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There are 3 ways the Phantoms communicate with the dialog: PLC (preferred), ethernet, and wifi. The data format is propriatory Devialet. So far I have not seen anybody having deciphered the data format. There is somewhere a thread in this forum in which someone has posted infos he captured with a wifi tool. But no infos about data format or a solution to communicate with the Phantoms outside of the Devialet and Spark environment. So at the moment you can use the Phantom in solo using optical input, bluetooth (except the first ed. models), Spotify connect, and Spark. For stereo or multi-room you need the Dialog. Dialog needs to guarantee that sync between the Phantoms are always lower than 20us, else there would be audible interference that would influence localisation and frequency response additionally to the room.
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streamy is right, data format on PLC, ethernet and wifi is propitiatory. The toslink input, however, is SPDIF. To use a pair of Phantoms with no Dialog each speaker must be used as standalone or 'Solo'. You must first connect with Spark to enable the optical input, then set the volume to a suitable level (and control volume on the stream sent over SPDIF). It will remember the toslink setting but not volume (defaults to a safety level of 35) across a power cycle so you'd have to re-connect with Spark to set volume after a restart. Problem is the Phantom sums input to mono in 'Solo' mode. You'd have to somehow split the SPDIF and send left only and right only over the link to each speaker. I have researched this and have found that there is no available product that does this. Maybe this is possible in some 'pro' product, but I have not found one.
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Devialetless!
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If you can set up a stream locally, it's generally possible to tell phantom to "strem this file" where file is the stream, and it will continue forever. This is a way to watch movies, with VLC for example, with remote sound on phantoms at original quality (96/24 or higher, impossible via bluetooth and quite difficult through optical)
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21-Sep-2016, 13:08
(This post was last modified: 21-Sep-2016, 13:09 by JohnnySix.)
'Fraid so. Expect around 100-150ms delay between picture and sound. You need an HTPC with Media Player software that lets you shift the sound ahead so that it emerges from the Phantoms in sync with the picture. Once achieved though, you will see that Phantoms were BORN to do movie soundtracks, and your subwoofer will be redundant!
JRiver v25 (Windows) >> 220Pro/CI >> PMC Twenty5.23 + twin KEF KC62 subs. One White Phantom.
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The latency issue is not a problem only for live sessions...
It is a problem for any type of sync between phantoms AND video.
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OK thanks for clarifying.
Surely Devialet could simply implement a "movie" mode that would remove as much DSP as possible - accepting that might reduce audio quality a bit?