A futuristic speaker, with an exceptional price
With more than 41 audio awards under its belt, the French company Devialet has finally released its much anticipated Phantom range of speakers.
The Silver Phantom, however, isn’t your everyday speaker. Within its glass fibre-filled polycarbonate shell lies an 800MHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor, with 512MB of DDR3 memory and a single Cyclone-V system-on-chip sound processing engine.
You can connect to it via Bluetooth, optical or Ethernet using the company’s Phantom accessory, the Dialog, which is a basically a gigabit switch (with wi-fi capabilities), with a quadcore 1GHz processor inside to allow the synchronisation of multiple Phantoms so they can work together. Unbelievably, you can have up to 24 of linked at once.
The technology used within the Silver Phantom is just as polished as its white and grey stylish exterior. For example, you get HBI (Heart Bass Impolsion), ADH Intelligence (Analog Digital Hybrid), SAM (Speakers Active Matching) and ACE (Active Cospherical Engine). Most of these are patented by Devialet itself, with a long list totalling 88 individual patents all crammed into this single mono speaker. It sounds like a lot to take on for just one unit, and in many ways you can be forgiven for ignoring most of the lengthy technological explanations. But the proof, as they say, is in the eating – or listening in this case.
The sound produced from the Silver Phantom is seriously good. Every frequency and every possible range is hit to near perfection. Even when you crank up the volume to a full earbleeding 3000W 105dB, there’s virtually no distortion, although you’ll likely be promptly removed from the neighbours' Christmas card lists.
This level of sound reproduction is thanks to those aforementioned patents and the four drivers, two of which are large subwoofers capable of moving a mass of more than 30kg. In fact, the entire resonance chamber within the Silver Phantom generates the equivalent air pressure of a rocket taking off.
One more addition to the technology side that we found interesting was the fact that there are no wires within the Silver Phantom; the Silver Phantom is made up of PCB modules that carry the necessary voltage through various resistors and DAC. This, the company claims, reduces lag and produces a more stable power rate and constant temperature throughout, and Devialet calls this technology Magic Wire.
However, while it’s easy to perforate our ear drums and wax lyrical over the exterior and interior designs, as well as drool over the technology, there are a few of flaws we think need addressing.
For a start, there's the ridiculous power cable that comes with the Silver Phantom. Here you have a futuristic podlike speaker, and from the rear of it streams a built-in length of thick, yellow cable, the kind you’d normally see on a lawnmower. The cable terminates in a kettle-lead type end, which extends into a recessed area at the rear of the Silver Phantom.
Within this recessed area you’ll also find the optical and Ethernet ports, arranged at the top of the cut-in section. They're incredibly awkward to get to and trail a cable from once the power section is plugged back in again.
The third problem we have is the cost. While this level of technology is impressive, it doesn’t come cheap. In fact, the Silver Phantom we have on test here retails at £1,690. The lesser powered version, called simply Phantom, will set you back £1,390. Then there are the accessories too, with the Dialog that we mentioned earlier costing £249 and a Phantom remote costing £129. That’s probably the reason why so many owners are said to be pop stars.
The Silver Phantom is by far one of the best speakers we’ve ever reviewed. It’s excessively loud, crystal clear, looks amazing and is equally eye-wateringly expensive. Despite the odd choice of port placement and the weird Black & Decker power cable, the Silver Phantom is every audiophile’s dream. But those audiophiles may have to sell one or two organs before they’re able to afford it. One positive point regarding the cost, though: Devialet offers free shipping with every Phantom. David Hayward
Absolutely incredible, but only serious audiophiles need apply.