21-May-2016, 12:15
I just picked up a pair of Silver Phantoms + Dialog and gave them a spin yesterday.
Being a bit of a networking egg head in my day job I'm not big on WiFi for everything and have the house wired with Ethernet. I hooked the Dialog and Phantoms to the network and turned them on.
It took two attempts for Spark to find the first Phantom. The second one needed resetting before it appeared. After that I was able to create a stereo pair but Spark hung on the step 'Completed - Let's play some music'.
One opening it again it rather infuriatingly requested that I run the whole setup again. Spark couldn't find the Dialog or Phantoms at this point which required resetting all three units before they'd show.
After this I was finally was able to create a stereo pair.
Played a bit of music using Spark to confirm all was good (sounded very good indeed) before enabling the optical input on Dialog which is going to an Apple Airport Express. Music seemed to sound a little better than via Spark (might be me imagining it though) but one big issue was an occasional crackling noise from the Phantoms.
After some Googling it seems this is a known issue with the Dialog's latest firmware and that Deviate are working on a fix. In the meantime Devialet recommend using the Phantom's optical instead.
Did that and things finally sounded perfect. I know f1eng reported issues with long term audio playback via Phantom. I was able to play audio for a good 6+ hours without problem.
Compared to my Devialet 120 + KEF Reference 1 speakers the Phantoms trounce them in terms of bass capability. They do seem to lack a little finesse in the midrange and treble though. The transitions from treble to midrange and bass are more abrupt. Have a feeling the frequency response of each driver won't overlap as smoothly as on a high quality conventional speaker.
That said, hardware wise these things seem incredibly well engineered. Software wise though seriously flaky.
Being a software engineer myself I can understand why (good software takes a lot of time and money to write) but I am a tad disappointed with how beta the whole product feels.
Is my experience unusual or do others here find Dialog/Spark + Phantom a bit of a buggy mess?
Being a bit of a networking egg head in my day job I'm not big on WiFi for everything and have the house wired with Ethernet. I hooked the Dialog and Phantoms to the network and turned them on.
It took two attempts for Spark to find the first Phantom. The second one needed resetting before it appeared. After that I was able to create a stereo pair but Spark hung on the step 'Completed - Let's play some music'.
One opening it again it rather infuriatingly requested that I run the whole setup again. Spark couldn't find the Dialog or Phantoms at this point which required resetting all three units before they'd show.
After this I was finally was able to create a stereo pair.
Played a bit of music using Spark to confirm all was good (sounded very good indeed) before enabling the optical input on Dialog which is going to an Apple Airport Express. Music seemed to sound a little better than via Spark (might be me imagining it though) but one big issue was an occasional crackling noise from the Phantoms.
After some Googling it seems this is a known issue with the Dialog's latest firmware and that Deviate are working on a fix. In the meantime Devialet recommend using the Phantom's optical instead.
Did that and things finally sounded perfect. I know f1eng reported issues with long term audio playback via Phantom. I was able to play audio for a good 6+ hours without problem.
Compared to my Devialet 120 + KEF Reference 1 speakers the Phantoms trounce them in terms of bass capability. They do seem to lack a little finesse in the midrange and treble though. The transitions from treble to midrange and bass are more abrupt. Have a feeling the frequency response of each driver won't overlap as smoothly as on a high quality conventional speaker.
That said, hardware wise these things seem incredibly well engineered. Software wise though seriously flaky.
Being a software engineer myself I can understand why (good software takes a lot of time and money to write) but I am a tad disappointed with how beta the whole product feels.
Is my experience unusual or do others here find Dialog/Spark + Phantom a bit of a buggy mess?
