Spark is so awful - I hope Airplay is coming

[booshtukka]

As seems to be the general consensus here, the speakers themselves are amazing. But the app is crap.

• The volume control in the Spark app is designed by a mad person. You should be able to move a control its full distance in one smooth movement. This click, drag, release, move, click, drag, release rubbish is insanity.
  
• The English text is poorly translated French which is often difficult to understand. The same applies to their website. Some might find this endearing, I find it amateur.
  
• I can build one playlist, but I can't save it, or make multiple playlists. The playlist disappears between plays.
  
• I can't view more details about a track – I sometimes have many copies of a track, so I can't tell which file type or quality one I'm trying to play.
  
• Many tracks say "data not available", or are unplayable and it's not clear why.
  
• When I search for tracks, they often don't show up even though I know they're there, or the app defaults back to showing everything even though I've entered a search term.
  
• There's no ability to search just by track name, artist name, album name, etc.
  
• There is no mechanism to refresh the track list. Some old tracks seem to persist even when I've deleted them.
  
• I can't choose to have the music stop when I quit the app.
  

The whole thing is an unreliable and buggy embarrassment. Really not what I would expect from a company that can make balls that sound so wonderful, or from a company that charges nearly £5000 for a pair of them. Devialet, please outsource this to someone who understands human interface design instead of assuming you know better. Do they even read these forums?

I know Devialet have said they are working on Apple Music support. I hope that includes Airplay support, and I can ditch the app altogether.

[msg]

I connect an Airport Express to a Dialog via optical input. That allows me to stream from my computers and other devices (iPad and iPhone). Works great. I don't use Spark other than for Phantom/DIalog setup and firmware updates and to reset the volume on occasion when it resets itself.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[booshtukka]

I connect an Airport Express to a Dialog via optical input. That allows me to stream from my computers and other devices (iPad and iPhone). Works great. I don't use Spark other than for Phantom/DIalog setup and firmware updates and to reset the volume on occasion when it resets itself.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

This sounds very sensible. Do you set the volume high in Spark, then control it via Airplay? Thank you.

More Spark problems:

• The UI screws up when in full screen on OS X, the search results get stuck in a tiny view where you can barely see two tracks.
  
• The panes are not resizable. The playlist columns are not resizable. For tracks with long names e.g. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)" I can only see "Shine On You Crazy Diamo…". Even hovering the mouse doesn't give me a 
  tooltip of the full title. This is just inexcusable.

So msg, I will probably go with your suggestion. But still, I'd expect more for the sort of money I'm paying. I've downloaded free apps that were drastically better.

[fritzcurtis1]

I connect an Airport Express to a Dialog via optical input. That allows me to stream from my computers and other devices (iPad and iPhone). Works great. I don't use Spark other than for Phantom/DIalog setup and firmware updates and to reset the volume on occasion when it resets itself.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

This sounds very sensible. Do you set the volume high in Spark, then control it via Airplay? Thank you.

More Spark problems:

• The UI screws up when in full screen on OS X, the search results get stuck in a tiny view where you can barely see two tracks.
  
• The panes are not resizable. The playlist columns are not resizable. For tracks with long names e.g. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)" I can only see "Shine On You Crazy Diamo…". Even hovering the mouse doesn't give me a 
  tooltip of the full title. This is just inexcusable.
  

So msg, I will probably go with your suggestion. But still, I'd expect more for the sort of money I'm paying. I've downloaded free apps that were drastically better.

[fritzcurtis1]

Look at the Myro:Air. It connects to Ethernet and has both RCA and Optical output. It has an amazing Wolfson DAC built into both outputs. I use Roon Labs for my streaming via the Myro Air and thru the Dialog to the Phantoms. The problem with Airplay is you are only streaming at 44k. With the Myro Air you stream at upto 192k. Albeit expensive, it is a quality device all built by hand in the USA.

[Hifi_swlon]

As seems to be the general consensus here, the speakers themselves are amazing. But the app is crap.

Sorry to hear that. Spark sounds horrendous. I haven't had enough experience to know it in detail, but from my two brief interactions at demos - at one of which the Devialet staff had to take over control 'because it worked a little differently than expected' - I decided I'd never be able to live with Phantoms if that was the only control. Regardless of how they sounded. On top of my other misgivings about the brand at the time, they lost the sale.

Have you tried Roon? It's a UI dream. They have been trying to get Devialet to adopt it, but they were told 'no chance' - everyone has to use the Spark Ap! So there are already alternatives out there, but Devialet won't let you use them, not easily anyway.

If the hazy rumours of a forthcoming 'Spark for the Expert series' turn out to be true, at least you'll be sharing your pain with people throughout the range - some of who will have paid £25,000 for their devices. . So I bet people are getting really excited - we could combine it with AIR for that truly satisfying experience.

It's rumoured Devialet hide out here, but do they read anything?  If they do they don't seem to take much onboard.

Your best bet is their Facebook page, emailing/phoning customer services, drumming up support with developers like Roon etc(I'm sure there are others too). As you say Devialet make amazing devices, but are massively hindered by amateur software/firmware, and a pretty arrogant attitude.  Those aspects needs a good kick up the a***, for their own sake as well as ours.

[msg]

I connect an Airport Express to a Dialog via optical input. That allows me to stream from my computers and other devices (iPad and iPhone). Works great. I don't use Spark other than for Phantom/DIalog setup and firmware updates and to reset the volume on occasion when it resets itself.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

This sounds very sensible. Do you set the volume high in Spark, then control it via Airplay? Thank you.

More Spark problems:

• The UI screws up when in full screen on OS X, the search results get stuck in a tiny view where you can barely see two tracks.
  
• The panes are not resizable. The playlist columns are not resizable. For tracks with long names e.g. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)" I can only see "Shine On You Crazy Diamo…". Even hovering the mouse doesn't give me a 
  tooltip of the full title. This is just inexcusable.

So msg, I will probably go with your suggestion. But still, I'd expect more for the sort of money I'm paying. I've downloaded free apps that were drastically better.

Booshtukka, I generally set the volume in Spark to the 65-75 range and then control the volume from iTunes or Apple Music, which is where I generally use as the source. I have read that for higher quality one might crank the volume up to the max on the computer or iPad and adjust the volume with Spark. Perhaps someone with more knowledge on such things than I have can comment. But my ears can't tell the difference, and it's more convenient to control the volume on iTunes or Apple Music.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Lolo90]

Agree completely that Spark is absolute crap and Devialet should be embarrassed to have put it out in it's original and latest forum.  I originally got around Spark by connecting Sonos directly to dialogue and using Sonos app.  But the drawback was that Sonos does not play HD audio files.  Now I am using Roon Labs with server on PC streaming to the new Sonicorbiter SE which I believe is the cheapest hardware (300 USD) that is certified RoonReady/RoonSpeakers.  The Roon software blows away the competition if you have not tried it - nothing is close.  Plus the Sonicoribiter SE streams HD files from server while being controlled on iPad.  Roon Labs has a huge library of lyrics and can seamlessly integrate your Tidal Favorites into your own collection.  Absolutely brilliant piece of software.  So much so that hardware manufacturers (including sonos) should just give up on software or just stop developing and keep what they have for those who don't want to pay up for Roon.

Now here is what I can't understand.  Over in the Roon Labs forum (or maybe it was in this forum) it was stated by someone that Devialet has no interest in integrating the Roon Labs streaming protocol (RATT) directly into the Phantoms or Dialogue so you would not need to buy something like the Sonicorbiter SE.  Correct me if you know otherwise, but I don't think Roon labs charges the hardware manufacturers for this because they want it integrated into as much hardware as possible as they make money via end user subscription (annual or lifetime).  The only reason I can think that Devialet is resistant to integrating Roon directly into the Phantoms or Dialogue is that perhaps they generate some revenue from the streaming services they integrates into Spark and doing this would violate those agreements.

Bottom line is Roon Labs plus Phantoms are a great combination.  It's just unfortunate the Devialet is forcing it's user base to use Spark unless they get creative and spend a bit more on solutions such as Roon or Sonos.

[frenkb]

As seems to be the general consensus here, the speakers themselves are amazing. But the app is crap.

• The volume control in the Spark app is designed by a mad person. You should be able to move a control its full distance in one smooth movement. This click, drag, release, move, click, drag, release rubbish is insanity.
  
• The English text is poorly translated French which is often difficult to understand. The same applies to their website. Some might find this endearing, I find it amateur.
  
• I can build one playlist, but I can't save it, or make multiple playlists. The playlist disappears between plays.
  
• I can't view more details about a track – I sometimes have many copies of a track, so I can't tell which file type or quality one I'm trying to play.
  
• Many tracks say "data not available", or are unplayable and it's not clear why.
  
• When I search for tracks, they often don't show up even though I know they're there, or the app defaults back to showing everything even though I've entered a search term.
  
• There's no ability to search just by track name, artist name, album name, etc.
  
• There is no mechanism to refresh the track list. Some old tracks seem to persist even when I've deleted them.
  
• I can't choose to have the music stop when I quit the app.
  

The whole thing is an unreliable and buggy embarrassment. Really not what I would expect from a company that can make balls that sound so wonderful, or from a company that charges nearly £5000 for a pair of them. Devialet, please outsource this to someone who understands human interface design instead of assuming you know better. Do they even read these forums?

I know Devialet have said they are working on Apple Music support. I hope that includes Airplay support, and I can ditch the app altogether.

Though I recognise some of the critique you have, I still work with Spark daily and it's working fine for me. The playlist are lacking yes, and playing files from a local source really needs work. But since I use Tidal I'm quite happy. Search works well for me, I find everything that's in Tidal (searching on tracks, albums, artists the like) and "data not available" only appears when the file is not available in FLAC. 

You last point is because Spark is not playing the files directly, the Phantoms are streaming themselves. All different apps can control the Phantoms (I operate from my MacBook pro, iPhone and iPad) so when which one closes should the Phantoms stop playing? And the bad translation, what's wrong with French? Maybe we should accept more languages are okay and it's amateuristic to expect everything to always be in English .

Again, Spark for sure needs (a lot of) work but for me it gets the job done.

[Gaustabl]

I am using the new Bluesound node 2 connected into the optical in. This works great for me, and the UI of the bluesound app is ok. Most important for me is that the Bluesound has an optical in, and is IR remote controlled, so that i can use it to control the TV volume with a standard universal remote control.