Ctsooner.
What was the price? |
Well 18 months in and still have no desire to replace the Vault whatsoever.
In fact some of the latest updates by Bluesound which all happen over the internet without me having to do anything bar click "yes", have increased its usefulness even more.
For example when I first bought it the usb port out back was purely for connecting an external drive to copy a backup of its internal drive to nothing more, it would NOT read music from an external usb drive at all.
Now it does and the flexibility when connected to my home network and this usb drive read facility is worth every dollar of its $1000 purchase.
Add that to the ability to stream Tidal, Deezer, Quboz, Spotify, Radio Paradise etc. All at up to 24/192 into my Mytek Brooklyn dac letting it handle the full MQA unfolding.
Oh and it contains my complete library of cds.
One happy camper here for such a minimal outlay of dollars.
Long may it reign in my system!
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ctsooner
??
Your post from April is still there?
There was a pure spam post after it that was removed yesterday.
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@2psyop
Thank you
That is very helpful and likely the reason for just sending at 24/96k right now.
However I do not think the lyngdorf dac is MQA capable right now, need to research that. |
A question for those much more knowledgeable than myself.
I stream Tidal through my Vault to my Lyngdorf via digital coax.
Now under info on the Lyngdorf it says max of 96k even if it is supposed to be a 192k MQA file. Is this because digital coax is limited to 96k max?
If so would I get full 192k using the vaults analog outputs instead? |
Rob
One of the reasons I am still happy with the Vault is Tidal
$20 a month for their hifi service gives MQA at up to 192 speed, yes the whole MQA arguement is raging hard elsewhere but I know what I hear in my system and that is better sq that redbook!
I prefer the digital out from the Vault compared to its analog outs which sound a little soft and flabby imho.
For about $1000 the Vault is hard to beat and its simplicity is half of its appeal to me, I am sure there are better solutions out there but for me it was/is near perfect.
Does not hurt that I can listen to any cd form my collection without getting my backside out of my chair either...lol
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Rob, I still whole heartedly recommend the bluesound vault 2.
Needs a hardwired Ethernet connection to stream and connect to home network.
It is child's play to setup and configure
No volume knob.........
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Exactly what I did 2psyop....lol
And yes I do wonder at times why I bothered taking all that time to rip the same music I can now just about as easily stream....some rare British stuff not found on any online service yet but not many....
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Still very happy with my choice of bluesound vault2 connected with nordost Valhalla digital coax cable. |
Finally I may have found a chink in the Bluesound Vault 2 armour!
Unless I am missing something and hopefully fellow Vault owners can help out.
For the first time today I decided to try and connect up my tv toslink output to the Vault via the supplied mini jack to toslink adapter.
At first I thought I had done something wrong as at my seating position I heard nothing, I got up to check the connection and I heard Antman singing in my speaker!
I had to turn the volume up on the Hegel from a normal 42 for my Vault to about 87 before it had anywhere near the same volume level.
The same cable/output from the tv fed into the Hegel dac only needs about 45 on the volume to have the same actual room volume.
So am I missing something in the vault setup for the toslink input volume or has anybody else found this is exactly the case and it is what it is? |
@ctsooner
As always your posts are refreshing and well thought out and always of interest to myself.
I would say that on this venture I limited myself on how much I wanted to spend on the music server as it was my first foray, just like my very first amp cost a whole $25...lol.
I am sure like the rest of the components that in time I will get the urge to explore and go higher both in quality and price, not that they always go hand in hand!
But yes for now I have EXACTLY what I asked for and sound quality of ripped files and Tidal have surpassed my admitedly fairly low expectations. Only previous experience of digital was my daughters itunes and Pandora played through the smarttv connected by optical digital connection.
And yes Juke, in my system I definitely noticed a huge difference going dig out of the vault instead of rca so if you did go with a vault I would not judge it entirely by its rca performance until you had opportunity to try the digital outputs. As of yet I have not tried the usb out bar for backing up the hard drive so no idea what the sound quality is like over the usb port.
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I do agree that the 20 minutes and get up to change the vinyl can get old, it is still just a very different experience that sometimes it is worth it.
@juke4u,
yes the sound quality over bluetooth will be vastly inferior, it is definitely a convenience medium and not a hifi medium.
Both mp3 and bluetooth are vastly inferior in sound quality.
I do have a few odd mp3 files I transfered to the vault and you can really tell the difference between them and flac files. Very compressed, boxy, nasal sound.
@randyhat
yes there are plenty of great sounding cdp with dig ins and outs at about the same cost of the Vault. And IMHO the rca out of the Vault were definitely a lot weaker performing than when run though its dig out, may just be my system but it was very bass heavy, over heavy, boomy. This totally changed when run through its dig out to a very clean ,as good if not better than original cd state. |
The Mac is the c-48 which is digital and solid state, no tubes
i really do not think you can compare vinyl, it is just so different, guess the word "warmth" may be a little cliched but thats my best summation.
I have a Funk Firm Vector with Grado Gold cart and play it through the macs phono input and it really is just so sweet, I usually end up playing an evening of vinyl once I start...lol.
The Vault for me just does everything i wanted although I am sure higher end with higher price tags may do it better for sure.
But to end up sounding better than my esoteric?
That was quite an achievement |
@juke4u
I may have gone one better in comparisons...lol
I actually own two genuine cd discs of one of my favourite bands( counting crows).
So i was able to compare both my cd players (mcintosh and esoteric) vs tidal AND the vault rips, makes it easy to instantly switch between them, not just rely on memory of what a track sounded like 5 minutes ago.
My preference order, and this is just my opinion
1/ vault
2/ mcintosh
3/ esoteric
4/ tidal
now tbh they are ALL really close and 3 and 4 are probably more a tie
we are talking points of a percent apart really
I still buy odd cd,s ( still some stuff not available on tidal yet) but the first thing i do is rip them to the vault and listen to them from there!
I see Pandora is starting up their full streaming service next week for just $9.99 a month, hopefully as a present Pandora user they will offer a free trial as well. Be a nice comparo to Tidal |
@jond
Bit of a dinosaur at times I am afraid but when I checked and saw a free 30 day trial, what was there to lose!
Now I have been listening to stuff from my youth I would most likely never buy but nice to have an option to stream it!
Stuff like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Rick Wakeman, Wishbone Ash etc.
I really do like the fact that Tidal can be run inside the Bluos app as I did see that the standalone Tidal app on my droid phone was quite a bit of a memory hog, nearly as bad as Farcebook....both of which have now been forced into stop mode...lol. |
@randyhat
in all honesty the rca outputs of the vault are a little soso, i thought the bass was overcooked
however using the digital coax out i think i prefer the sound to the original cd played through my esoteric sa50!
and yes prior to the vault i was using the esoteric to stream simple stuff like pandora and spotify through and it did sound good, but the vault sounds a lot better.
of course there are pc based systems that will sound better but i am very satisfied with the results
so much so that i have put my esoteric up for sale right here on agon!
mostly listening to tidal right now...yes you lot were right! |
@mahler123
Exactly my thought process right from the start
Nobody in my house wants to be an it expert after a hard days work, just select a few tracks or pick an internet radio station on the bluos app and let it play.
Glad to see my choice was a path others have already taken for much the same reasons
still enjoying my unit and maybe adding a Node for my daughter to use in her room, probably just connected to a soundbar...lol, evil I know! |
Thought I would look into Tidal and as I saw was offering 30 days free trial thought I would give it a whirl.
Very well laid out and a breeze to use INSIDE the Bluos app on my phone.
Just another very useful feature of the vault. |
@ctsooner
Thank you for all posts on this thread as I find your input to be both inciteful and extremely beneficial!
I agree that the vault would not be and is not my main source of music but only because the rest of the system is pretty well sorted!
But it does exactly what I wanted, my daughter loves it too and it is so easy to use and the sound quality is pretty darn decent tbh.
Yes my esoteric still sounds better but it damn well ought too!
I feed the vault by digital coax through my Mc C48 out to my BAT VK600SE and into B&W 804D speakers and I am very happy with the results.
Discovered a lot of great internet radio stations using the vault as well.
Some may say not having a remote for it may be a downside but the BLUOS app on both android and apple is so simple and well thought out who needs a remote? And direct from this app you can access tidal, spotify and a number of other paid subscriptions if you need to.
Pretty slick for the total cost of around $1000 brand new, $1200 is list but enough peeps are selling at discounted price of $1000 which is what I paid. |
The Vault 2 only has the option of being hardwired to the internet/network, no wireless to ensure no dropped bits and superior signal at all times I am sure.
I send the signal out of my vault to my c48 via digital coax cable as this sounded much better than through the rca analog outs.
I have only listened to my ripped cds through it and various internet radio stations as I do not subscribe to any paid service as of yet.
I believe I got exactly what I was looking for and have not seen a downside as of yet.
I have backed up the vaults contents on a standalone 2tb hard drive just in case though....... |
@juke4u
computer dummy here too...lol
i believe flac files are reported to be the best and easiest to work with
however i was able to just import all my windows media files direct to the bluesound vault and it took them happily. I had ripped at highest quality level anyway and tbh i honestly cannot tell any difference to the flac files the vault ripped but that is my old ear! |
@jim
Thanks for the kind words sir...lol
Just know what I like, knew roughly what I was looking for and any feedback and thoughts from others is ALWAYS appreciated, hence the existence of this thread.
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@david12
Interesting question...lol
I am from England and we used to do this all the time the old school way, vinyl to cassette and never gave it another thought,
Honestly do not know the rules here in the usa but i know it happens on such a massive scale it would most likely be impossible to police
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As I said earlier I did think the bass was a little overblown from the vault but this was using the rca outputs.
I changed to the coax dig out feeding into the dig in of my esoteric and tbh I truly cannot tell them apart now.
My guess is the analog outs of the vault are not up to par but going digital out is the way to go.
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@jond
Of course I get your point, in fact I would have to concede the logic of it if all you want to do is browse without owning as this is exactly what the wife does with tv using Netflix and Amazon Prime for about $22 a month for the pair. And yes she watches some garbage that would never ever consider buying!
However most of my music cd purchases are well researched and I do not end up selling many. Yes I now have them stored on the vault and majority of the cd,s are now boxed up and hidden.
I would say "never" is a word never to use...lol
So who knows maybe I will check Tidal out one day but its one step at a time for this old fart!
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@jond
Everybody is entitled to their choices
Mine as I have stated is to have something tangible in my hands when I have paid good money for it.
Now just as an example, I bought some cd,s say and I decided I did not like them, well I am going to rip them to flac files anyway and then resell them.
And that is a choice I get by buying cd,s, to resell or not, at least I have an option.
I have nothing against anybody who chooses to go completely digital at all, it is just not my nature and that will NEVER change...lol.
I am sure Tidal has some good stuff on it but I am also very happy with my cd collection and the physical hunt for said cd,s on flea markets and the like |
@jond
All cd,s have been ripped as flac, that is the default setting for the vault although you can change it in the menu of the bluos app if you wanted too.
existing music i downloaded to it had been ripped as wma files on my pc.
the beauty of the vault to me is it DOES NOT CARE what file format, flac, wma, mp3 etc. it takes them all and plays them all with zero errors.
And DAVID12, agreed that I am never going to pay for an overpriced subscription, the only online stuff i use now and again is spotify and pandora and all the internet radio stations. I buy most of my cd,s on ebay or amazon at around $3.29 to $3.99 free shipping or scour the flea markets when in the mood at $1 to $2 a pop.
Not ready to embrace the idea of "buying" music that I cannot actually hold in my hands just yet....... |
Well had this vault2 for about 4 days now and have 3500 songs loaded and out of those just 15 got dumped into unknown due to bad metadata, and nearly all of those were really old obscure tracks so a great job as far as i am concerned. Quickly fixed with mp3tag on the pc manualy entering the id3 tags.
Sound quality? Soundstage and vocals are excellent, bass is a little overblown tbh compared to the same track played on the esoteric but not something that makes me want to run screaming from the room!
All in all I would say I got exactly what i paid for and wanted! |
I fail to see how cds will be eliminated anytime soon, sure they said that about vinyl too....
However regardless of that i am just old fashioned
When I have stumped up $10 or $15 or $20 for an album, well I WANT an album physically not some download, I am the same with movies.
That aspect of my mentality will never change I am afraid.
As I said already have my solution right along the lines I envisaged and for now I could not be more happy.
My toe into the digital world but no way will I be selling the Esoteric any time soon...... |
So here we are now and a very happy owner of the bluesound vault2 which fills my want list at every step!
so easy to use even my wife can handle it, i am controlling it via the bluos app in android and no issues at all, it found my network and home computer in seconds, i did not have to do a single thing!
busy ripping cds to it AND adding already ripped music to its library.
sound quality?
played same cd three diff ways, from my already ripped music files on the home pc, from a ripped file direct to the vault and the original cd through my esoteric.
tbh........possibly the esoteric had a little more warmth and feel but that may also be as it is running through cardas balanced connects whereas the vault only has rca although i am using a pair of mit terminator 2 connects on it.
all in all SO FAR.....very satisfied indeed! |
will let you know when its here and i have some run time on it!
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Well I went my way after all...lol
Just bought a Bluesound VAULT2
So we will see, was a very fair price I thought and worth a trial
Now what do the few people who have this use as an app on android?
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LOL, must be my old piece of junk pc
Still 18 minutes to rip in flac....but it did find the metadata....... |
@s
You could be right Spencer, I will try another cd tonight and see
But do you think it would be any faster writing to an external drive over usb2? |
In fact I think I have dbpoweramp on my work laptop just to play music back on those long nights in the hotel while away for work |
@jond
Oh I agree totaly on the flac vs wav point
Just pointing out the fact that on my computer it took twice as long with the EAC software compared to windows media player on same format of wav.
I truly think my old pc and drives are more the stumbling block on rip speed |
So I thought I would at least give exact audio copy a try out on my pc, but after the results I am going to assume it is very dependant on age/speed of pc and drive etc as results were very poor tbh.
The very first cd i loaded ( polyester zeal by red sun rising) it did not find the metadata, however it was easy to edit and add myself.
Then it took 17 minutes to rip as wav files.
I did a compare with windows media player which not only found the metadata right away but ripped to same wav format in 7 minutes.
Files were ripped to the pc,s own internal hard drive, is it possible to get these fast EAC rip speeds it would need to be ripped to an external drive or is because my cranky old hp all in one is just too old and slow?
I listed to both versions through my tv which feeds via toslink into my esoteric into my arc into my bat and could not tell any difference.
Obviously this is less than state of the art but all I had to experiment with right now. |
I already have home network and ethernet cable down to my "man cave,lol" for streaming netflix , Pandora etc through the Samsung tv whose sound is fed through my stereo rig so would be no big deal to connect said cable to an all in one box for metadata etc.
My music collection at this point runs to maybe 500cds as my music tastes are pretty narrow and a 2tb built in hard drive would be more than ample for storage.
Most of the all in ones I have looked at can be controlled via an android app from my phone.
So as my initial post, was more looking for comments from people who have gone the same route as I was thinking rather than being trying to persuade me I should go a route I am not comfortable with right now.
Not saying my ideas are the best but it is what I was considering.
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@mgreen27
in that case I will probably stick to what I know which will NOT include any pc based systems, its not like I actually NEED to do this, was just a thought.
my present system is superb to my ears and it was just a fancy to possibly move forward
thank you all
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Thank you to all who have suggested computer based systems but I am not going to go that route for my aforementioned reasons whether it may be superior or not.
I have zero desire to fight ANY setup issues beyond plugging things in!
Luddite?
Probably.....lol
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Part of my "requirements" is that it just fits in with the rest of my equipment sitting in the rack, hence the reasoning behind an all in one box, not a laptop or home pc based solution , even if that might give a much cheaper and possibly better audio experience.
Also I do not have the time or patience to troubleshoot any network or connectivity issues as I work very long hard hours and when i flop and want to listen to music, well that is ALL i want to do and not fiddle with anything
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@ncarv
I feel 2 to 3k SHOULD get me something to work with?
I did look at the Naim unit and read a few reviews, one for sale right here for just 1100 atm so a fair price indeed.
And lol to the Logitech, when it worked it worked well but when it decided it could not find my network any more, it tried my patience indeed!
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@grannyring
EXACTLY!
Sounds just the sort of deal I am trying to work out, likewise I know just enough about computers to be dangerous...to myself that is! I have wasted enough hours previously just to get a darn Squeezeboz to co-operate on my home network, think I was secretely glad when it just died!
I was also very keen on the idea of a system I could access through my phone as well.
I will be looking deeply into this, thank you!
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Foolish maybe but it is what I am looking for right now.
There are a number of higher end units that rip right to themselves and I would be surprised if ALL of them made a bad job of it?
But maybe I will have to revise my position on this, that is the point of asking opinions.
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