Direct Optical mode - How to

[alexis0587]

@alexis0587

Sorry to say that I know of no way to deactivate Bluetooth other than by the Devialet Spark app which, of course, does not work when the Phantom is in Direct Optical mode.

Perhaps a query to the Devialet help desk may be useful.

After some query to Devialet on this subject, it's not possible to desactivate the bluetooth roaming when being in Direct Optical mode. However, even if the bluetooth are in roaming it appears not possible to push sounds which is a lesser evil.

[innon]

Hi everyone,

i'm a french so excuse me in advance for my english. I have currently 2 phantom Gold.

I started  a project related to build a 5.0 configuration for home theater. For this purpose, i bought one center speaker (Dynaudio X28) and 2 rear surround (Monitor Audio Fx bronze).
I connected all these speakers and Phantoms to an A/V receiver (Pioneer LX-701).
As you can notice, my A/V receiver has a pre-out for front. So i plugged my Phantom Gold to these inputs.

More precisely, a RCA cables go to the pre-out towards the RCA input of a A/D converter (Swissonic Converter AD 24/192), then an optical output towards one of my Phantom. With this configuration, i have a 5.0 sound. The issue is that i have sync issue between center and my Phantoms. It's quite audible, specialy for side vocals and musics on movie like an echo.

To avoid this sync issue, i decided to switch my Phantoms to a direct optical mode. However and this is my main issue, when i configure left and right Phantom via direct optical mode and when i split in two the optical signal (with Portta SPDIF Toslink Optischer Digital Audio Splitter) coming from my A/D converter, it just works for one Phantom but not with both. Sound appears without sync issue but just on one Phantom.

Alan said that with an optical splitter, he managed to play both Phantom with left and right. So i don't understand why it doesn't work for me.

Any explanation and advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

@innon

I had issues with a particular optical cable in the early days of owning the Phantoms.
As you know, it is difficult to access the Phantom optical input.  This particular cable appeared to be connected securely but was not because no sound was received.  I solved that with an appropriate cable that I could feel and hear clicked into place.

The issue, however, is more likely to be the optical splitter as this is the new piece of kit.
Again, I have had problems with my current splitter when I would notice a speaker was no longer working.
However, that was when the Phantom ran in standard mode. In Direct Optical mode I have had no such problems.
It is easy to test, however, by simplify switching the output cables from the splitter.
You may have already tried this in which case I am out of ideas to help.

Thanks for the reply,

Yes i already checked the connection between the cables. 

I think the problem is coming either from the optical splitter which doesn't really split in two the optical source, or it is my A/D converter which doesn't allow the optical signal to be splitted. Indeed, when i don't use the splitter but only the A/D converter's optical output towards one of my Phantom, everything works but when i connect the splitter, nothing, even with connecting to one Phantom. 

My only choice now is to use the coax out of my A/D converter (swissonic converter ad 24/192) and add a coax in to spdif out converter. I will receive this converter in one month, so i will update the post with the result. 

If you have any other idea, i'm gonna take it. Maybe the Sonos connect can be a better converter thant my swissonic ?

I received all the stuff and now everything works fine. I have sound coming to both Phantom !

I'm just worried about optical direct mode could potentially damage my phantoms in long run. When my phantoms are in optical direct mode without any sound playing, I can easily hear a white noise even when I selected -12 db. Did you experienced the same and do you believe that it can damage the speakers ?

Thanks.

[Schumy]

Due to the 160ms latency with Dialog/ Spark resulting in the optical out from my Sonos system playing out of sync with a pair of Gold Phantoms , I read this thread with interest.

Is it possible to run Sonos + a pair of Phantoms in sync using Direct Optical mode with 0ms latency? By taking the optical out from the Sonos into a splitter then running 2 optical cables to the Phantoms.

Although running long optical cables from my Sonos/splitter to the Phantoms is not practical in my room set-up, would consider the pain if worthwhile and no other ways around.

Is there any other workarounds by having another Sonos box or Airport Express/ Airplay 2 device etc and optical splitter at one of the Phantoms. It would be easier to run an optical cable between the 2 Phantoms. 

I'm not clued up on Airplay 2. Ideally if Sonos connect/ Spotify connect could play to an Airplay 2 group that included Sonos + some piece of hardware connected to the Phantoms in direct optical mode with everything iii sync is the end goal. Anyone achieved such a set-up?

[Juiz]

I read the thread well.
I do not speak English well. Sorry.
I own one gold phantom and I connected it to DDC in direct optical mode.
There is some inconvenience, but it is a great sound.
I do not want to use an optical splitter when trying to stereo with two gold phantoms.
Can not use the ADAT audio interface?
RME: HDSPe RayDAT or RME: Digiface USB or MOTU LP32
I want to connect two gold phantoms to the PC with the audio interface ADAT.
ADAT OUTPUT x 1 -> Gold Phantom R,
ADAT OUTPUT x 1 -> Gold Phantom L
Is this a viable solution?
If possible, what is the better choice?
Optical Splitter?
Audio interface?

I am really curious about this.
Thank you for reading my question.

[alandbush]

Can not use the ADAT audio interface?
RME: HDSPe RayDAT or RME: Digiface USB or MOTU LP32

I am really curious about this.
Thank you for reading my question.

@Juiz
The Phantom expects SPDIF format.  ADAT will not work even though they use the same optical connector.

The RME Digiface, however, will output an audio signal in the SPDIF format.
It has four stereo SPDIF optical outputs but it can be configured to output the left and right audio signals to individual optical outputs.  In that case, a splitter is not required.

I use the Digiface to output 5 audio signals to my 5 Phantoms.  I have the left, right and centre audio signals output to individual outputs.  The surround left and right are output as a stereo audio signal with an optical splitter used later in the audio chain.  Volume is controlled from the supplied pc software called TotalMix.

I have also been experimenting with equaliser software running on a Windows pc and I am very very happy with the result.

[Gaustabl]

Hello. 
So i finally took the big step, bought a bluesound node and an optical splitter to run both my phantom white in direct mode......the first speaker succeded, the second wont go in direct mode. I then remebered that my second phantom whas the first gen white, the other is the new with airplay support. Am i so lucky that the first gen does not support direct mode? Anyone has any experience with this ? 
Thank you all for your inputs in advance. 
Best regards Lars

[ola_jonsson]

With a slowly growing interest in using this ‘hidden’ mode, I thought it useful to create a thread that will be, hopefully, easier to find than the other various posts scattered across numerous threads.

First, an acknowledgement for @thumb5, who initially piqued my interest in this mode, following his excellent OAC meeting questions and answers post.

Also, thanks to Mei (Devialet Customer Care) and Eric Gaillard (Devialet Integration professional) who provided further clarification of the procedure.

And finally, the procedure to be performed for a single Phantom

1. get the Phantom to emit its startup sound
   • if you have a Dialog, switch it off
     
   • if the Phantom is off, switch it on and wait...
     
   • if the Phantom is on, press the back button 3 times and wait...
     
2. launch the Devialet Phantom Remote IOS app (not Spark)
   
3. pair the Phantom with the app
   • if you have previously paired with another Phantom, ensure you have paired to the chosen Phantom.
     
   • nb - the woofers should move, briefly, when paired.  Also, the app can display the Phantom identifier number.
     
4. in the app, tap ten times rapidly on a free space area (eg. between the “mute” and “night” icons).
   
5. if done correctly, a series of pop-up windows will appear as follows:
   • Option - select Optical Direct
     
   • Channel - select as appropriate (L/R/mix)
     
   • Volume - select as appropriate (0dB/-12dB/+12dB)
     • 0dB is equivalent to a Phantom playing at 100% of its capacity without any audio compression
       
   • Optical - a success or failure message
     

Repeat steps 1-5 for each Phantom.


For those of a nervous disposition, exiting Direct Optical mode is as follows:

• simply press the back button 3 times to execute a reset to factory settings
  

Update 1st October 2018

Finally found the time and inclination to perform measurements of a Phantom Gold in ‘normal’ mode and Direct Optical mode, ostensibly to determine the latency difference.
REW was used for the measurements utilising the timing reference option.
One speaker in Direct Optical mode was designated as the timing reference and the other was switched between the two modes.
Five measurements were taken for each mode and the delay values were within 0.01ms of each other.

The result, i.e. the difference between the two modes was 176ms.


Screenshots from the Devialet Phantom Remote app follow.


Hi!
Great summary. I get to the last step, but no success nor error message, and my Phantom keeps singing. Any idea? Should I check if optical was enabled from Spark first, or does that not matter? Do you need ro have signal present from optical while selecting? I can see there is optical coming (red) and the signal worked to the dialogue, but with all the delay. Now, I'm trying directly top one of my Phantoms.

Does anyone have an idea?

[alandbush]

Hi!
Great summary. I get to the last step, but no success nor error message, and my Phantom keeps singing. Any idea?

Just to clarify, you have successfully entered the Direct Optical mode enabling process, made appropriate selections BUT after selecting the appropriate volume no message is displayed on the Devialet Phantom Remote IOS app?
If the answer is yes, then I think you are the first to experience such a behaviour.

Do you need to have signal present from optical while selecting?

No.

Should I check if optical was enabled from Spark first, or does that not matter?

It does not matter.

Does anyone have an idea?

The only advice I can offer is to contact Devialet customer care but not for this specific issue.
Instead, request a firmware update to help resolve the lack of Bluetooth.

I know this may be counter inuitive because Bluetooth is working but it can be temperamental.
In the past, I have had Phantoms appear to ‘lose’ Bluetooth capability. The firmware update has resolved this issue.

Check out this No Bluetooth and subsequent posts for a similar recommendation.

[ola_jonsson]

Thanks for all input. I have it working now. I rebooted to normal mode, did the setup and enabled optical input in both the doalogue and the speakers. I testet that the input worked in this mode, just to verify that there were no issues with the source (MacBook PRO optimal output) and cables. Than I rebooted again to optical, success!

[hayus]

Hi there,
At first excuse my English.
I want to use direct optical mode in stereo.
So I run my silver phantom in optical mode and it works very fine.
So I connected the second one with an Toslink splitter, but there is no sound. So I connected the white phantom alone via direct optical and agoin: no sound. I got the direct optical success message...
Maybe the direct optical does not work with a white phantom ??
Thanks 4 ur answers