Devialet AIR, Tidal

@andybob, Devialet is stubborn bordering on silly. I will be very surprised if they bring any of this. UPnP is still listed for the future of Dialog though so maybe… but with all the nice features of the Roon protocol UPnP may be irrelevant to us if and when Devialet decides to include it.

@ogs, they seemed to be interested in early 2015 about letting me having the AIR protocol specification, so we could add native support in Roon. They have always told me they were uninterested in our streaming protocols, because they already had AIR.

However, after prodding them countless times, they just stopped responding. Even when I was in Paris last, they failed to respond to an opportunity for face-to-face meeting. I am getting the feeling that the Phantom and similar products are their future, and not the Expert line.

Not everyone wants R2-D2 in their listening space.

@Danny, welcome to the world of Devialet! This is also what it’s like as a Devialet customer if it’s any consolation. :grinning:

I think you’re absolutely right - the Expert line got them into the market, but now they have other agendas. i.e. sell big and fast! Sadly, all the chaotic expansion and rushing has meant the Phantom firmware/software doesn’t seem to be any more reliable or stable than the expert series, hence the floods of people posting about the issues they’re having. A real shame, Devialet is built on some pioneering and clever technology and their products are great in the main, but their quality control on the software/firmware side is poor, and their customer support’s in free fall and it makes them a very undesirable brand at the moment.

Having watched Roon evolve since launch, I can say just from your internet presence, you are the absolute opposite of Devialet. They are consumed by marketing and hype and have zero respect for their customers, you guys seem totally focussed on keeping your customers happy and as updated as you can let us be about plans for future developments and fixes. As a user of both, your model is hugely refreshing, while Devialet’s is just exasperating. I’m not saying Roon’s perfect yet, but you guys are clearly and obviously striving for it, rather than simply saying ‘its perfect’.

For what it’s worth, having Air natively in Roon was of no interest to me, as Air is so unreliable I don’t use it anymore. Devialet have no clear plan for fixing it and are in fact in denial about it being an issue. They just hope people will stop asking them about it - the last advice they offered me was that I was free not to use it! It works for some though, but that’s just not good enough on a £5,500 dac/amp (£20,000 for those with D800’s)!

What I was hoping for is Roon natively in Devialet - so we would have a chance of streaming directly to it without having to use Air. This would be a perfect system, clean and simple, and is how they envisioned it working. Its the ‘one box’ (plus a computer source) scenario a lot of people were sold on when they brought their Devialet’s. However thats not going to happen, I was told only a handful of people have requested it and its not on their roadmap - which seems to be the same answer for any expert line related question.

I think the Phantoms have swamped the company, and they’ve literally lost the plot. Still, my Devialet looks nice on the wall, and I’ve bought it, so for now I’ll use it via USB. I’m seriously hoping RAAT on Raspberry Pi sounds great, or that some other new Roon based streaming hardware comes along soon.
I liked the idea of an Aurender, but they’re expensive, and their iPad App is ‘OK’ but not what you’d expect at the price - certainly not as nice as Roon. Also, since the unit’s local storage won’t really be local as such with Roon, and you need Roon’s server running on another machine anyway, the whole ‘self contained unit’ thing sort of goes out the window.

So now I’m putting all my hope on RoonSpeakers (no pressure :wink: )….

In the meantime, any Devialet users that want Roon, and/or have issues with Air, don’t give up - just keep hounding support and voicing your opinion as loudly as possible wherever you go. They can’t hide forever……

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A quick hello to those of you on the Devialet Chat forum. I’ve just started a trial of Roon and was sad to discover that playback via AIR (on OS X) is a little flakey - a great shame because Roon itself seems to be a complete joy!

To clarify what I meant by “flakey”: I get no sound at all if select Exclusive Mode, and without that, I hear what sounds like a very slight drop-out or quiet “click” every few seconds during playback. This is on OS X 10.10.5 with AIR 2.1.3 and an Ethernet connection to a D400 with 7.1.3 firmware. Incidentally I don’t have any trouble using iTunes to play the same material (all 16-bit, 44.1 or 48 kHz ALAC).

As far as I can tell from reading the threads on this forum and Devialet Chat, it sounds as though there’s not likely to be any improvement in the foreseeable future - is that a fair description of the state of play? What a shame, if so.

@thumb5 -

Correct - discussed in this this thread as well.

Might not be much of a consolation Ian, but Roon/USB into Devialet is also very nice……

My impression is Devialet aren’t too helpful to Roon in terms of giving them info about Air so they can fix things, and so its unlikely this situation will improve in the short term. From everything I’ve read on these forums, the Roon guys are pretty good at getting fixes out for vendors who are a bit more collaborative, so it must be frustrating for them too.

The only advice I can think of is to hassle Devialet support directly, and let them know you want them to be more open with Roon so they can integrate with Air better, or (in my opinion a better approach since Air is flakey for many people anyway) adopt RoonReady so we can stream direct to the Devialet from Roon, without using Air. Every little helps, and the more users that hound Devialet support, the better.

From all the struggles I see with Air on Devialet Chat forums. I have to believe the issue is on the Devialet side and most likely Roon developers would have to find a work around.

Devialet should really fix their crappy Air implementation. I’m a proud 200 owner and never could get Air to work, even with JRiver.

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Couldn’t agree more @DrTone (as a D200, and disgruntled ex-Air user myself)….

Jeff, my suggestion would be please, please, send the same comments to Devialet support directly, and also ask that they implement ‘RoonReady’ into their next firmware.

I have asked, so have others. My comment back direct from Devialet was essentially (paraphrasing) “no one has asked for it, and since our firmware updates are free, we’re unlikely to do it unless there’s more interest”, followed by (again paraphrasing) “you’re welcome not to use Air” !! I mean, yeah, OK, thanks for that - and BTW I no longer use it because it doesn’t work (which I also told them on many occasions), but give us an alternate so I can use the network streaming idea I was sold on when I bought it! :unamused:

The more people that hound them on these things, the more likely they will get fixed. If all Devialet users here and on Devialetchat emailed direct to Devialet support about Air and RoonReady, we’d have a lot better chance of them taking action.

I needle drop via my 200 so Air is of no use to me as I’ll always have a computer hooked up via USB. I tried it originally just to see what it was about and never tried it again after it didn’t work.

It is disgraceful that they don’t care.

@danny - Hello Danny - I am resurrecting a “zombie” thread because I was wondering if there is any chance of progress in determine why using Devialet AIR on a Mac that no sound outputs when exclusive mode is enabled.

As noted elsewhere, this works correctly under Windows but not OS X.

Is this dead in the water in regards to troubleshooting unless Devialet becomes engaged?

In other words a fix can only be made with support from Devialet?

Thanks.

Barr

The process of debugging/fixing this is going to be experimental and iterative.

I don’t see us making progress without access to Devialet hardware.

Indeed, I’ve just posted a support request to Devialet asking for exactly that. Whether force of numbers will be enough to get Devialet to give this some attention is anyone’s guess.

Just a final comment from me. First, off I have always found support from the folks at Roon to be superb. Obviously in regards to Devialet, while I love the hardware, AIR is clearly lacking, and after doing more extensive research I believe this to be a Devialet issue and not a Roon issue.

So I do thank Brian and the other folks at Roon for their indulgence here, and Ian to your point will send yet another email to Devialet.

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You can try but this all sounds very typical French to me, brilliant, great innovative/different engineering/technology but customer service, especially if you don’t speak French…

I have a 200. Prior to some remodeling in the apartment AIR on my Macbook Pro worked for the most part, although it had had been getting worse. I had the same problems as everyone else. Mainly dropouts. Now I set it all up again with the latest firmware and AIR software. It is completely unlistenable. Not one second goes by without dropouts and severe stuttering. It really is astonishing. And it really should have nothing to do with my network. I am using a dedicated time capsule in the same room. That being said, I have an old transporter. I saw that Roon was now supporting slim devices and decided to give it a try. It sounds glorious. The AB with AIR is a joke. I am sure that Roon would be able to"fix" the AIR issue straight away, but that would probably embarrass Devialet. Otherwise the foot dragging has no explanation. I wonder what a negative Stereophile article would do? JA. Listening?

This is all wireless if that wasn’t clear.

The only problem is that Roon does not recognize my DAC (the 200) and I am therefore unable to set control parameters for it. Is that possible? I am using the Transporter as a digital pass-through only.

Roon has no way to know what’s plugged into your transporter. Same as a DAC on the touch or touch EDO.

Let me chime in. I sometimes had a problem with AiR and Dirac room correction, as Roon’s exclusive mode is not AIR compatible. Without excl. mode there’s no problem to stream with Roon via ethernet.

My best solution, however, is to use Roon excl. mode via AES/EBU. That includes Dirac room correction and avoids the sub-optimal USB connection. Great sound right now with a Telemann overture and earlier with Rokia Traoré’s Né So.

Strongly recommend!

That is good, but you have to tell us which AES/EBU card/unit you use on your Roon server to make the connection.

Glad to hear this worked for you, but that’s not the case as a general rule for everyone… Sadly…