in the 15 Years of its existence, the Parisian audio technology company Devialet has established itself as a purveyor of the “somewhat unusual”. In fact, it is not above the realm of the ‘highly unusual’.
Just think of the wireless Phantom speaker. It’s packed with innovative technologies, it sounds great… but what stands out most is how unique the industrial design is. If you’re ever looking for a wireless speaker that looks like it’s trying to remember how to fly, Devialet has a product for you.
With the Dione, the company has applied some of its predictably unpredictable design to one of the lot’s most stable and predictable product categories: the soundbar. With the Dione, Devialet aims to deliver the performance of a Dolby Atmos spatial surround-sound audio system from a single enclosure, albeit of course a soundbar that has had the Devialet design treatment.
So from the outside, the Dione is quite a hefty unit (8.8cm high, 120cm wide, 16.5cm deep, so it should match a TV of the same size if it doesn’t look a bit overgrown. It can be mounted on a shelf or on the wall.If it’s the former, keep in mind that a 8.8cm height can be problematic if your TV is low on its legs; if it’s the latter, consider the weight of 12 kg of the soundbar before you decide to attach it to a plasterboard partition.
The big visual design feature of the Dione is the ORB (whose capital letters are all Devialet’s idea). The ORB is a dedicated channel for the center speaker and can be manually rotated according to the direction of the soundbar – the Dione is fitted with gyroscopes so that the other speaker drivers understand their responsibilities regardless of the side of the soundbar.
Physically, this ORB looks like it’s made of such a super-dense material that it sinks into the surface of the soundbar itself. In practice, it makes the Dione look both distinctive and uselessly larger than it would otherwise be.
miraculous power
Photo: Devialet
As can be expected with Devialet products, there are quite a few big numbers associated with the Dione. About 950 watts of power, for example. A total of 17 speaker drivers (nine full-range aluminum cones and eight aluminum low-frequency woofers), arranged to mimic a 5.1.2-Dolby Atmos spatial surround-sound layout. A digital-to-analog converter embedded in the “Devialet Intelligence” processor that operates at a solid 24-bit/96-kHz resolution. A claimed frequency response from (a super low) 24 Hz to (a deafening) 21 kHz. A maximum sound level of 101 db at 1 meter (that is approximately ‘rev engine’ area).
On the back of the cabinet, the Dione houses a digital optical input, Ethernet connection and eARC HDMI input. The lack of HDMI pass-through is unfortunate, if predictable – after all, who’s about to spend this kind of money on a soundbar without a modern TV to go with it? Wireless connectivity is via dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, Apple AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect. And it’s also UPnP compatible if you have content stored on a common local network.