As a typical audiophool, I've been swapping equipment in and out for too many years. Whilst overall there has been a general improvement in sound quality, there also has been a lot sideways movement as well. You change out a given component, you hear a difference, and wham, you decide it's an improvement. After a couple of weeks, you start noticing the flaws in the so called improved setup. So, you jump back on the merry go round, look to change out a different component once finances allow, and repeat the process. It's a fun but frustrating and expensive method we are all guilty of to a greater or lesser extent. Over time, you do lock in one by one the components/speakers that are designated as keepers, and hopefully the process slows down
Getting the amplifier/speaker combination is perhaps the trickiest part of the equation. For me, I settled on a pair of Tyler Acoustic Linbrook Signature Floor standing speakers. These have over a thousand dollars in upgraded wiring and crossover components. All the drivers are SEAS Excel/Millennium drivers, housed in a custom cabinet that weighs 135 lbs. The amount of cash one would have to spend to improve these is just cost prohibitive. I've heard speakers that were far more costly that did not sound as good. Supplemented the speakers with a SVS PC 4000 cylinder subwoofer, which was easy to integrate into the listening environment.
About nine months ago, sent in a Devialet D-Premier back to the factory in Paris for a upgrade to a Expert Pro 250. Devialet was great to do with business with, took about three weeks to turn around, first class service all the way. I wanted to get the improvements with streaming options, along with whatever improvements were wrought with the revised DAC/amp stage.
The D-Premier is and remains a damn good sounding unit, especially when considering it's a all in one package. There's something to be said for minimal cables in the playback setup, and the Devialet Expert amps verify this out.
When the Expert Pro 250 came back, hooked it up and started putting it through it's paces. For the various digital sources, I use a Chord M-Scaler to upscale the various streams to 192 Khz. The Chord is also used for a headphone setup. Needless to say, I was gob smacked at the improvement in over sonics. Without question, the noise floor was non existent, the clarity was jaw dropping. It's hard to describe in words just how good the 250 Pro actually sounds. This generates the type of excitement where one wants to go back and play their entire collection over again. Devialet made a number of design improvements with both the DAC interface and the Analog Digital Hybrid drive circuitry. I didn't expect the level of improvement sonically, but it there undeniably. I had a D-Premier to compare against the Expert Pro 250, and the difference was noticeable. Rather than go on with a lot of audiophile jargon, the easiest and most succinct way to describe the performance of the Expert Pro 250 with M-Scaler is that if one closes their eyes and just listens, the illusion of the music being live is provided in a convincing manner.
This review provides some more details about the Expert 250 Pro:
https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/devialet-d-premier-upgrade-to-expert-250-pro/ This setup sounds so good to me, I no longer have any desire to up want to upgrade the speakers/DAC/amp setup. For now, I'm off the equipment merry go round, hopefully for many years. I do think not having to use analog interconnect cables does help.
One other item worth mentioning: When the M-Scaler is not in the loop, the sound quality, while still outstanding, seems to lose that last bit of transparency. Don't think many would notice the difference under casual listening conditions, but under critical listening, believe most audiophiles would pick it up. This is one setup where the M-Scaler DOES help out.
