Phantoms delivered this afternoon

[f1eng]

My initial problem with reconfiguring the phantoms was that starting up Spark again would not let you get past the "I Accept" screen. That is solved by unplugging the Dialog...and then plugging it back again. Turning on the Phantoms and waiting for the noise. Then Spark lets you get by the "I Accept" page. From there everything seems to go OK...."You have 2 Phantoms"? Yes.....touch 1of2......touch 2of2. Now configuring....everything seems to be OK, (tells you this should last a minute or two [which it did on the initial setup that worked]). Consistently there is a silence that arises about 1.5 to 2 minutes into these subsequent configurations that makes you feel like something has gone right, but the drone noise just starts up again and it continues to say its configuring. I've waited up to 10 minutes listening to this loud drone while the Phantoms tell me they're configuring. (Did Devialet not experience or anticipate this agonising drone noise attack for customers who might have problems with installation and setup!?, What a headache!!)

I've removed and reinstalled Spark over 5 times, unplugged and plugged in the Dialog and Phantoms as many times or more. I think this is a software bug/malfunction, not a procedural problem. I just don't think Spark is ready for paying customers. I'd return them if I'd purchased these locally.

Yes this is about the same procedure I followed, except there is one other thing people can try.

If SPARK is saying picking up one speaker and you are actually in the app, try this.

From the HOME page swipe to the left.
This will take you to the page where the songs are queued up.
Swipe to the left again.
This will take you to the page 'Playing on'
In the top left corner there is a icon of a large cog. Press that.
This will take you to the 'Devices' page
At the bottom of this page there is an option 'Restart setup'
Hit that button, which will wipe all your settings and allow a fresh setup.

At this stage I would follow the advice of DSJ that was given above (unplug Dialog before continuing etc).

But I think DSJ is correct about the software. This is beta and not fit for commercial release. That said I've got mine working and I'm loving it to bits. Just watched 'Thor' on it. Amazing bass and general sound. I honestly do not miss having a dedicated sub woofer as per my old system.

I did this on mine (restart setup) but still haven't had a stable stereo setup free of stuttering and Spark crashes.
I have configured one of them in mono and done a setup without Dialog. This has been completely stable ever since on my iPad and laptop and the sound quality is superb, particularly for the price.

[f1eng]

One question in regards to the stands. Do you think they'll remain steady when the bass hits? Can you somehow bind the speaker and stand or it simply lies on the stand?

This is why there are two opposing bass units.
Newton's 2nd law, when the bass hits all the forces are internal, there being a zero net force on the stand.
These are exceptionally cleverly conceived and designed speakers, addressing almost every shortcoming suffered by conventional loudspeakers. 
In addition to the bass solution, the cabinet is small stiff and inert, so not only is the radiating area smaller but cabinet vibration and hence spurious cabinet talk is the least I have ever experienced. Even less than the well behaved KRF LS50 which is already excellent compared to big speakers. The mid treble is coaxial in a spherical front so minimal diffraction effects.

Overall an outstanding concept IMHO.

[f1eng]

Yet another post from me...
My Phantoms work brilliantly as a mono unit with no Dialog, as far as I have tried so far.
With the Dialog and stereo the intermittent sound on one channel always happens at the beginning of each track, and monitoring wifi data transfer coincides with the track being initially (presumably) sent to the Dialog.
The music still sometimes stops mid track, and Spark is in pause mode but does not re-start where it left off.

Today I haven't had the crash/re-boot problems I had before but haven't tried any higher resolution files yet.

I am really enjoying the sound quality, despite the irritation of the brief loss of one channel at the beginning of each track...

Considering I normally would be listening to a system costing 40x more this is really something.

Could be expectation bias adding a bit of shine since the Phantom cleverly addresses almost all of the shortcomings of conventional speakers I am aware of.

[f1eng]

Well I just played a high res recording and the loss of one channel at the beginning was much longer than normal stuff, and Spark re-booted itself at 5.59 minutes into the first track, just like before, saying the playqueue was empty briefly before re-filling it with the tracks that were there before, but in pause. It restarts at the beginning of the track, though not where it crashed. The Dialog is smelling very hot...

So still the same bugs but a bit more data to report to the support staff.

Maybe it would work better with music on a NAS.

[mirekti]

This is why there are two opposing bass units.
Newton's 2nd law, when the bass hits all the forces are internal, there being a zero net force on the stand.
These are exceptionally cleverly conceived and designed speakers, addressing almost every shortcoming suffered by conventional loudspeakers. 
In addition to the bass solution, the cabinet is small stiff and inert, so not only is the radiating area smaller but cabinet vibration and hence spurious cabinet talk is the least I have ever experienced. Even less than the well behaved KRF LS50 which is already excellent compared to big speakers. The mid treble is coaxial in a spherical front so minimal diffraction effects.

Overall an outstanding concept IMHO.

Thanks for the explanation. It does sound promising. What about the mid range and highs? I noticed diamante, beryllium and ribbon are what most of the top class speakers use as tweeters?
Can Devialet compete against those tweeters?

[davidadamson]

Well I just played a high res recording and the loss of one channel at the beginning was much longer than normal stuff, and Spark re-booted itself at 5.59 minutes into the first track, just like before, saying the playqueue was empty briefly before re-filling it with the tracks that were there before, but in pause. It restarts at the beginning of the track, though not where it crashed. The Dialog is smelling very hot...

So still the same bugs but a bit more data to report to the support staff.

Maybe it would work better with music on a NAS.

Yes Happens to me also , the loss of one channel and stuttering, very, very annoying.
Note this does not happen with direct optical connection to phantom.
In both instances music is from NAS storage, probably overload in streaming ? Best solution would be to  attach NAS directly to Dialog via the USB port, let's hope someone at Devialet reads this blog and develops a fix
Update..it does it both optical and non optical, does not do it if I attach drive to mac and play from that drive as source

[alandbush]

OMG listening to contact note by Jon Hopkins ....incredible demo for the phantoms!

Nice choice and if you don't mind this being off topic, can I also suggest:

Jon Hopkins - Immunity - Breathe this air

And another that surprised me recently

James Blake - James Blake - Limit to your live

[Jwg1749]

With the Dialog and stereo the intermittent sound on one channel always happens at the beginning of each track, and monitoring wifi data transfer coincides with the track being initially (presumably) sent to the Dialog.
The music still sometimes stops mid track, and Spark is in pause mode but does not re-start where it left off.

This sounds like a network problem to me, in particular the stopping mid-track and going into pause mode. Maybe there are problems with buffering.

[dr.sah]

Wireless streaming shouldnt be a problem, Sonos works perfect over wirelless. Maybe is problem in firmware, or dialog.

[Jwg1749]

Wireless streaming shouldnt be a problem, Sonos works perfect over wirelless. Maybe is problem in firmware, or dialog.

Sonos and Devialet both create their own separate networks. There are known problems with Sonos, e.g. if the network it's attached to doesn't have spanning tree protocol implemented. I wonder if something similar might be happening with the Phantoms/Dialog. I've also seen behaviour like this (music stopping mid-track, system going into pause mode) when there's a loop in the network. It's possible the Dialog might be creating a loop. However, without a proper diagnosis of the network, I guess it's idle to speculate.