Hi Mark, what a coincidence, I showed this thread to my better half 3 days ago and told her I should probably get back and post some experience soon, now that I have owned the Devialet for a while.
I bought the 200 used but without a scratch (which you cannot hide and only avoid with good care) for 3650€, which is a little over half the RRP over here in Germany. This plays a big role in my satisfaction considering the above mentioned flood of overprized upgrade programs and products by Devialet. By purchasing a mint second-hand unit I bypassed the value depreciation for the most part.
Now to the 200 itself and firstly to the question of longevity that I initially raised with this thread.
I bought it in April 2017 and since the first day I have it running for hours every day. I come home from work and leave it on until I go to sleep. If we are at home on the weekends it will stay on pretty much 2 days straight. I listen to vinyl, digital music through AIR for „serious listening“ or via optical input from Apple TV streaming from my iPhone for convenience. My TV goes to another optical input. The unit gets pretty warm but not ridiculously hot. I do think it uses too much power in standby which I read somewhere but have yet to test for myself with a meter. It stays lukewarm, even in standby which is an indicator for that and also that it never really shuts off, no matter if you go standby with the display dimmed or “the other standby” with the display turned off. This could and should have easily been avoided by Devialet (will probably with the new electronics/ new core..?). This makes me wonder if it is better for the electronics to disconnect it from power when on holiday or to keep it in standby all the time. I have done both as I just don’t know. Anyway I don’t have the feeling that this thing will break on me any time soon.
Now to some more impressions as an owner of an Expert 200.
I sincerely doubt I could be happier with ANY other integrated. The package is just too perfect. It is powering my B&W CM10 s2’s and, while there are certainly better speakers out there, they sound ridiculously good with the Devialet and SAM all the way up to 100%. I am pretty sure many people would fail a blind test and think what they are hearing is a MUCH more expensive or higher tier speaker. I seriously doubt that anything could make my speakers sound better than a Devialet. If anything can, it is probably much more expensive.
Cranking up the volume it really feels like an infinite power source with nothing undesired happening to SQ. My room acoustics become the obvious culprit way before I could ever hear anything other than what world class amplification should deliver. What this tiny chrome monolith is producing is spectacular. Acoustic treatment will be the next thing I will address. To this point I do not believe in fancy speaker and power cables and even less in expensive feet for electronics, but then I haven’t tried any of those things and therefore can‘t judge.
I do think the future lies in active and that passive will sooner or later lose its place in high-end audio but if you are looking for an integrated amp I really don’t think you can go wrong with a Devialet. The overall package is the best imho. All those digital and analogue input possibilities, MM and MC phono stages, the ADH‘s ridiculously clean power delivery and sound with completely dead background (seriously, you can turn the volume all the way up, put your ear to the speaker and hear nothing at all), and everything in this form factor, along with the most gorgeous and satisfying remote you will ever use. Air streaming works flawlessly and is theoretically the best connection you can have from source to amp period. The only times Air gets unstable is when I have a lot of people over (I think many smartphones looking for wifi in 2.4 gHz become an issue). Despite some reviewers claiming that a fraction of the sound quality is lost at lower levels, for me it sounds absolutely spectacular. The deep and present bass even at the lowest levels never ceases to amaze me.
One thing to consider is headphone usage. For this you need to use the pre-out, set the needed output level in the configurator and get a cinch to single 3.5mm or 6.35mm jack adapter. When listening really loud and turning up the bass i get distortions and prefer my headphone amp. This could be related to wrong settings in the configurator, so if anyone who reads this knows what to do please let me know. I only like to turn up the bass when listening to hip hop or electronic music. Heaphone SQ is great when listening without messing with bass at very loud levels.
