A few questions of Devialet 1, Dialogue and Multiple Device Input

[f1eng]

I am a headphone player and not quite familiar with speakers. Just bought 2 Devialet Gold and a Dialogue. I've used Devialet App to pair my 2 Devialet Gold and add Dialogue as well. My Dialogue's TOSLINK is connected to my TV.

I would like to buy another CD player or Turntable to connect to Devialet. However, the Dialogue only provide one TOSLINK connection.

I have a few questions below:

1. I am not quite sure the function of the Dialogue in my system. Actually, I can pair 2 Devialet Gold without connecting the Dialogue in my App. So what is it for?

2. I have read some thread in the forum and some people suggest to connect two Phantom Gold with Ethernet Cable to get better sound performance, is that necessary?

3. I would like to connect another Device to the system by TOSLINK, but the socket on Dialogue has already been occupied. Can I connect another source to my Devialet Gold Phantom and still get Stereo?

4. Apple has launched 24/96 HIRes format for apple music, it seems I can directly use the Airplay function of Devialet to play music. But I am not sure if the music played are in 24/96 format.

I appreciate if anyone can help me understand better of the system to maximise its performance. Thanks.

I have a much older, but similar, layout.
Mine are old enough to be hardware incompatible with the latest firmware so I have to use the Dialog. I have my TV tuner connected to the dialog, my CD transport connected to one of the Phantom's optical inputs and my computer connected to the other.
I use Spark to control the system and it, with the original firmware (I have zero experience of V2, obviously), includes Qobuz so I use that for streaming.
A few years ago I did a very well controlled blind comparison between 16/44 and 24/96 and 24/192 versions of the same music file and I could not hear a difference so I haven't concerned myself considering higher resolution than 16/44 to be important (it doesn't surprise either since both the frequency and dynamic range of 16/44 exceeds the capacity of human hearing already, though there is a lot off incorrect bollox on the 'net about this)
I am still delighted by my Phantoms after 6 years though I don't like having to have an application running to adjust volume with my setup.

Thanks very much for your reply. It seems that the spark does not work on my system. I have to use the latest Devialet App to control my system.

I will try to connect the CD Transport to my phantom and see how it goes.

Not sure if the Toslink can deliver Hi-Res streaming?

f1eng - if you happen to enjoy the floyd, may I suggest trying The Division Bell on Qobuz at 16/44 vs 24/96?

Especially the cymbals!

It certainly opened my ears - and I was a sceptic about hi-res.

There is no guarantee that the files are the same mix from Qobuz.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was a difference in the files, even if it is just a tiny level change like cable salesmen use to get people to spend lots of money on cables. After all they are selling it at a higher price so it makes sense to make the higher res files sound better.

What I did was take a high quality wide dynamic range 24/96 file of music I like (Eric Whitaker's Waternight album) an aquaintance of mine who worked for the BBC as a sound engineer downsampled this recording to 16/44.1 and then re- sampled it back to 24/96 again.
This achieves a control because both files will be using the same internal strategy in the DAC to decode the file - we don't know if a particular DAC handles different sample rate files similarly.
It means any music quieter than -96dB (more actually because of dithering) will have been removed from the second file and all frequencies greater than 22.05kHz also.
I did this years ago and nobody who compared the files back then heard a difference.

There have been plenty of other well controlled tests with the same results whereas all the ones that I know of claiming differences have been anecdotal.

I would imagine if a company like Qobuz with their marketing the way it is will make a high res file sound nicer (0.5 dB louder is enough).
It is one of the reasons I went back to CD. A CD manufacturer doesn't have a more expensive "product" to sell so will do their best with the CD.
I have become cynical in my old age.