Spark is so awful - I hope Airplay is coming

[Hifi_swlon]

….

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.

It originated in the Roon forums, where the Roon founders discussed Devialet's position - which to summarise was an initial interest in the Expert range compatibility, but flat refusal for anything Phantom, and more recently turned into Devialet not even taking a meeting to discuss the idea further on either platform. Roon would love to get Devialet onboard. Devialet it appears have little to no interest. As far as I'm aware from discussions on the Roon forum, not only is their SDK free to use and integrate, Roon actively help manufacturers do it, and test it.

Why manufacturers - not just Devialet - want to lock people into their own ecosystem is beyond me in this day and age, but I guess they get something from it. The only thing I can think of in this case is (a) they assume Spark's is amazing and you woukldnt want anything else and/or (b) since it only works with Phantoms you'll have to buy Phantoms for all your other rooms in multi-room setup, whereas with an open system you'd be free to choose. Of course, to my mind this will work on a bunch of customers that just walk into a shop and buy something unsuspecting of these restrictions/limitations, but the other bunch that are more educated will chose something else. I guess theyve done the maths and the 'uneducated' are out there in larger numbers. Or, these brands are just arrogant