Phantom II Custom 5.0 surround system experience and suggestions

[Nputcha]

@mcallega
Thanks for an excellent write up! Really interesting reading about your setup. I have a Phantom Gold/Silver surround 5.0 setup, but way less user friendly than yours, using three zones, optical inputs and the Devialet app. Would love to have the simplicity you have achieved.

Would you be willing to tell how you built it? I've currently got a pair of Phantom 1's and I'd love to use them as a part of a surround set also but so far been just hitting my head in the wall trying to figure out how to get them to work through optical. I'd prefer adding reactors or something for the back / center channels as I can't afford to buy 5 of these. I'd even be ok with having the Phantom pair as L+R and something cheaper (even passive) as the rest of the channels, but finding a processor/amp that can do that seems hopeless. The SDP-55 mentioned in the thread could apparently handle at least a pair of Phantoms but it's waaaay out of my budget.

Here's my setup for 5.0 surround with Phantom I:
First, the Phantoms are divided into three zones; LR, C and surround LR.

The signal chain:
Optical output from the TV to an Onkyo PR-SC5507 surround preamp. Balanced analoge outputs  from the preamp to 3xRME ADI-2 AD/DA-converters. Optical outputs from the ADCs to LR, C and surround LR Phantoms.

Works really well but it's not very user friendly.

Hi Ragwo, realize I’m responding very late on this thread. Am curious why this setup is difficult though. Why the three “zones”? Can’t you put the phantoms into direct optical mode and just send sepetate optical cables to each? Obviously that would mean 5 different ad/da converters but otherwise I’d assume that’s very straightforward, no? Sorry if this is a dumb question!