Major EXOGAL Comet/Ion problems


Five years ago I bought an Exogal Comet to use as a DAC with my Rogue Medusa amplifier. It proved itself an excellent unit in all respects and I was positively impressed with the company's support and helpfulness. A year ago I bought the matching Exogal Ion amplifier (at considerable expense) to go with the Comet and was delighted. (The Medusa was wonderful but I wanted something with a smaller footprint). 

Reviewers have invariably criticized the Comet's diminutive window for being extremely difficult to read and the cheapness of the remote control. Noting these deficiencies, the TAS reviewer Vade Forrester (June 24, 2015) wrote, "I learned the Comet is really intended to be operated remotely from an iPhone or iTouch." My experience was that the window and remote were exercises in frustration, but that the Apple application I downloaded from the Exogal site for my iPad was ideal; I had total control over the unit and the app was a delight to use--very Space Age. For the record, I liked the Comet so much I unloaded my Rogue RP 1 and used it as a preamp. 

All was well until I got a new iPad and couldn't download the application. When I called Exogal I received a somewhat garbled account that Apple was no longer permitting them to use the application. Ditto with Android. After a while they announced a remote control module was being developed and in the pipeline. They sent me an experimental prototype that in my opinion wasn't much of an improvement over the original. On the few occasions I can reach them they say it will be ready in a week but weeks have passed. This is tantamount to having a fancy TV where it is a major struggle to perform a simple action like change the channels! 

Exogal is singularly uncommunicative about this problem. Their website is scarcely used and they seem to have moved over to Facebook. The strangest thing is that on the website they list under "Products" a series of four Vortex streamers, described in detail, that apparently were never manufactured! They don't answer their emails. They say their site has been hacked and various other things. In a rare new posting on their website and Facebook they claim the they have just opened a distributorship in Europe. This raises the question how are the European purchasers going to operate their units? None of this inspires consumer confidence.  

My point here is that when someone spends 7k and above on supposedly elite components they deserve responses and explanations. It is Exogal's responsibility to ascertain that these units are operable as designed. I have to question the business sense of relying on an outside entity like Apple that is notorious for being proprietary. It is totally unbusinesslike not to make a public explanation of these issues with a timetable to correct them. Customers should not have to go foraging around Audigon forums to learn what is, or isn't, happening. 

Now the window on the Comet periodically goes blank (it was never even illuminated). Having 7k worth of Exogal equipment that is extremely difficult to operate, I went and bought a Wyred 4 Sound integrated and a Black Ice DAC so I can actually listen to something without a struggle. The Exogal stuff is in a box waiting for who knows what. I am beginning to think that Exogal is indeed out of this galaxy, but for all the wrong reasons. This is very surprising because a couple of years ago they were exemplary in all respects. I would like to hear from other frustrated owners to see what solutions they have devised. 
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Hi Mike,

I managed to obtain the Exogal Custom Install Instruction Manual from Jeff Haagenstad, the CEO of Exogal. He was very kind and helpful. Hope this information would be helpful to you.

I have uploaded this doco to share with others, who are interested in developing their own touchscreen GUI interface to communicate with the Comet unit.

The serial communication is very reliable and it is possible to query the serial interface and achieve auto COM port selection and connection if you look for PID 0403 and VID 6001 or FTDI as the manufacturer of the USBC serial inferface (i have the latter as the secondary method to perform auto com port lookup) . I got this working reliably.

If you perform a high resolution scan on the Exogal Comet remote and map the button images to command buttons nicely, it is possible to provide a very realistic remote control for the Comet unit. Actually in actual use it much nicer IMO, because you can program single finger click for slow volume increments and double finger clicks as fast volume increments (I have the latter set to 50 by default. So in 4 clicks i can easily go from 0 to 200). It works really well on touch pad interface. Have these increments customisable as user selections and store these settings in a JSON file. I am elated with the results 😊👍 and actually prefer this over the real remote, as it shows the current volume, current state of On/Standby, Input, Output and Mute status... the real remote doesn’t 😅

Here is the link: Exogal Custom Install Instruction Manual P

This is the text URL in case the embedded version doesn't work: https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZxb4gVZqqbVcOjmwJ4qb1MCuUtn2mHiEna7

Enjoy!

Cheers,
Damo

Since the demise of the Exogal remote control app I just use the supplied remote control that works fine. The only downside is that I have to use a flashlight in order to  see the display on the front of the Comet Plus.

Hi Mike, 

Bluetooth interface would be difficult, even if you have a replacement unit, you need to have the key to pair up with the Comet unit via a complicated procedure. 

 

Much easier to achieve a more reliable outcome via the serial port interface. 

If you want more fancy wireless access, you can easily convert the C# classes into an API and establish a client server app, providing a web interface front end. 😊👍

 

Keep us posted. 

 

Cheers, 

Damo 

Buy an RME and enjoy fantastic performance and simplicity of operation —you don’t even need a flashlight and magnifying glass to read the display. 

Hi @damianhl

Thank you! I agree, Jeff has been a wonderful help. I should’ve checked here earlier because I too wrote an app that interfaces over serial with Comet! I wrote mine in Python since it’s what I’m familiar with and easy to port to any modern OS.

It’s a simple button based GUI app that currently allows you to select which COM port, power on/off, choose input/output, mute/half mute /unmute, increase/decrease volume or enter a specific volume value.

I’m currently working on adding a rotary encoder and an IR receiver to a RasPi Pico to handle desktop volume adjustment and living room IR remote use. In the future, I would like to run it all off a full RasPi to add streaming capabilities. There are a lot of hidden functions on comet that I’m excited to see implemented, but right now this is where I am.

I am so thankful to Jeff, Bob, and to you for helping keep this DAC alive and well. Maybe we should start a new thread, but I’m happy I at least landed here. Thanks!

Mike