[Dialog] connection questions

[Euan]

Good day all,

I've recently acquired a set of Phantom Golds and a Dialog with Airplay. I am currently looking into using the set not only for music, but also for things like movies et cetera.

I need some help here. I want to connect the set to my pc at first, so that I'm able to use the Phantoms as my pc speakers (as mentioned, for movies and such). My motherboard has a toslink out and the Dialog has a toslink in. So I will be getting a toslink cable, but are there any catches here? Will it just work like that or are there any software issues to be expected?

Then onto the situation I would like to have in the end. I would be looking to get a NAS to work as a Roon Server in combination with streaming movies over the network. The Dialog has a USB in. From what I can find online, this USB port has been switched off in the software for several years, but is supposed to be used with several NASses nowadays. Is this true? Again, will it work straightaway when I plug in a USB-cable coming from a NAS, or not at all? Or could I better use AirPlay (I currently don't own any Apple devices).

Cheers!

[ragwo]

Hi and welcome to the forum.
Connecting your pc via toslink should work like a charm. Remember the approximately 160 ms delay in the Dialog/Phantom, syncing audio and video could be an issue.
The USB port is still not activated, a work around is running Spark on your computer and adding the path to the NAS within Spark. Spark has to be running all the time on your computer to have access to the NAS.

[Extra Gravity]

Good day all,

I've recently acquired a set of Phantom Golds and a Dialog with Airplay. I am currently looking into using the set not only for music, but also for things like movies et cetera.

I need some help here. I want to connect the set to my pc at first, so that I'm able to use the Phantoms as my pc speakers (as mentioned, for movies and such). My motherboard has a toslink out and the Dialog has a toslink in. So I will be getting a toslink cable, but are there any catches here? Will it just work like that or are there any software issues to be expected?

Then onto the situation I would like to have in the end. I would be looking to get a NAS to work as a Roon Server in combination with streaming movies over the network. The Dialog has a USB in. From what I can find online, this USB port has been switched off in the software for several years, but is supposed to be used with several NASses nowadays. Is this true? Again, will it work straightaway when I plug in a USB-cable coming from a NAS, or not at all? Or could I better use AirPlay (I currently don't own any Apple devices).

Cheers!

Use VLC for playing movie files on your PC and you have a audio delay setting that can move the audio file of the movie forwards or backwards in time and this gets rid of the delay issue! So no problems there anymore.

Toslink is plug and play so it will just work as long as you have the optical input turned on in the Spark app.

[Euan]

Thanks for the quick replies! I will delay the video if necessary. And how shitty that the USB port is still not active. 

For the long run, I would also like to:
- stream via Roon
- stream media to the TV via a NAS, using the Phantoms for audio

I think we can find one solution for this, namely using a NAS (don't have one yet) and connecting it to the Dialog using AirPlay. That way I can install Roon Server. Is this the most viable option? Does one need an Apple device at all for this solution to work? Will there be an expected audio delay as well?

[streamy]

Thanks for the quick replies! I will delay the video if necessary. And how shitty that the USB port is still not active. 

For the long run, I would also like to:
- stream via Roon
- stream media to the TV via a NAS, using the Phantoms for audio

I think we can find one solution for this, namely using a NAS (don't have one yet) and connecting it to the Dialog using AirPlay. That way I can install Roon Server. Is this the most viable option? Does one need an Apple device at all for this solution to work? Will there be an expected audio delay as well?

I cannot give you a fully informed answer on that. Im also using Roon with a pair of Gold Phantoms and Dialog. Airplay from Roon to one of the defined rooms in Spark works well. However, some users here in the forum complain about some distortion that Devialet according to their posts has confirmed but has not yet been fixed. Bear in mind that Airplay is limited to max 24bit/48kHz resolution and downsamples higher bitrates. Regarding delays airplay has an audio profile e.g. for streaming from Spotify, Qobuz... apps through airplay and this introduces a buffer, i.e. a delay of 2 seconds. Using Airplay in the video or screen play (e.g. with an AppleTV) compensates the delay such that video and audio are in sync. Now to your question if a Roon server installation on a NAS gives you the possibility to use the time synchronized airplay mode compared to the unsyncronized audio mode I cannot answer. The question is which software on which systems will stream the video and audio? Is it a software installed on a PC, as of no apple equipment, or is it a software you run on your NAS? Has your NAS an optical output for the audio to the Phantoms and HDMI to your TV? Or are you using a HDMI splitter that splits out the audio signal as optical for the Phantoms? Every solution will have its own pros and cons and the delay between audio and video will depend on it.

[antilles]

Two things to look for:
i. Can the NAS run VLC (or really any program with audio sync)
ii. Does the TV have audio sync controls (and media decoding I suppose)

The simplest route would probably be Network or USB from the NAS to the TV and Optical Out on the TV going to the Dialog, relying on either of the aforementioned to compensate for lag. If neither has Sync, then it's NAS -> PC w/ VLC -> TV -> Dialog.