LATEST ADDITIONS

Challenging hi-fi’s conventions has been at Devialet’s core since the French high-end maker launched its groundbreaking D-Premier amp back in 2010. Concepts including customising settings via an onboard SD cardand online configurator, along with firmware releases ensuring your amp stayed up to date brought fresh thinking to long-term ownership. Devialet’s range has since expanded into four models, and with each comes increased connectivity, power and configuration options. At the heart of all Devialet ampsbeats the same ADH (Analogue Digital Hybrid) amplification, which is a moderntake on Quad’s Current Dumpers of yesteryear that uses analogue Class A voltage amplification working in parallel with digital Class D dumpers.

For this writer, one of the most disappointing things about digital audio – and especially CD’s 16/44. 1 specification where the problem seems most acute – is its timing. It just doesn’t quite seem to accurately reproduce all the nuances you hear in music when listening in real time. The major issue to my ears is that if you go to a jazz club to hear Randy Crawford sing, then come back home and play the CD the digital disc just doesn’t have the natural ebb and flow of the live concert.

With the exception of REL and other longstanding subwoofer manufacturers, the concept of the 2. 1 system is something that has really only come into its own since the arrival of the sub/sat package in the home cinema boom at the start ofthe millennium. The concept of small speakers that take up little space and are underpinned by a subwoofer that can be tucked away out of sight had advantages for getting a home cinema system into a space that otherwise couldn’t accept one. It didn’t take a genius to see this could be applied to a hi-fi setup too.

It’s official, and you heard it here first – we don’t live in the seventies anymore. Like David Bowie, times have changed. He’s no longer the Thin White Duke and the world isn’t buying huge amounts of separates. Life moves on, and so does the way people play music.