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"This is both interesting and funny as it reveals the difficult part of the job constantly performed by the streamer: have the D-Premier play music at the time that's currently displayed by iTunes whilst simultaneously anticipating the streaming process a few second ahead to properly buffer it. This relies on proper capture of upcoming track-to-track transitions where the buffer must remain full. This is very tricky. It's why you may have noticed that a few seconds before the end of the current track, we request that iTunes play the next one to identify its starting location, then return to the end of the current track to maintain consistency of its display (hence only a short blink). It's the only way to reliably obtain this information without an API. That's why the local sound output is definitely not intended to be listened to whilst we are streaming."

In the weeks during which we listened intensively to the streaming capabilities of the Devialet, we never noticed any dropouts. The elaborate buffering process worked just as advertised. This made the comfort and ease of streaming media terribly addicting. No more getting up to turn over LPs or change CDs. Simply compose a play list for the occasion based on a theme or mood and listen to that for hours on end. Since Devialet uses the computer only for storage, library display and to output a digital stream to the D-Premier, the sound quality is exclusively in the hands of Devialet. It is here where the reclocked signal encounters digital signal processing, D/A conversion and subsequently a very clever class A-D hybrid power amplifier all in the same chassis for the ultimate in system integration and tech convergence (remembering that the D-Premier can also act as very high-quality phono stage).



From our speakers now emerged the same uncolored well-defined wide and deep aural images as they had in the past with a top-class CD transport as source. Even with the AIRddition the D-Premier made for the most noise-free system we have ever encountered. The D-Premier successfully rejected any apparent WiFi contamination and processed only the pure music signal. With their implementation of the AIR hardware and software the French design team finally made true on an outstanding promise of their 2010 product launch. It took time to sort out the streaming feature to their satisfaction but that time was clearly well spent. The end result is stunning in both sound quality and user convenience. We only spotted two small flaws, the publicity of the network’s security key and the playing along over the Mac. Neither influenced the sound quality in any way. We had previously issued a Blue Moon Award for the D-Premier sans AIR as Innovative Extreme Performance All-In-One Integrated Amplifier. Now we wish to square that award to the second power for Innovative Extreme Performance All-In-One Integrated Amplifier². With this project completed, one truly wonders what the clever gents in Paris might come up with next. What doesn't the D-Premier do already? Flip the page once more to find out...
Quality of packing: Excellent
Condition of component received: Perfect.
Quality of owner's manual: On the website.
Website comments: Of a very high quality standard; informative, clean, very useful (configurator, software downloads).
Pricing: This upgrade is free or for new units integrated at no extra cost.
Human interactions: Very friendly.
Remark: A very finessed cooperation between hardware, firmware, open source-based software and existing 3rd-party applications which was not rushed to market but properly refined and matured first.

Devialet's Mathias Moronvalle comments: "First of all, many thanks for your extensive dedicated review of our new streaming feature for the D-Premier. I did appreciate your very positive and specific feedback on our hard work and the renewed award you honor us with. I also wish to thank you for acknowledging the effort of doing things right the hard way - from a blank slate without embedding any quality-limiting existing solutions. Just for your information, we are about to release a new revision for the streaming application for Mac and PC (1.2) and the D-Premier's firmware (5.5.2). Beyond several stability improvements regarding OS and iTunes, I've added a nice bundle of new features I hope you will enjoy:

• many new network compatibility items like security keys up to 63 bytes*, shared WEP mode, fixed IP*, ad-hoc network (both joining and creating*) and an alternative entry point for the network password (see below)
• careful lossless streaming compression over the network for optimal bandwidth usage and improved robustness
• 48kHz capability as a step toward HD support which is on its way
• sample-accurate gapless transitions between tracks, useful when enjoying fragmented classical pieces and live recordings
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The star*-tagged features will become publicly available after a forthcoming configurator upgrade.
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