27-Apr-2015, 11:06
I have an Apple Time Machine, which is an airport with hard drive backup, bridged by ethernet to another Time machine on the other side of the house which is directly connected to the internet box via ethernet.
I have only tried 2 ways of working. Firstly using Spark to stream the music files which are on my Macbook Pro or iMac and secondly either the Macbook Pro or a CD transport connected to the optical digital input of one of the Phantoms.
I do own an Apple TV, and I suppose one would expect Airplay to be pretty stable given its age and provenance, but whilst I would expect it to work fine it seems to me to defeat the object of Spark.
The Dialog is about 0.8 meters from one Dialog and 3 meters from the other one and ethernet connected to the Time machine. The time machine is never used for backups whilst listening.
Playing via the optical input almost always works fine, and if it does not quitting and re-launching Spark usually seems to fix it.
Playing music files using Spark pretty well never works properly. High res files fail immediately or soon. Luckily I don't have many and I could always convert them to 44/16, but a bit of a faff. CD rips always have hesitations and/or momentary loss of channel at the beginning of every track.
One channel often stops working if I am using the iMac (which is dedicated to music, so has the most music on its HD) and I have more and longer hesitations at the beginning of tracks, one channel stopping only happens sometimes with the laptop. Quitting and re-launching Spark usually fixes this, earlier releases seemed to need the whole setup repeated.
I do not use internet streaming, such as deezer and qobuz.
Summary, Spark is OK as a setup tool and volume control for directly connected sources. Spark is not acceptable (to me) for streaming from a computer.
So far my Phantom system is not acceptable for domestic audio enjoyment. I always give up with Phantom sooner or later and go back to my normal system so I can actually listen to music rather than play about with equipment...
I have only tried 2 ways of working. Firstly using Spark to stream the music files which are on my Macbook Pro or iMac and secondly either the Macbook Pro or a CD transport connected to the optical digital input of one of the Phantoms.
I do own an Apple TV, and I suppose one would expect Airplay to be pretty stable given its age and provenance, but whilst I would expect it to work fine it seems to me to defeat the object of Spark.
The Dialog is about 0.8 meters from one Dialog and 3 meters from the other one and ethernet connected to the Time machine. The time machine is never used for backups whilst listening.
Playing via the optical input almost always works fine, and if it does not quitting and re-launching Spark usually seems to fix it.
Playing music files using Spark pretty well never works properly. High res files fail immediately or soon. Luckily I don't have many and I could always convert them to 44/16, but a bit of a faff. CD rips always have hesitations and/or momentary loss of channel at the beginning of every track.
One channel often stops working if I am using the iMac (which is dedicated to music, so has the most music on its HD) and I have more and longer hesitations at the beginning of tracks, one channel stopping only happens sometimes with the laptop. Quitting and re-launching Spark usually fixes this, earlier releases seemed to need the whole setup repeated.
I do not use internet streaming, such as deezer and qobuz.
Summary, Spark is OK as a setup tool and volume control for directly connected sources. Spark is not acceptable (to me) for streaming from a computer.
So far my Phantom system is not acceptable for domestic audio enjoyment. I always give up with Phantom sooner or later and go back to my normal system so I can actually listen to music rather than play about with equipment...
Devialet Original d'Atelier 44 Core, Job Pre/225, Goldmund PH2, Goldmund Reference/T3f /Ortofon A90, Goldmund Mimesis 36+ & Chord Blu, iMac/Air, Lynx Theta, Tune Audio Anima, Goldmund Epilog 1&2, REL Studio. Dialog, Silver Phantoms, Branch stands, copper cables (mainly).
Oxfordshire
