Devialet Reviews

[ogs]

I thought they sounded decent when I demo'd them and would probably have considered selling my Expert and going Phantom, if:

a) Devialet hadn't upset me to the point I lost faith in the brand around that time
b) Spark wasn't dire and/or they embraced the use of external players (RoonReady anyone)
c) They had some alternate finishes
D) there weren't reports of stability issues.

I've been trying to find a way to use Phantoms without Dialog/Spark. I think Dialog lacks flexibility and for Spark... Your four points are just right.
Vincent Brient has said he would try to change code in the FPGA to enable L and R on separate toslink outputs on his reclocker. I'd have to buy it (or place a firm order), but Vincent would not charge me if he could not make it work. The Phantoms could then stay in 'Solo' mode and I'd use optical inputs with wifi, ethernet and PLC disabled. What I do not know is if the  remote can control volume of two Phantoms in solo mode.  The 69bit volume control of the Totaldac is of course good enough so I'm not without a volume control if the Devialet remote does not work. The Totaldac solution is definitely high-end, but rather pricey so I am still looking. USB from a microRendu and something to produce L+R optical is the goal

Interesting idea. Maybe something like a miniDSP box would be able to do that slightly less expensively?

Or a bit more expensive but perhaps one of the 'hot topic flavour of the month' boxes like a Rednet 3?  It has something like 8 toslink outputs although not sure what controls they have for LR breakout - it's pro gear though so I'm sure they'd be able to give you a quick answer.

MiniDSP has a USBStreamer board with 10 channels over USB. I am not sure this will work with a microRendu even if it is XMOS based. I have already sent a request to miniDSP.
Rednet is also interesting. I'll ask them. Maybe two of the toslink ports can be reprogrammed to transmit SPDIF? The best would be if Devialet let us decide left or right channel for Phantoms in solo mode in addition to a setting to fix the volume level. Now the Phantoms will default to a 'safe' level of '35' on a power cycle. Hoping Devialet would do anything a user requests is futile so I'd have to temporarily connect Spark to each unit after a power cycle to set the volume. I have a feeling I will end up using Dialog. Maybe toslink from a Mutec driven by the microRendu....