Redefining an Icon: The Phantom Ultimate
The Devialet Phantom Ultimate marks a deliberate evolution of a design that first captured imaginations in 2015. While the exterior retains the distinctive spherical silhouette that became the brand’s signature, the real story lies beneath the surface. As chief product and technical officer Jean-Loup Afresne notes, innovation begins with a blank page—yet the Phantom Ultimate proves that you can honor a beloved icon while pushing its inner limits.
In the world of high-end audio, “refinement” is often a delicate balancing act: preserve what fans love, while corralling the technical horsepower to deliver something measurably better. Devialet’s team faced this precise challenge. The result is a model that looks familiar but feels radically enhanced, especially inside the chassis where efficiency, power, and precision converge.
Design Philosophy: Keeping the Core, Elevating the Inner Workings
Afresne explains that the team deliberately avoided a full reset. “The main challenge is to not change the things which must not be changed,” he says. The Phantom’s identity—its compact form, aluminum shell, and instantly recognizable stance—remains intact. It is a reaffirmation that a strong design language can serve as a platform for deeper technical improvements rather than a cosmetic overhaul.
The emphasis on internal improvement reflects a broader trend among luxury audio makers: you can achieve greater realism and dynamism without altering the silhouette that listeners already adore. In the Phantom Ultimate, the engineers retained the spatial charm of the original while widening its performance envelope.
Technical Upgrades: Power, Precision, and Connectivity
The Phantom Ultimate’s core upgrade is a redesigned power supply that runs cooler and cleaner. The result is uncompromised peak performance with less energy waste and heat generation—a crucial benefit for a high-output speaker designed to sustain long listening sessions at concert-level levels.
Beyond power, the hybrid amplification system has been pushed to extend its bandwidth to 35 kHz. This expansion introduces palpable air and atmosphere to the soundstage, enhancing both the sense of space and the micro-detail in complex passages. Complementing this is a refined digital signal processing (DSP) setup that tightens control, improves clarity, and delivers a more natural transient response.
Timing and speed are further improved by a faster processing unit, while a fully re-engineered tweeter contributes to cleaner high frequencies and better dispersion. The result is a sound that is not only louder and more dynamic but also more controllable in real-world listening rooms.
Smarter, Faster, Connected: The Modern Phantom
In today’s audio ecosystem, streaming and multiroom use are essential. The Phantom Ultimate steps up with upgraded connectivity: Wi‑Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, and support for AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Roon Ready, and UPnP. For listeners building a connected audio system, these capabilities simplify integration and improve reliability, enabling seamless playback across devices and services.
Afresne emphasizes that the sophistication behind the Phantom Ultimate is not meant to overwhelm users. The design goal is accessibility: a compact device that delivers an expansive,
