Devialet Expert 200

There’s no question Devialet builds beautiful products. From the moment one opens the box it’s easy to see this company is the Apple of HiFi. Unboxing a Devialet amplifier is like opening a present to oneself. Beautifully packaged, the amplifier comes out of the box with an absolutely perfect mirror finish to the chassis. The same can be said for the one of a kind remote control. Right from the start my experience with Devialet was luxurious. I can see why Devialet has become a media darling and why the press has unanimously drooled over everything the company has released. Are the products that good or are the stunning looks and unique design fooling everyone? I set to find out, first with the Devialet 200, 

Devialet has built an incredibly versatile amplifier platform. Describing what a Devialet 200 actually is can be challenging because of this versatility. Using the online Configurator it’s possible to turn this product into an amp with four digital coaxial inputs or an amp with a phono input and many things in between. It’s also possible to configure the 200 for a single input such as asynchronous USB, WiFi, Ethernet, TosLink, or AES, and disable all other inputs. Heck, it’s even possible to turn a coaxial input into an output or use the USB port as an output for digitization of vinyl. Devialet is serious when it says the inputs and outputs are fully configurable. In addition to fully configurable, the entire Devialet line of amplifiers is fully upgradable because of the EVO platform. Prior to starting this review I received the Devialet 170. shortly after receiving this product Devialet released a firmware upgrade that transformed the 170 into a 200. As well as increasing the output from 170W to 200W, Devialet also added its SAM technology via firmware update. SAM stands for Speaker Active Matching and enables the amplifier to adapt the signal to the speakers provided Devialet has measured the specific model of speaker. This SAM measurement database contains nearly 175 speakers, including the TAD CR1 speakers I used for this review.