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Advice sought: Phantom's worth it?
#11
(27-Apr-2017, 15:26)interestedphantom Wrote: I realize I'm asking the converted... however, reading this forum leaves me quite concerned.

I have been thinking about purchasing a pair of Phantom's (probably Silver) for over a year. I am now at the point where I need to make a decision. 

About a year ago, I visited a reseller and listened to the Phantom at a showroom. They sounded great except that I heard little clicks when playing from my iPhone via Bluetooth. I thought at the time that I should wait until purchasing until the bugs were ironed out.

Now, reading the forums it doesn't really sound like the bugs are ironed out. And given all the time I've been waiting, I really wonder if they ever really will be.

So - it would be really great to have a current summary - how many people have niggly issues with the sound, clicks, whines, etc. How much do the bugs really get in the way of enjoying the Phantoms. After 5-6k I fear it will be hard to just ignore a bunch of bugs.

Many thanks for your thoughts.

I've never owned Phantoms, only had demo's.... but, if it's a big purchase for you and software bugs annoy you - find another brand.

A few years ago I was looking at buying an Expert, but read here that some were having issues with AIR. Others said it was great. The dealer said he wasn't aware of issues. I foolishly ignored the warnings, and bought one, only to realise actually quite a few people had AIR issues - now me included! Two years later and some money wasted on workarounds, I can finally use AIR without dropouts.

I've still got a Devialet, and upgraded it, but the morale of this story is Devialet have shockingly bad software development and bug fixing skills, low QA thresholds, and zero customer service with longstanding software issues. If these things bother you - then a Phantoms not for you. I can only imagine AIR is the shared technology of Phantom communication, or their underlying code/hardware just isn't designed robustly enough for stable pop and crackle free digital audio transmission. You might get lucky, you might not.

Most people tend to agree the Phantoms sound really good for the money. But what I saw of Spark at my demos made my decision for me. And as has been pointed out, once you have a fault out of warranty, they're in the bin.

It's also with noting Devialet are focussing their attention away from hifi right now, in a bid to move towards being a chip designer/manufacturer.

Whether you can get better for the money elsewhere though, I've no idea.

>>> 1st Place Award: Devialet, last decades most disappointing technology purchase.  <<<

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#12
Just one year now...
A gift from my son, happy father day, for the first silver and I immediatly bought a second one.

If I should have known, I should have got an other brand.
- Last Blue tooth 8260 Intel chipset, wich has a good quality for sound, does not work and Devialet knows about it.
- The software is actually a pos.
- How many times did I have to make a "full reset" ?
- And last but not least, we now know they cannot be repaired. Can you beleave that ???
The last point is simply unacceptable.

I was about to buy a pair of gold a few months ago and I will not.

But yes, sound is great.
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#13
No problems here. Works like a dream, absolutely worth it. Best set i ever had.
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#14
My $.02... I have a pair of whites attached to a version 1 dialog. I absolutely love the sound of the speakers. I use them in my basement and move them to my patio when I'm outside. The sound quality outside is outragiously good. But there are donwsides. Spark is an atrocious POS. I ended up attaching a Sonos Connect to my dialog and have been using that to play music through the speakers. Using Sonos' loudness setting provides enough EQ to have the speakers sound the way I like. So if you can live with relatively "bug free" speakers and can attach something like a Bluesound, Sonos or Roon to your setup, then I would recommend them... otherwise I would pass for something that is more user friendly.
6 x Phantom Gold, 3 x Phantom Silver, 2 x Phantom Classic, 9 x Phantom Reactor 900, Symetrix Radius AEC-2, 2 x JBL Synthesis SDP-55, Dante
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#15
One final note. That's why Devialet gives you a 45 days free trial. Do it. Spend 1 1/2 months and that should be plenty for you to evaluate. Rather generous wouldn't you say? Again, I would only recommend the Gold if your budget allows.
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#16
(27-Apr-2017, 15:26)interestedphantom Wrote: I realize I'm asking the converted... however, reading this forum leaves me quite concerned.

I have been thinking about purchasing a pair of Phantom's (probably Silver) for over a year. I am now at the point where I need to make a decision. 

About a year ago, I visited a reseller and listened to the Phantom at a showroom. They sounded great except that I heard little clicks when playing from my iPhone via Bluetooth. I thought at the time that I should wait until purchasing until the bugs were ironed out.

Now, reading the forums it doesn't really sound like the bugs are ironed out. And given all the time I've been waiting, I really wonder if they ever really will be.

So - it would be really great to have a current summary - how many people have niggly issues with the sound, clicks, whines, etc. How much do the bugs really get in the way of enjoying the Phantoms. After 5-6k I fear it will be hard to just ignore a bunch of bugs.

Many thanks for your thoughts.
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#17
(30-Apr-2017, 06:50)MountainGuy Wrote: One final note. That's why Devialet gives you a 45 days free trial. Do it. Spend 1 1/2 months and that should be plenty for you to evaluate. Rather generous wouldn't you say? Again, I would only recommend the Gold if your budget allows.


The trial period is deceptive, in that your future problems may be created by Devialet software, rather than the hardware. My system worked great the first 100+days. The problem was the latest update, and I'm stuck with a barely functioning system until the Gallic software geniuses get around to issuing a new update. How many months will that be?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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#18
(29-Apr-2017, 01:52)ragwo Wrote: Spark on Android works flawlessly and the latest update was a big step forward in my opinion.

Spark on IOS works flawlessly by me for a long time. And if there was a small thing i do a complete factory reset
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#19
As I've mentioned a lot of times here, Phantoms are half-baked as a product. If you are willing to make some sacrifices here and there it would work great for you. But if the small things matter to you, then it won't. In my Phantoms journey, I had to replace the Silvers (twice!), one of them stopped worked at all (see "zero watt phantom"), got to replace my Dialog, got my Golds, that should be replaced as well (there is a constant background noise coming from the PSU), of course there are problems when listening to anything except Spotify (sound is being lost for a second every few minutes). And it seems that the company is OK with that, which is sad.

With a better software, customer care and engineering it could be THE speakers to have.
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#20
3 golds and no problem at all !
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