Custom Reactor and Dante

[njaiswal]

For a small setup, you can get around the PoE requirement using a cheap power injector for each port. Not sure what to make of the AVR costs, though.

Same thinking here, it looks Devialet makes it very hard to use their speakers for surround reproduction instead of suggesting some options to customers and make everybody save time. I am still considering switching to Devialet but the uncertainties for surround compatibility are high. This thread is super helpful, thanks!

In my little research, it appears Dante requires a pre-amp with per-channel "AES/XLR" output, then go into a Dante Controller, ethernet switch, then Dante adapter dongle for each Phantom.

Is it possible to skip Dante, and go directly from Pre-amp XLR-out to optical (via some form of converter), into individual Phantom Premier per channel?

No... the problem is that Devialet's software is unable to decode audio streams encoded in Dolby Digital or DTS.  As a result you need to send only PCM encoded audio streams to the Toslink port of a phantom.  PCM only supports 2 channels.  That's why you need an external processor to decode the surround audio tracks.   

If you're adventurous, JBL released a pro-sumer Pre-Amp (https://www.jblsynthesis.com/products/el...P-55-.html) that will decode surround sound audio and output the individual channels as discrete Dante channels.  Then you just map the Dante channels to your phantoms and you're good to go. :-)