SIGNALS

Your daily driver is a Bugatti. Your "casual" wristwatch is an Audemars Piguet. (Note: Rolexes are for tourists.) Your third home is in Jackson Hole. I hate to break the news to you, but you are a 1 percenter. Fortunately, now you can drown out the cries of the masses with a superb new loudspeaker from Devialet.

Kidding aside, elitism is a relative thing. Ninety-nine percent of the population would think it's crazy to spend more than $200 on a loudspeaker, but at least once in their lives, every audiophile has contemplated buying a speaker for ten times that much. In that respect, the price of this latest offering from Devialet is more than reasonable.

The Gold Phantom is the latest creation from Devialet, a French company best known for the previous incarnations of the Phantom series of deluxe powered speakers sporting WiFi and stereo Bluetooth. In particular, the 750-watt Phantom speaker, and the 3,000-watt Silver Phantom are both regarded for their innovative form factors and power delivery that seems improbable in such small packages. Now the Gold Phantom comes along, upping the ante with 4,500 watts of Devialet's Analog Digital Hybrid amplification. If you have to ask the price, you probably can't afford it. But since you asked, the price is $2,990. A lot cheaper than a Bugatti.

With great price comes great performance. The Gold Phantom claims a frequency response of 14 Hz to 27kHz (the latter thanks to a new titanium tweeter), a THD of 0.0005%, and a maximum SPL level of 108 dB. And, let's not overlook the 22 kt rose-gold trim. You can read more about Devialet's proprietary technology here. Devialet is taking pre-orders now, with delivery promised for July 14 which, as all 1 percenters know, is Bastille Day. How ironic. Or, as the French would say, ironique.

Does the Gold Phantom sound good? For the price, it better. More relevantly, I'll report back to you after I get a review sample. And trust me—if the engineers who built the Gold Phantom spent too much of its build budget on 22-kt gold decoration and not enough on sophisticated audio engineering, I'll be the first to let you know. Hopefully, based on the excellent sound quality of the "ordinary" Phantom I've auditioned, that won't be the case.

Meanwhile, we can all dream. Imagine how splendid a Gold Phantom would look, sitting on your rustic log desk, in your 17-bedroom log home in Jackson Hole, with the snow-capped Grand Tetons in the background. How deluxe. Or, as the French would say, deluxe.