(09-Feb-2018, 18:02)Confused Wrote: I was going to write something very negative about Apple buying Devialet, but no need, some fine posts earlier in this thread that have said it much better than I could.
So, If we accept that Devialet are great with the hardware but need help with software, then the question might be a simple one, who is good at software for audio products?
One answer is Sonore. Sonore's 'SonicOrbiter' software is used on their 'Rendu' range of products, and even comes with the super cheap SonicTransporter. Variants of the same can also be found in SOtM and Antipodes kit. Broadly speaking, SonicOrbiter can do everything that is expected of the CI board at the moment, and more. Plus, it is pretty much 100% stable, it works. I am quite sure that Devialet products with Sonore software would be a match made in heaven.
I do not know the numbers, but I would guess that Devialet could easily find the money to buy Sonore outright if they wanted to. (if they were for sale that is). Plus, I am sure the cost of buying software consultancy from them would also be very achievable.
There is a problem here though, every indication is that Devialet want to develop their own software ecosystem, with Spark for the Expert coming soon I am sure. One positive here is that Devialet do seam to realise now that they have an issue with software and they do seam to be recruiting more manpower to address this. I am sure they will get there eventually.
Having said all that, playing with the CI board beta software recently, it is actually quite good already, certainly not the complete disaster that some were predicting. So maybe they might be getting there faster than we think?
As early adopter I have Phantoms for almost 3 years. I received my first Silver Phantom pair and Dialog in March 2015. The Phantoms went trough a number of HW modifications. Once, after a few months the Dialog received a recall. The original Phantoms run stable without hickups. They received numerous updates, but no obvious or audible change. In autumn 2015 new models came out featuring Bluetooth. I purchased 1 Silver of this newer generation. Sonically identical to the two others. In January 2017 I purchased 2 Golds and sold a first batch Silver and the BT Silver to my brother. He used them happily without issues. My first batch Silver harmonizes well with the Golds. The Golds had an audible noise coming from the power supply, resonant ringing of an inductor coil. With a FW update Devialet could fully remove this noise, like magic. Now the ownly issue reamaining is the optical input of the Dialog that has from time to time some cracking. I assume that It is a HW issue since Devialet could not fix it. They limited the optical input to 24/96k in a FW update, without resolving the issue. So, I hope Devialet will offer at some point a better Dialog HW, hopefully with HDMI input and audio/video sync. Else all happy on the HW side.
When it comes to the networks that Phantoms build with the Dialog and the ‚home network’ that portable Devices and PC/Macs use to control and stream the music using Spark, Devialet did a fairly good job in making this stable (again through a number of FW updates) for those that do not have too much wifi/PLC pollution from neighborhood. These external factors cannot be controlled by any system from any manufacturer. As such only the user can debug this, e.g. by using low latency Ethernet (not more than 1 switch/router and sufficient bandwidth to streaming providers). So not much more can be done through SW updates. One improvement could be done: include the possibility to manually configure the Phantoms/Dialog networks. But this also would open potential support needs for non-expert users. All in all I agree the HW is well mastered by Devialet, despite the faulty optical input of the Dialog that can be circumvented by using the optical inputs of the Phantoms that accept 24/192k without hickups.
Now what are the problems on the SW side? After all the updates so far Spark is very stable, offers access to many streaming services, has UPNP (as beta) included, offers access to a huge number of internet radio station, manages direct connection of BT in its best quality format, includes Spotify connect, allows selection of any optical input, accepts Airplay, and is fully multi-room capable with without any audible desynchronization of any of the Phantoms in any of the rooms. This means a 20us sync between any Phantom, a performance neither Apple nor Sonos can provide! With apple we saw how long it took until they were able to deliver their wireless earpods due to this challenge. And the same can now be observed with the Homepod that by now only is delivered as unsynced mono speaker. Spark is also very snappy, with local streaming (non-UPNP), streaming services that are now dead stable (good and stable buffering integrated), at least with Qobuz and Spotify (I have access). In general very comparable to Roon, that is a reference in stability and performance (snappiness), not in the service offer. Here Spark is way better!
Spark: What is missing?
- A user experience like in Roon
- Missing folder management
- No DSP, equalizing, room control, no filters
- No multichannel playback, only mono and stereo
- No fast scrolling through a huge library, no alphabetic links or paging
- No multifactorial serach only one keyword
- No tags, tagging
- No infos about the played file format and quality or resolution
I guess there are many more missing features other users might wish.
So, in conclusion, in my opinion, the HW is reliable and solid, some manual/individual setup of the networking options could resolve many of the problems some users have, but require more support that e.g. this forum could easily provide. Also not much need for improvement on the FW side.
Spark is a solid application for the management of the HW and has all basic features to handle small libraries and streaming services, like access to hires quality, new albums by genres, access to a list of similar artists, playlists etc.
Spark completely lacks advanced features that specialized SW like Roon provides. So, my wish is that Spark 2.0 / FW 2.x will include The roon endpoint RAAT. Then all would be happy listening on the SW side!
