SIGNALS

Devialet's Gold Phantom: The Finer Thing in Life

Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jun 28, 2016

Your daily driver is a Bugatti. Your "casual" wristwatch is an Audemars Piguet. (Note: Rolexes are for tourists.) Your third home is in Jackson Hole. I hate to break the news to you, but you are a 1 percenter. Fortunately, now you can drown out the cries of the masses with a superb new loudspeaker from Devialet.

Kidding aside, elitism is a relative thing. Ninety-nine percent of the population would think it's crazy to spend more than $200 on a loudspeaker, but at least once in their lives, every audiophile has contemplated buying a speaker for ten times that much. In that respect, the price of this latest offering from Devialet is more than reasonable.

The Gold Phantom is the latest creation from Devialet, a French company best known for the previous incarnations of the Phantom series of deluxe powered speakers sporting WiFi and stereo Bluetooth. In particular, the 750-watt Phantom speaker, and the 3,000-watt Silver Phantom are both regarded for their innovative form factors and power delivery that seems improbable in such small packages. Now the Gold Phantom comes along, upping the ante with 4,500 watts of Devialet's Analog Digital Hybrid amplification. If you have to ask the price, you probably can't afford it. But since you asked, the price is $2,990. A lot cheaper than a Bugatti.

With great price comes great performance. The Gold Phantom claims a frequency response of 14 Hz to 27kHz (the latter thanks to a new titanium tweeter), a THD of 0.0005%, and a maximum SPL level of 108 dB. And, let's not overlook the 22 kt rose-gold trim. You can read more about Devialet's proprietary technology here. Devialet is taking pre-orders now, with delivery promised for July 14 which, as all 1 percenters know, is Bastille Day. How ironic. Or, as the French would say, ironique.

Does the Gold Phantom sound good? For the price, it better. More relevantly, I'll report back to you after I get a review sample. And trust me—if the engineers who built the Gold Phantom spent too much of its build budget on 22-kt gold decoration and not enough on sophisticated audio engineering, I'll be the first to let you know. Hopefully, based on the excellent sound quality of the "ordinary" Phantom I've auditioned, that won't be the case.

Meanwhile, we can all dream. Imagine how splendid a Gold Phantom would look, sitting on your rustic log desk, in your 17-bedroom log home in Jackson Hole, with the snow-capped Grand Tetons in the background. How deluxe. Or, as the French would say, deluxe.

COMMENTS
Traveler's picture
Submitted by Traveler on June 28, 2016 - 4:22pm

There is no noticeable sound quality difference between a $100 speaker an a $10000 speaker (if both are in go working order.

John Sully's picture
Submitted by John Sully on June 28, 2016 - 5:25pm

That's a new way to troll. I don't think anyone, objectivist or subjectivist, would agree with that.

Traveler's picture
Submitted by Traveler on June 29, 2016 - 12:13pm

All I can do is say that I've heard all kinds of speakers and they all sound so close to the same that I can't tell the difference.

Biffstar's picture
Submitted by Biffstar on June 29, 2016 - 1:49pm

Soooo because you can't tell the difference, that means nobody else can hear differences between loudspeakers?

Either you're trolling, or you're the most ignorant fool to ever post here.

Traveler's picture
Submitted by Traveler on June 29, 2016 - 2:54pm

I'm guessing you sell expensive HiFi.

funambulistic's picture
Submitted by funambulistic on June 30, 2016 - 11:47am

If only I had known that ALL speakers sound the same, I could have saved so much money, time (listening to all of those same sounding speakers to find out which sound I prefer) and pleasure (for the same reason).

I usually try my best not to feed the trolls, but this was just too funny.

Rich67's picture
Submitted by Rich67 on June 30, 2016 - 3:30pm

I admit I've never been part of the hype about interconnects, power cords, oxygen free copper speaker wire, ya-da, yada, yada, making any difference. I've had difficulty telling the difference between two well built amplifiers operating within their parameters. But if you can't hear any difference among speakers then I'd be surprised that you can hear at all.

John_Werner's picture
Submitted by John_Werner on June 25, 2019 - 6:05pm

Here's my advice...get almost any Behringer powered speaker and add a Bluetooth receiver dongle and power it with your smartphone as far as control and content go. You'll save a couple of grand and you'll get sound that punches far above the money spent. I've got the Behringer powered near fields with the ribbons and 8" bass drivers and I really am questioning why anyone would spend more for Adam monitors or anything above that price point. You can really smash all the norms with powered monitors like the recent JBLs whose horns are direct dependents of the over $50K Everest statement speakers which bring horns into the realm of the highest resolution and sound staging transducers ever created.

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