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Basics for the new user
#1
Thought it might be useful to have a thread where very basic information could be gathered for people who are new to the Phantoms or who are considering purchases. The information provided by Devialet is sometimes on the scanty side.

I have a pair of Silver Phantoms in a duo configuration in a single room, together with a Dialog.

A few things I learned in the teething process (forgive me if they are obvious to experienced users):

- You can now use the Phantoms as bluetooth players. I have played music over them from both iOS and Android devices.

- In a duo configuration, it makes a difference which Phantom you connect to from your bluetooth source. In my case, if I connect to the left Phantom, I get sound from just that single Phantom. If I bluetooth connect to the right Phantom, I get stereo sound out of both.

- When in bluetooth mode, the volume switch on your bluetooth source may not function as expected to control the volume of the Phantoms. In my case, using the iPhone 6, the hardware volume buttons worked as expected when using the iOS Music app as a source (e.g. Beats 1 or your own iTunes music). However, using a Sony NZW2 high resolution player, the hardware volume buttons had no effect unless the Spark app was the "active" app on the phone. Then I could change volume using either the touch-screen volume slider, or the side buttons to operate that slider.

- While players like the Sony will play DSD (.dff, .dsf) files, I am told that the Phantom won't and that\ these files must be downconverted to PCM. If that is true, my Sony player must be doing it because I was able to hear source material over bluetooth that exists on the player as DSD files.

- When I start bluetooth music, the Devialets seem to want to default to volume level 70. This can be rather loud. Therefore, before starting a listening session, it may be wise to bring up the Spark app and adjust the volume first. However, in my case, this did not always work, and when I left the Spark app to go to the music player to start the music, the Bluetooth music still played at the 70 level when I started it, requiring me to quickly return to Spark to adjust the volume to a reasonable level.

- Wanting to use the WiFi network rather than just bluetooth in order to see if the quality was audibly different, I downloaded Spark to my Mac laptop and tried to use that as a source. Most of my library is in high-bit-rate mp3 format, some in DSD. Spark would not play those files -- in the process, learned a few things:

  - you can only play from the Spark app. You cannot use iTunes, Audirvana etc. as a source when in wifi mode.

  - right now, Spark only seems to support uncompressed PCM formats (e.g. aiff files). Spark refused to play mp3 or DSD (dsf, dff, iso) formats. I'm also told it won't play FLAC. These files show up in Spark but when you hit the play icon on them, nothing happens.

Would appreciate hearing about any other experiences people have had that a new user might want to know about!
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#2
(02-Oct-2015, 17:07)patekswiss Wrote:   - right now, Spark only seems to support uncompressed PCM formats (e.g. aiff files). Spark refused to play mp3 or DSD (dsf, dff, iso) formats. I'm also told it won't play FLAC. These files show up in Spark but when you hit the play icon on them, nothing happens.

Spark plays MP3 and FLAC fine (tested on Windows and Android), it will even play the audio track of most video files.
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#3
Thanks for the feedback. It would be wise to share this with Devialet support, if you haven't.
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