From Devialet Tech Support: How Phantom, Dialog & Wifi Router communicate

[sekriT]

For those who are wondering why wireless is not a good idea, take a look at the attached wireless map in my living room where the phantoms are located.  Dialog is using 2.4 Ghz band and completely immersed among other wireless devices.  There is significant loss of signal due to collision with overlapping channels even tough it was in the next room. Why it does not switch to clean 5Ghz band?  I am not sure. 

There is quite a bit noise in the powerlines which is the enemy of the sound streaming.  Ethernet is the way to go.

[ondastar]

I would hypothesize based on the Devialet tech note to MG, that their algorithm looks at wifi first and if it establishes signal integrity it locks to wifi... and as the note describes, it will stay on wifi even if it's flaky until you dump the play queue in Spark... then if you dump play queue, either take a second look at wifi (2.4 first 5 second), and relock on wifi, or move to PLC or on to ethernet. I don't think Dialog runs a signal integrity comparison test between wifi, PLC and ethernet to establish the best initial connection (based on all the flaky performance issues reported on multiple threads).

They should! Spark should ask the user for the preferred network connection, then test it and advise the user of its figure of merit for signal reliability. This would put the network reliability options in the hands of the user.
Parenthetically, I configured my networking using robust PLC and ethernet, and I will dump the play queue when wifi is flaky.

[McChicken]

Not trying to steel this thread, but maybe all of this explain some of the recent sound quality issues I have had when playing Spotify Connect ( direct into Phantoms no Dialog) I have had a dodgy DSL internet quality for a while as it sort of intermittent fall out and the router reboots.
what have happened is that the sound quality is sometimes good and sometimes not so good, I do have a Sonos Connect into the dialog and I do feel ( very vague) that the Spotify sound quality is more stable than the (direct) Spotify Connect.
Am I dreaming ...or can this be the case ?

[ogs]

So a wireless system which is not recommended to be used wireless...funny.
Sonos worked this out years before. They managed to solve this problem by setting up a dedicated wifi
next to the existing network.
Why is devialet not able to do so?

Remember that standard Sonos is CD resolution only at 16bit 44.1kHz. Phantoms are highrez devices supporting up to 24bit 192kHz. If you never play anything else than CD resolution on your Phantoms wifi should be good enough. Devialet is just being realistic I think.

[egabci]

Lolo90 pid='36063' dateline='1456705677']I'm losing my mind. I've had the Dialog and 2 phantom silvers since released in US. Music stops randomly every 5-30 minutes. Then after anywhere from 1-5 minutes it comes back on. Sometimes left speaker, sometimes right speaker, sometimes both. Everything is connected via Ethernet.  I have an optical input into the dialog which is Sonicorbiter SE.  I know the sonicorbiter is not the problem as I have same problem with sonos and streaming directly from tidal.  I only used spark to set up system (from a Windows PC which was also connected via Ethernet).  After that I never touch spark.

It guessing the dialog is losing the phantoms regularly based on the behavior.  It almost feels like even though dialog is connected via Ethernet it is choosing to communicate wirelssy to phantoms.  This set up is should be rock solid with Ethernet.  This used to only happen 1-2 times per week which was somewhat tolerable.  Only thing that changed in last few days was I bought the remote and introduced it into the system but can't believe that's the problem.

Lastly I have reset a dozen time this weekend trying various methods on this board and suggested by deviated to no avail. Will contact Devialet as soon as I have a chance and perhaps it's a defective dialog.  Anyone else with a full Ethernet setup having a problem like this?  Or any of the network pros out there have any thoughts.  Thanks in advance.

Hi,

I was in the same situation with 5 pcs. of Phantoms ( no ethernet connection). Often one of the Phantom in stereo setup was not playing, missing single Phantom in one room. Music stops playing several times in 5 minutes etc. I was also losing my mind.… All Phantoms was connected with PCL connection. Several times happened to me after I made a new setup, that Phantoms was connected with 5Gz and everything was running almost perfectly. So I decided to buy 5 eur surge protection for each Phantom, with the plan to interrupt PCL connection. This is the result after I made a new setup with surge protection. Gold stereo setup is still connected with PCL, also silver stereo setup is connected with PLC and single silver Phantom is connected with 5Gz. But during whole day I have no issue with playing music, no missing Phantom, nothing. I’m surprised. I have no idea what happened, but it is working perfectly.

[angenet]

Hi

i will be interested to see if your solution last long...

I have tried various setup with my system and still not fixed.. using the 5Gz wifi doid not solve my issues

I have almost given up on Spark.. I have connected my Phantoms with 5 Raspberry pi and Hifi berry Digi + board.. and got myself a lifetime Roon membership .. this setup is excellent and more stable..

Please update us if your setup is stable.

[egabci]

Hi,
it’s still working perfectly every day.
I don’t have any issue with Phantoms till today.

[daibaron]

I'm afraid there is some confusion between the network performance and the output quality depending of what is your source.
Audio files (Flac, mp3...) located on your computer are digital and their quality can't be degraded over the network...no matter what the bandwidth is faster or slower
The bitrate of a file should never exceed the bandwidth capacity of the network but i believe some files are cached before they are played... this means bigger audio files can be played over a slower network.

[egabci]

I'm using TIDAL- flac.

[Taucher669]

In case you use Spark via Dialog, no matter if mp3, aac or flac - all content is send in bursts from your source to Dialog and music files are cached in Phantoms. In case Airplay ist used - files are really streamed in realtime over the network to either Dialog (2. Gen) or Gold Phantoms. Only 1 device in the whole setup must have the Airplay chip, either Dialog or Phantoms.

Interesting thing - I run 2 Golds, 1 Silver (no Airplay) in the same room via a 1. Gen. Dialog (no Airplay) but Airplay still works on all 3 Phantoms. It seems that in case of Airplay my Golds are distributing the stream back via Dialog to my Silver Phantom.
Even more interesting: I use with this configuration Tidal MQA via Airplay and it works with the full bandwidth. Sound via the Tidal Desktop App (Mac) is amazing - a huge differenze compared with Tidal in FLAC/HIFI mode on Spark. I have compared several Albums and MQA result appears to be much more clear at high end, more controlled and clean at low end, better stage. Try Phil Collins Face Value (Remastered) or Pink Floyds The Division Bell (Remastered)