Bluesound Vault 2i and a Qutest DAC


In trying to get rid of the thousand physical CDs i own so I demoed the Bluesound Vault 2i against my Theta Miles CD player (with a Krell integrated amp and Thiel speakers.) The Theta produced better sound so I sent back the vault. Someone suggested that I use an external DAC, like the Chord Electronics Qutest DAC, with the Vault 2i to produce the quality of my CD player. Has anyone any experience with this scenario?


llarry
Yes, in fact I did the exact same thing with the same DAC for some time and it does substantially improve on the dac inside the bluesound. If you use a top end coax cable to go into the qutest dac you will get great results.  Now looking at your current components you might want to get yourself something better than a vault.  I now have an Aurender N100H server/streamer and it is fantastic.  I use an MHDT Pagoda NOS DAC and wow...great sound.
I added a Chord Qutest DAC to my Bluesound Node for a significant improvement.  I also ripped my CDs (well, about 1,600 of them) and stored them on a Samsung SSD which is plugged into my Node.  Best of both worlds...Tidal MQA streaming and my private collection all from the Node into an amazing DAC! 
Hello,
At my local hifi store one of the employees and myself decided to test some DACs with the blu node 2i. BTW the Blu node Vault lets you rip cds and store them. It went in this order, Teac, Cambridge-really good bottom end, then Blu node 2i-no bottom end but good top end. The Teac was amazing, great top and bottom end. Also, try the Lyman streamer/ DAC. Just proving the DAC needs to be upgraded. Mark Levenson has the 5101. SACD/CD player, Streamer, and DAC all in one. It’s so new to the store the streamer is not setup as of yet. Maybe that’s an option. The speakers are probably the first thing you should start with, but the DAC should the second. Even my Oppo 205 was bettered by plugging into a better DAC. Plus you can use some DACs as a preamp to start with.