The Devialet Phantom: The Speaker that looks Nothing Like a Speaker

Nowadays, there’s not a whole lot of innovation as far as speaker form factors. Your typical speaker is most likely a rectangle with some speaker grills clearly visible. Once in a blue moon, you’ll see some circular or spherical speaker even, so to see a speaker in the shape of some sort of sci-fi weapon is one stark departure from the rest of the market.

Enter the Devialet Phantom. Chances are, you haven’t heard of Devialet. Nonetheless, they are “the world’s most critically acclaimed start-up” for its innovations in sound technologies. Whether you heard of them or not, you can’t deny that the Phantom looks very non-speaker like. I’ll say it, it looks like it came out of Aperture Laboratories, but its uniqueness makes it so pleasing to look at. There are two models available: The base model simply named the Phantom and the Silver Phantom.

Both of them come with Bluetooth, which is pretty much a must-have for a wireless speaker. Although both Phantom models also come with some Wi-Fi connectivity and optical audio capabilities.

The base model (Below) will run you $1,990 USD. It’s by no means affordable, but you must consider all the tech they packed into the Phantom. Even though you’re paying for one speaker, there are a total of four drivers packed in the Phantom: Two subwoofers visible on either side, a tweeter, and a midrange speaker tucked inside. Each speaker receives four amps backed by ADH amplifiers. An ADH amplifier is a hybrid amplifier combining Class A Analog and Class D digital amplifiers. The base model delivers a total of 750 Watts at 99dB.

The Silver Phantom (Below) is a bit pricier at $2,390 and rightfully so. The technology is pretty much the same, except that the Silver Phantom delivers a whopping 3000 Watts at 105 dB. Either way, both are very, very loud for such a relatively small form factor.

Let’s talk about the form factor for a bit, actually. Devialet claims that there was very little as far as design. The bizarre form factor is just a consequence of acoustics. Let’s be honest with each other for a second: At the base price just under $2,000, nobody will buy this because they need a really dang loud Bluetooth speaker. One will probably buy this for the unique form factor. Hey, if you got $2,000 to throw away, you can’t go wrong with a speaker that looks like it came straight out of Portal. Until our full review, we leave you with this: An allegedly great speaker with killer looks with a ludicrously high price tag. If this is worth checking out, you can visit Devialet’s website. It’s currently unavailable to purchase in the United States, but there will be 1,000 shipped starting Labor Day.