Three French men—a brilliant engineer, a designer, and an entrepreneur—joined forces to establish Devialet, sparking a revolution in sound for the 21st century.
Sixteen years ago, engineer Pierre Emmanuel Calmel met Emmanuel Nardin, a designer, and entrepreneur Quentin Sannié, and demonstrated the audio equipment he had developed. From that first listening session, Nardin and Sannié were completely convinced. The three French men officially united, initiating a sound revolution for the 21st century with the Devialet brand.
Pierre-Emmanuel Calmel: The Inventor and Music-Loving Father
Before the founding of Devialet, there was a young genius named Pierre Emmanuel Calmel, whose inventive talents were evident from a young age. At 14, young Calmel successfully built his first amplifier from a few dusty components found in a local electronics store, combining knowledge from an introductory book with the assistance of his grandfather, a railway engineer.
“That amplifier is still in use today. My children still use it for parties”, says Pierre Emmanuel Calmel, the founding engineer of Devialet.
At the age of 23, Calmel worked for the technology giant Nortel Networks, but the dot-com crisis of the early 2000s forced the Canadian corporation to shelve many of its electronics projects. It was during this period that Pierre Emmanuel Calmel discovered his groundbreaking invention: the ADH (Analog-Digital Hybrid) technology, which is still present in every Devialet product today.
At that time, Nortel Networks deemed his idea too disconnected from the company’s operations, leading the young Frenchman decide it was time to start his own business.
“When I brought home the first Devialet amplifier and played jazz music, my 5-year-old son ran over to see who was playing the piano”,says Pierre Emmanuel Calmel.
Starting as a side project, Calmel dedicated three years to perfecting the first ADH prototype. In 2007, he, along with designer Emmanuel Nardin and entrepreneur Quentin Sannié, officially launched the Devialet brand, aiming to create a revolution in sound for the 21st century.
Revolutionary Technologies
The brand Devialet is named after Guillaume Vialet, a scholar and friend of the renowned philosopher Diderot. Vialet compiled the French encyclopedia, L’Encyclopédie Française, with the mission of disseminating all aspects of French culture and life. With the name Devialet, the brand openly expresses its desire to bring its “encyclopedia” of hi-fi sound to every household, with the first page undoubtedly dedicated to its hybrid analog digital ADH technology.
Analog-Digital Hybrid (ADH) is positioned by the company as the “Eiffel Tower of the audio industry,” combining two contrasting technologies—analog amplifiers and digital amplifiers. Analog is favored for its fidelity but generates a lot of heat. Digital is compact and produces less heat but lacks fidelity. Once deemed crazy, Calmel defied all advice and successfully integrated both types of circuits to operate in parallel within the same amplifier.
“For the first time in the world, the warm, refined sound of analog converges with the performance and power of digital without sacrificing power or stability,” said a company representative. “ADH is likened to an 18-wheel truck with a powerful digital engine, but it steers very smoothly thanks to the integration of an analog power steering system.”
This technology also earned Devialet its first patent. Today, the French high-end audio company holds more than 200 different patents. For instance, the Speaker Active Matching (SAM) technology on the Expert Pro amplifier uses lasers to reduce latency between the bass driver and tweeter when pairing multiple speakers, allowing for smoother amplifier-to-speaker connections. Calmel often carries a 1-square-centimeter chip in his pocket, which can completely replace the amplifier in many Devialet products. Other notable technologies include HBI® (Heart Bass Implosion), which generates extremely low bass frequencies down to 14 Hz, comparable to infrasound, and ACE (Active Cospherical Engine), which optimizes the formation and propagation of sound waves from a spherical design, delivering uniform sound from all angles.
To bring these technologies closer to everyday life, in 2014, Devialet launched a new icon—the Phantom home speaker. This compact, rounded speaker is capable of generating sound pressure exceeding 100 dB despite its small size. The high-end speaker, priced at approximately $3,000, has attracted notable figures such as billionaire Elon Musk, rapper Kanye West, and the late designer Karl Lagerfeld.
Devialet – The Luxury Sound Artisan of Paris
Building on its success, Devialet has consecutively launched new designs such as the portable Mania speaker, the Dione soundbar, and the Gemini II in-ear headphones, which were just released this fall. These products are distributed at over 2,000 sales points in 70 countries worldwide.
Devialet products are highly technologically advanced but do not focus on a feature race. Instead, they aim to provide the purest and most complete listening experience for users.
“The goal is to move listeners as if they are standing before a masterpiece—and I believe we have succeeded,” said co-founder Sannié.
Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android and a major investor in the French speaker company, told Bloomberg that what Devialet has achieved surpasses all measures. “They are visually appealing, pleasing to the ear, and remind me that there is always room for new inventions in our lives,” he said. Besides Andy Rubin, Devialet also has the support of singer Jay-Z and his wife Beyonce, as well as the world’s second-richest billionaire Bernard Arnault, who all place their trust in the 21st-century sound revolution starting from Paris. Devialet’s accomplishments were recognized with the title of member of the Comité Colbert in 2021, a group of 93 of the most prestigious luxury artisans in France.
In Vietnam, enthusiasts can directly experience the quality, sound, and luxury of Devialet products at the official store, which opened this past September in Hanoi. With a modern design featuring the characteristic geometric shapes of Devialet stores worldwide, this location showcases the full range of audio equipment, including all variations of the iconic Phantom speaker.
According to the founders, before Devialet, audio science had not seen a true breakthrough in 25 years. The brand is determined to start a revolution in the $3 billion audio market, extending beyond just speakers, headphones, soundbars, and amplifiers, to include cars, phones, and whatever the future may bring.