Nice room. Sorry not a audio research guy. Some people like I guess. Lot of money in the amps. Devialet much better.
You probably forgot to add an “IMHO” at the end of your posting 
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OT: Regarding Devialet = much better 
That’s an odd article, as they sell a 220 now, it came out in 2015. So sounds like Old Information.
Also I don’t think it’s right to slander other peoples systems, except in jest :-), so I’d love to have that ARS system, it’s a beauty.
Here’s a newer article on the 220:
https://hifipig.com/devialet-expert-220-pro-integrated-amplifier/#more-48562
And I can vouche for SAM using a 220, I have never owned a speaker that Devialet provided a SAM profile for, and just this year picked up a set of KEF LS50s for my bedroom system, and noticed they were SAM capable, so I tried them out on my 220 and they are now my main speakers, trouncing my Thiel CS 2.4s, they are absolutely magical sounding with SAM turned on.
But I’d still take that ARS system or many of the other beautiful systems in a minute. I saw a beautiful set of Red Focals & black Blade 2s, and I know they are SAM capable, so I want them 
Didn’t know Devialet made tubed amps. 
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lets keep it constructive. Though I’m honestly reconsidering my setup, Devialet is very “clinical”, and I feel I’m missing some mid warmth.
The endless tube discussion, its OK unless people get nasty. I love tube amps but let’s face it tube amps are inherently distorting thus its like arguing about wine. It all hangs on whether an amps particular distortion profile is pleasant to anyones particular ear. Further good tube amps are expensive and finicky what to match with. I prefer transistors which in general have less character than tubes but which provide you what was in the recording, plain and simple. One good thing about tubes is that if you like its particular sound your in luck since that particular pleasing sound will be there regardless the quality of the recorded material.
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I feel it similar!
I owned a Devialet 200, now I am happy with Accuphase.
Maybe the Devialtets amplifiers are too “good”!
I did not want to slender The Devialet has a very neat design. But I wanted to point to some measurements which don’t look too good from 1Khz upwards…If the new products have the same issues, I do not know…
best regards,
Armin
Tubes in effect are an “instrument” rather than just an amplifier. That can be good or bad depending on your expectations or perspective. Guitar players mostly prefer tubes because they want that warm (AKA distorted) character to their sound. Furthermore most instrument amps of the transistor variety, are a matter of price rather than because of their fidelity. Most musicians don’t have unlimited funds to throw on equipment.
Never look at a tube amp’s specs aside from max distortion and power ratings. The rest you should do by ear! Tube amps measure dismally by today’s measurable standards! Again, that distortion is its own distinct “musicality”.
WARNING: Personal opinion loaded rant below.
There are a lot of bad tube designs out there these days. I’m thinking of those crap tube buffers that provide a “tubey” sound by under-driving a tube stage for more distortion. And the whole SET craze.
A well designed tube amp (push pull falls into this category, SET does not) can have very low distortion and be able to drive nasty reactive loads. An example is the 12 watt Quad II amps which drive the original quads nicely. A much more objectively good performing tube amp is the HK Citation II, it uses loads of feedback (three loops) and outstanding output iron to make what I’d consider one of the better traditional tube amp designs of any age. The McIntosh design is also very clever and very unique in their transformer design. But what all these tube amps have in common is an output transformer because vacuum tubes are high impedance devices and our speakers are low impedance loads. So a transformer is used to do the impedance matching. But the downside is transformers are nasty signal butchering devices. Notwithstanding, a well designed tube amp doesn’t sound “tubey” but neutral and transparent.
However if you want to really hear neutral and transparent without tubey bloat or transistor harshness, you owe it to yourself to try the new nCore amps from Hypex. Bruno really did a nice job of designing them and they are giant killers. Super cheap that embarrasses very expensive gear.
Edit: Also tubes are inherently noisy devices due to the high internal temperatures they run at (high Johnson noise). This is not a big deal for a line level pre-amp or a power amp. But they are really tricky to work with in a phono pre-amp. Especially a moving coil gain stage where the signals are tiny. I’ve had really good luck with high quality step-up transformers from the MC cartridge to a more traditional MM sort of tube phono stage. This keeps the noise down.
Sheldon
My audio head isn’t easily turned but following a bit of web research these certainly have my attention. Quality DIY components at value prices and barely a bad word said about the amp tech, lovely.
Ok, let’s all go buy one and do some comparisons 
We could build a joint recommend Roon User system.
I’m psyching myself up for a pair of nc400 mono’s.
You know it makes sense, almost too easy. I was worried as the need for a soldering iron was announced late in the tool requirements:
Not to derail this, but Hypex has a line of line powered all in one amplifiers designed for the OEM market. They are packaged by a number of vendors like this:
You can have a remarkably good sounding amp for the price of some silly audiophile ethernet cable.
This one is a little more baragin basement:
For folks who like to tinker, you can buy this and pull the amplifier module out, it’s the same NC252MP amp as you get above, but now you can integrate it into whatever you have going on, like the streamer I built:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/speaker-amps/hypex-fusionamp-fa252-250w-250w/
Sheldon
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Here’s my recommended roon system:
Broken Quad ESL-63’s $500
Rebuild kit from ER Audio $250
Hypex nCore amp in case $600
IanCananda’s rPi fifo dac and analog stage $500
Case for above $100
Canare cabling $75
At just over $2K, that system will amaze you.
Sheldon
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That ASR review has been well and truly shown to be cynical or disingenuous. For a good read, see here.
https://devialetchat.com/Thread-Audio-Science-Review-of-Expert-200
As well as the review from Stereophile???
Seems Devialet has some fanboys As I said a nice piece of development, but with some bad measurements, so it’s a matter of taste. Seems no one can hear the bad performance in the high frequencies…even some people here believe in “sound” of cables…strange for me personally.