorn them into a space slightly larger than a bowling ball, and then devise a way to pump in enough juice to make it sound like full-size system without triggering spontaneous combustion.

How exactly did the Devialet engineers pull off this sonic parlor trick? That can all be explained by four patented acronyms: ADH, SAM, HBI, and ACE. This engineering shorthand, along with things like circuit diagrams and diffraction loss graphs, is covered in a bombastic and slightly mind-blowing white paper that made the rounds at CES. Here are the Cliff Notes:

ADH (Analog Digital Hybrid): As the name implies, the idea is to combine the best features of two opposing technologies: the linearity and musicality of analog amps (Class A, to audiophiles), and the power, efficiency and compactness of digital amps (Class D).

Without this binary design, the Phantom wouldn’t be able to pump out such ungodly power surges: 750-watt peaks. That translates to an impressive 99 dBSPL (decibel sound pressure level) reading at 1 meter. Imagine gunning the throttle on a Ducati superbike in your living room. Yes, that kind of loud. The purity of the signal path, something audiophiles obsess over, is another bonus. There are only two resistors and two caps in the analog signal path. Those Devialet engineers have some mad circuit topology skills.

SAM (Speaker Active Matching): This is pretty genius. Devialet engineers analyze a speaker. Then they tweak the amp’s signal to match that speaker. To quote the company literature: “Using a specific driver integrated into the processor of the Devialet, SAM deduces in real time the exact signal that has to be transmitted to the speaker to precisely reproduce the exact acoustic pressure recorded by the microphone.” Audio nonsense? Not completely. This tech works so well that many of the pricey speaker brands—Wilson, Sonus Faber, B&W, and Kef, to name a few—pair their swaggy boxes with Devialet amps at audio shows. This same SAM

technology sends a bespoke signal to the Phantom’s four driver units: two woofers (one on each side), a midrange, and tweeter (both housed in a supplemental coaxial “mid-tweeter”). Powered by SAM, every speaker performs at its maximum potential.

HBI (Heart Bass Implosion): Audiophile speakers have to be big. Yes, bookshelf speakers can sound sublime. But to truly capture the full dynamic range of music, especially the ultra-low frequencies, requires speakers with the internal volume of a bathtub: 100 to 200 liters. In comparison, the Phantom’s volume is puny indeed: a mere 6 liters. Still, Devialet claims it’s able to reproduce infrasound waves as low as 16Hz. You can’t actually hear these sound waves; the threshold of human hearing on the low end is 20Hz. But you will sense the change in air pressure. One scientific study found that infrasound produces a range of disturbing effects in subjects including anxiety, depression, and chills. These same subjects reported feelings of awe, fear, and the possibility that supernatural events were taking place.

Why wouldn’t you want that kind of apocalypse/rapture vibe at your next party? To summon this low-frequency voodoo, engineers had to gin up the air pressure inside the Phantom to 20 times what is found in the average high-end speaker. “This pressure is equivalent to 174dBSPL, which is the acoustic pressure level associated with a rocket at launch…” reads the white sheet. For anyone curious, the rocket in question is a Saturn V.

More hype? Not as much as you might think. Which is why the speaker domes inside the Phantom’s extreme vacuum are fashioned from aluminum instead of any of the usual newfangled driver materials (hemp, silk, beryllium). Early prototypes fitted with the most robust commercial drivers available imploded upon liftoff, their diaphragms fragmenting into hundreds of itty-bitty pieces. So Devialet decided to make all their speakers out of 5754 aluminum (as thin as 0.3mm), the same alloy used to make welded nuclear tanks.

ACE (Active Co-Spherical Engine): This refers to the spherical shape of the Phantom. Why a sphere? Because team Devialet worships at the feet of Dr. Harry Ferdinand Olsen. The legendary acoustical engineer filed more than 100 patents while working for the RCA Labs in Princeton, New Jersey. In one of his classic experiments from the 1930s, Olsen mounted a full range driver in differently shaped wooden cabinets of equal size and cranked up the tunes.

When all the data was in, the best performer (and not by a small margin) was the spherical cabinet. Ironically, one of the worst performing cabinets was a rectangular prism: The same shape used for almost every high-end speaker design of the past half-century. For those not familiar with the science of speaker diffraction loss, these graphs will help visualize the sphere’s superiority over such sonically challenged shapes as the cylinder and square.

Devialet may say the Phantom’s elegant design was a “happy accident, but their engineers knew going in that they wanted spherical speakers. To put it in geek speak: The sphere constitutes the perfect acoustic architecture for omnidirectional transmission of a homogenous sound, regardless of the listening angle and without diffraction of sound at the speaker surface. In practical terms, this means there’s no such thing as being “off axis” when listening to the Phantom. The music sounds great whether you’re sitting on a sofa directly in front of the unit, or standing in the corner mixing another drink.

After sampling Tidal tracks on the Phantom for a week, one thing is glaringly obvious: This thing is worth every euro-converted dollar that you scrape and claw for in this godforsaken and cutthroat world. Yes, it sounds that good. Exactly how good is “that”? Does the Phantom really sound “1,000 times superior to current systems,” as that crazy Devialet website blurb says it does? No. The only way to experience such an otherworldly sound is to sit in Row C, Seat 107 at Carnegie Hall precisely 45 minutes after dropping a tab of acid.

Question deux: Does the Phantom sound as good as an Editor’s Choice $50,000 stereo system, featuring a gaggle of components, oxygen-free python cables, and monolith speakers? No. But the disparity isn’t a chasm; it’s more like a small gap. What can be said with certainty is this: The Phantom is a technological tour de force. There’s no other system on the market that puts out this kind of sound for this kind of money. That it can be toted around from one room to another, like a revolving art show, is a small miracle.

For better or worse (“worse” being the total destruction of the audiophile industrial complex as we know it), this new Devialet music system points the way to the future and will force fussy and intractable audio critics to reassess their position on just how good music played via Wi-Fi on a unit no larger than a breadbox can sound.

The other thing that is glaringly obvious after auditioning the Phantom is that as fantastic as one of these things sounds, two of them sound even better. Although the Phantom’s omnidirectional presentation creates a credible surround-sound experience, it’s basically a mono player; the sound coming out of those four drivers is a right and left channel mix. That may be ideal for listening to 1950s Blue Note LPs and the early Beatles albums, but if you want to hear Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries” or Jay Z’s “Empire State Of Mind” in all it’s stereophonic magnificence, two Phantoms is the way to go.

To get the full two-channel effect, simply plug in the optional Dialog ($350), a Wi-Fi router that can sync up to 24 Phantoms. With the Dialog, you can do stereo (separate left and right channel), home theater (5.1 Cinema is on the way), or set up a Phantom network big enough to fill the most sprawling trophy house that Silicon Valley money can buy.

This isn’t to say that one unit won’t do the trick. It certainly will. When you think of the Phantom, don’t think of Sonos, Bose, or even Naim’s new Mu-so soundbar that the Apple Store recently added to its lifestyle inventory. Those Wi-Fi boxes are fine. The Mu-so is very fine. None of them, though, invite the kind of critical listening that the Phantom does. Not by a long shot. The dynamic range, extension, and clarity that this music system recreates is simply astonishing.

Sure, mock the French engineers and their pompous acronyms. That’s already happening in some rarefied circles of the audio community. But give the Phantom a listen, and you’ll realize that Devialet has done its homework. Whether you’re listening to Tom Waits, Radiohead, or Sinatra, the soundstage is ultra-realistic and defined. Listening off-axis doesn’t impact this holographic effect in the least. Like viewing a plasma TV screen at an acute angle, the resolution remains constant. If you want to get picky, the sound isn’t truly omnidirectional. Stand behind the Phantom, opposite the coaxial mid-tweeter, and the soundstage degrades noticeably. Still, that’s hardly a deal-breaker.

The Phantom boasts some insane numbers: 16Hz to 25kHz ± 2dB, 20Hz to 20kHz ± 0.5dB. While the highs and mids are certainly as good as advertised, it’s those infrasound waves that drop jaws and defy logic. In recordings ranging from classical to jazz to rock, the low end sounds dead accurate. On hip-hop recordings, though, the bass is so overpowering it’s almost unnerving. Blame the studio engineers and producers who boost the bass levels on their recordings, knowing most people will be listening to their music over cheap buds. This sonic boom is reproduced by the Phantom with unfailing precision. Some will reach for the iTunes equalizer. Others will just smile and turn up the volume.

When those HBI woofers synchronously deploy on the sides and flutter like hummingbird wings, you can actually see and feel the technology working. The high-efficiency, long stroke (more than an inch, peak-to-peak) drivers set a new power benchmark. Each one moves a mass of more than 66 pounds. Place your hands on them during the heartbeat intro to Pink Floyd’s “Speak To Me/Breathe,” and try to squeeze them together. It’s quite a workout; 66 pounds actually sounds low-ball.

Move your hands a few inches away from these quivering domes, and the sound waves buffet your palms like laser pulses. It’s a strange and exhilarating sensation to feel all that infrasound projected from such a small speaker with so much force. It’s also why Devialet refuses to call the Phantom a sound system. Instead, they refer to it as an “Implosive Sound Center.”

An Ethernet port is provided for the persnickety hard-wired crowd, but after streaming over a 200 songs through Devialet’s Spark app (iOS/Android), not a single dropout occurred. The Beta software is still buggy. When a Toslink cable was connected to a TV, for instance, the sound was muddy and garbled. Devialet is working on that. The music services that Phantom currently supports are Tidal, Deezer, and Qobuz. Of course, you can also stream songs directly from any smartphone SSD. More streaming service connectivity is in the works, including Sirius XM, Pandora, Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube.

Those who crave Spinal Tap “11” volume should consider the Silver Phantom ($2,390). It features the same Devialet house sound, except the power peaks are 3,000 watts and 105dBSPL at 1 meter. For summer barbeques and dining al fresco with metal heads, it’s something to consider. In the European Union, the Silver Phantom is barely legal because 105dBs happens to be the maximum sound level set by law for nightclubs and live concerts. The Devialet crew likes to say the Silver Phantom is “weaponized.”

No matter how loud you play either Phantom, they are immune to clipping or noticeable distortion. It’s also nice to know that the SAM tech makes it impossible to blow a speaker. Don’t worry about overheating, either—the body remains cool to the touch. No doubt thanks to all that Kevlar stuffing inside. Even more stunning, the body transmits almost no vibration at high volume. A wine glass placed on top of the Phantom during a Nirvana playlist didn’t budge. Not even a bass-centric track, like Moderat’s “A New Error” caused a ripple. The floorboards and ceiling fixture, however, were definitely resonating.

The most laughable Devialet’s tagline reads: “One day, everyone will own a Devialet.” At $2,000 a pop for the starter model, that’s unlikely. For anyone short of funds, waiting this French audio revolution out might be the best strategy. Back in the Paris, Arnault and his billionaire boys club are already discussing the development of a Devialet budget model, something in the mid-three-figure range that Apple Stores can sell through their global network like party favors. Vive la France, indeed.