Review: Devialet Dione Soundbar

In the 15 years of its existence, Parisian audio technology company Devialet has established itself as a purveyor of the “slightly unusual.” In fact, it’s not above veering into the realm of the “very unusual indeed.”  

Just consider its Phantom wireless loudspeaker. It’s packed with innovative technologies, it sounds great … but what’s most notable is just how singular its industrial design is. If you ever find yourself in the market for a wireless speaker that looks as if it’s trying to remember how to fly, Devialet has a product for you.

With the Dione, the company has brought some of its predictably unpredictable design to bear on one of the most staid and predictable product categories of the lot: the soundbar. With the Dione, Devialet intends to deliver the performance of a Dolby Atmos spatial surround-sound audio system from a single enclosure—although, naturally, a soundbar that’s had the Devialet design treatment.

On the outside, then, the Dione is a fairly substantial unit (8.8 cm high, 120 cm wide, 16.5 cm deep, so it needs to accompany an equally sizable television if it’s not going to look a bit overgrown. It can be mounted on a shelf or on the wall. If it’s the former, bear in mind that height of 8.8 cm may be problematic if your TV sits low on its feet; if it’s the latter, consider the soundbar’s 12-kg weight before you decide to attach it to a plasterboard partition wall.

The Dione’s big visual design feature is the ORB (the capitalization of which is all Devialet’s idea). The ORB is a dedicated center speaker channel, and can be manually rotated in accordance with the soundbar’s orientation—the Dione is fitted with gyroscopes, so its other speaker drivers understand their responsibilities no matter which way the soundbar is facing. 

Physically, this ORB looks as if it’s made from such a superdense material that it’s sinking into the surface of the soundbar itself. In practice, it makes the Dione look both distinctive and unhelpfully taller than it otherwise would be.

Photograph: Devialet

As is predictable with Devialet products, there are quite a few big numbers attached to the Dione. Some 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 replicate 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 chunky 24-bit/96-kHz resolution. A claimed frequency response of (a super-low) 24 Hz to (an ear-piercing) 21 kHz. A maximum sound level of 101 db at 1 meter (which is, roughly, ‘revving motorcycle’ territory).

At the back of the cabinet, the Dione houses a digital optical input, Ethernet socket, and eARC HDMI input. The lack of HDMI pass-through is lamentable, although predictable—after all, who’s about to spend this sort of money on a soundbar without an up-to-the-minute TV to go with it? Its wireless connectivity runs to 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.

Control options are effectiv, as far as they go, but they don’t go quite as far as you might expect. The Devialet control app, for example, is a clean and stable interface with plenty of useful functions, including an auto-calibration routine for helping the soundbar set itself up according to its specific environment. It’s also where you select different EQ presets and routines. (The Dione will take any mono or stereo signal and upscale it to 5.1.2 standard using Movie mode, restrict itself to stereo reproduction in Music mode, or thrust the ORB center channel even further into the spotlight with Voice mode.)  

Photograph: Devialet

There are a few capacitive touch-controls on the surface of the soundbar too. Here you can deal with the broad strokes of performance (volume up/down, play/pause, that sort of thing). But there’s no voice-control built in, and, remarkably, no remote control handset either. Of course, if you’ve made an HDMI connection to your TV then the screen’s remote control will handle the soundbar’s volume, but it’s nevertheless a puzzling omission.

Run the auto-calibration routine and get some nice Dolby Atmos content playing, though, and this low-temperature griping about the lack of a remote control seems even more churlish. If it’s shock and awe you want from your Hollywood blockbuster, sit down and pin your ears back.

The Old Guard is available on Netflix with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack and Dolby Vision HDR—and with the soundtrack handed over to the Dione via eARC HDMI, the nonsensical nature of the film itself becomes irrelevant. The sound, as described by the Devialet, is what matters.

By the standards of stand-alone soundbars, those that travel without a partnering subwoofer, the low-frequency extension, punch, and overall presence the Dione is capable of is little short of startling. Bass is square-edged and loaded with detail, but most of all it hits hard, and with zero discernible overhang. In all of soundbar-land, only Sennheiser’s (equally expensive and considerably less attractive) Ambeo comes close to matching the Devialet for sheer wallop.

The opposite end of the frequency range is equally assertive—which is, in its own way, just as remarkable as the ample bass presence, given yjsy the Dione goes without any dedicated tweeters. Detail levels are, again, high, and the level of drive and attack the Devialet summons grants treble sounds real bite. Indeed, exploit every one of those 950 watts and the bite is unarguably too bitey, but at real-world volume levels the treble response just about behaves itself. Which is more than can be said for the bass, which gets quite over-excited at significant volumes.

Photograph: Devialet

It’s the midrange that’s the most notable area of the frequency range, though. The ORB proves to be just as much about substance as it is style, giving dialog in particular real positivity and immediacy. Even when the soundtrack overall is filled with competing sounds, voices project ahead of the maelstrom, and so the plot, such as it is, is always easy to follow. The entire frequency range is integrated well—no mean feat when you consider the number of individual drivers involved—and the unity and coherence of the Devialet’s presentation is never in doubt.

While the notion of genuine surround-sound proves as fanciful in practice as it does in theory, the Dione presents a very convincing, nicely integrated, and unarguably big soundstage in front of you. There’s an aluminum driver at each end of the soundbar to provide sonic width, and (if the Devialet is on a shelf) a pair at each end of the soundbar’s top surface to provide the Dolby Atmos “height”—that is, after all, one of the main points of the Dione. And as long as you temper your expectations just a little, it all works very well indeed.

Even if you park the Devialet beneath a properly big TV (let’s say in excess of 65 inches), the stage it creates is far wider than the screen it accompanies. The Dione has real left/right reach, and doesn’t get hazy or diffuse as it reaches out—it simply extends. And it’s a similar, although admittedly slightly less pronounced, story where the all-important height element of the soundtrack is concerned. The Devialet can’t fool you into thinking there are speakers above you, but it has little difficulty projecting sound well above the top of your great big TV.

There are similarly numerous pros and similarly few cons to the way the Dione functions as a music speaker. The same implacable low-end presence, the same vaulting midrange fidelity, the same attack at the top end, and the same disinclination to play very loud with all of this being compromised. It’s a better listen in stereo than it is when trying to force a suggestion of spatial audio from a two-channel source, but if the music has been mastered in Dolby Atmos, then it’s as coherent and of-a-piece as the movie equivalent.  

Ultimately, we’re in “could buy a genuine surround-sound system for this sort of money” territory with the Devialet Dione. What Devialet understands, though, is that some people, many people, don’t want a roomful of speakers in order to achieve a sound reminiscent of a roomful of speakers—especially not the sort of people who enjoy the Devialet aesthetic as much as the Devialet sound. 

The Dione may not make absolutely good on its promise of Dolby Atmos sound—certainly not to the extent the Sennheiser Ambeo does—and it can be a little unruly at volume. But as an engineering achievement, a piece of visual drama and, most important, a hugely accomplished soundbar, it’s very impressive indeed.