Yes, the Node 2 or 2i will communicate with each other but I have found only if they are connected via an Ethernet cable. They do sport WiFi interfaces but their WiFi interface leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't take much for it to bomb - distance more than 10 or 12 feet, one wall of sheetrock, and forget it.
I have two Node 2's and one Vault 2 and I have given up trying to use the Vault 2 and the Nodes via WiFi. I now use my Vault 2 for ripping only, store music on a separate Network drive since the Vault is invisible to Roon, and I limit myself to the Bluesound app for control. My BlueSound equipment was supposed to be Roon compatible but short of hardwire Ethernet connection, using Roon with it was impossible for me. Frankly, if I had to buy the stuff over again, I wouldn't go the Bluesound approach. I really need the WiFi stuff to work flawlessly. |
Spatial... I appreciate sharing your experiences. I do notice that neither the node or the vault like wifi very much, or bluetooth for that matter. And i hear you re the need for a wired connection to both. The good news is that I can test it. I have a mesh wifi system and I can move one of the mesh nodes to my bedroom and test how the Node 2 “talks” to the Vault (if, as you say, the Roon should work with a wired connection.) If it works well, I may just buy another node to my mesh system to solve that problem. If not, the Node 2 will go on eBay! Thanks again. L.
|
other problem with having more 1 Bluesound unit is the updates. I have 3 systems in my home, and had a Vault 2 in one, the Nodes in two others, and one of their boom box units in my kitchen. The updates are frequent and over time the Nodes and the boom box stopped working as one of them would be unable to complete the update-check enough threads here and you will find others saying the same thing. The updates are supposed to be optional, but several times I’ve checked the skip the update tab but it launches the updates regardless. I also wish that I had never gone the Bluesound route, but if you do it, confine yourself to just one unit, skip the whole House thing.
My recommendation is to get a NAS to rip& store your CDs to. It will work with your Node and any other streamer you pick moving forward. If you decide to go the Vault2 route as your ripper/streamer, pay close attention to back up, because if/when the VAult2 fails, you want to retain your music, unless you intend to keep the CDs.
I keep my files on a Synology NAS. I have a Bryston BDP3 streamer in one system, an old PC as a streamer in another, and I use the Vault2 as a streamer only in the third. The Nodes and the Boombox are expensive doorstops |
I suggest rip on your computer for ease of tagging and editing. Put the files on portable SSD’s. You can pick up the 2T for ~$200. Plug them into a streamer that shows up on your computer like my Synology does (BlueSound doesn’t) and transfer that way.
Sounds better than the Synology. And indexes new tracks much faster too.
Electric bill goes down 16 watts retiring the Synology.
As far as WiFi, if you don't want to go Node just plug it into a $30 extender.
But don't bother with the BluSound WiFi.
They drop connection way too much already wired. |
I really do appreciate your insights and comments, however, you gentlemen are getting a bit too complicated for my old retired brain. For me, the Vault is a one and done solution to house all my music and streaming audio while I lie on my couch with an old iPhone as my remote and access anything any way I like. A true miracle! Meanwhile, I hear what you’re saying about integrating more than one bluesound device, and since 90% of my listing is in my living room I certainly don’t need to complicate things by adding the node 2 to my bedroom. So thanks for that input. BTW, I am getting good DAC to put the Vault through, hoping it will sound as good as my old Theta Miles CD player. |
Hi,
llarry, I use a Bluesound Node 2 via Wi-Fi for a small system in the bedroom as well as a Node 2i in my main stereo system using an Ethernet connection. I stream digital files from a NAS drive and really enjoy having access to all my ripped CDs and Hi-Res downloads. But I don't have experience streaming from a Vault. Having the Vault 2i connected via Ethernet should help. The Wi-Fi capabilities were pretty bad with BluOS for a while but got much better in the past 6 months, at least in my experience. Far fewer drop-outs, even with a "FAIR" Wi-Fi connection to the Node 2. But again, that's streaming from a NAS drive, not a Vault. Try it though and you might find that it works just fine. Tom |
Hi Tom... I definitely intend to try it out since i've nothing to lose. Thanks.
|
This weekend, I installed the Vault and loaded a bunch of my CDs. I can tell already this will totally transform my listening experience for the better. Since I’ve gotten old (and lazy) I’ve been mostly listing to streaming Internet music rather than spend the energy and time loading and unloading CDs. All of my music will now be at my fingertips. Very excited about this! And, I also moved the Node 2 to my bedroom stereo as a test. It works great! And, over wifi. I find no need to get a wired connection to it. (Note that I use a Mesh network with 3 nodes around my house, so maybe that accounts for the better wifi connection.) As far as Mahler123’s comment re the updates, I guess I’ll experience that when it happens… The Node 2 also integrates and syncs perfectly with the Vault. It’s extremely easy to switch between them. To have access to all my CDs in my bedroom as well as any streaming audio app is a huge plus. So, Tom, it does, indeed, work fine!
A note on the Vault’s quality of sound: It clearly beats my Onkyo 6 CD changer but falls a bit short of my superb Theta Miles. I did purchase a good DAC (Chord Electronics Qutest) for the Vault but they sent me the wrong cable so I can’t test it yet. I’ll post my results when I get the DAC to work.
|
@llary - You can improve the sound of the Bluesound considerably - if you use good power cable and IC's - to the point where a separate DAC is no longer required. Good power cables are the best bang for the buck
All my Bluesound devices have great cables and perform brilliantly!
WRT UPDATES: If you miss an update on a unit it generally goes into update mode the next time you turn it on - it's very simple
- Or you can click on the HELP - UPDATE menu items on the BluOS software interface to update immediately
- DO NOT power the unit off during an update.
Also, someone mentioned the Bluesound Wifi is not that good
- I have heard this many times and I am left puzzled
- My wireless router is in the basement and I can get the Pulse Mini to work flawlessly in the garden (some 80 ft away) even at 24/192
- I think id depends on the wireless router you have and NOT the Bluesound unit
- some neighbours installed repeaters - which seem to be required IF oyu are using the wireless router installed by your service provider
- I installed my ow router
If oyu want to know more about cables I can recommend some
Regards - Steve |
Steve, thanks for the info. I may be agreeing with you. I finally got the optical cable that connects the vault to the DAC last night. I did a quick test against my Theta Miles CD player (which I’m hoping to replace with the vault) and the CD player blew away the vault (going through the DAC.) I am using very good audio cables (LAT International). Today I will test the vault directly connected to my amp against the vault going through the DAC. I will also see if there are any adjustments I can make on the DAC to improve things.
As far as the node 2 in my bedroom, it’s working great on WiFi. So I agree with you about the possibility of Wi-Fi being the problem rather than the node 2 for those folks out there not getting good results.
As you suggest, I may end up returning the DAC. I’ll know in the next day or two once I test everything. |
An update to my November 10 posting: Some very interesting findings!
> Comparing the sound of the vault alone against the vault thru the Qutest DAC and both against the Theta Miles cd player. I used eight different people in my test. I used 2 Jazz tracks from Dave Brubeck’s album “young lions and old tigers“ One track was just piano and voice, the other track was the full band.
I did blind testing of all 3 scenarios. No one knew which device they were listening to. The results: 2 of the 8 heard no difference In quality between the three. 3 of the 8 felt the Vault alone was just slightly better than both the DAC or the CD player. 2 of the 8 said the CD player was the best of all three options. Another 2 of the 8 chose the Vault with the DAC as the best sound of the 3 options when listening to the track of just the piano and voice but they chose the Vault alone when listening to the full band track.
My conclusions: use the vault to replace the CD player and all the CDs. NO need whatsoever to spend $1000 on a DAC (at least the one I was using, the Chord electronics Qutest DAC.)
> The vault’s integration with the node 2. No change there. The Node 2 is working great in my bedroom. It talks to the vault flawlessly. No need for a wired Internet connection.
> The vault itself: 90% totally positive and in love with it. The 10% negative has to do with some of the quirks of the software.
- “Genre” category: from the more than two hundred plus CDs that I’ve already burned there are many different genres; classical, jazz, rock, reggae, blue grass, blues, Latin, etc. their software only listed one under their “genre“ category - Jazz. It did do a fairly good job of putting most of my jazz albums into that category. Talking to Bluesound’s tech-support there is no cure at this time. it has to do with how the software looks at the meta-data. So if you want to categorize your music genres, this is not the place you can do it.
- Folders: it will list only one folder - the Music folder, and that folder is exactly how the folder is created, and appears on the Vault as a NAS device when looking at the vault on a computer. If you want to categorize the different genres of music, this appears to be the best place to do it however, according to tech-support it’s a bit complicated. You have to go into the music folder on your computer, add folders to the “music“ folder and then drag the albums you want into the folder you created. Then, using the bluesound app, reindex your entire collection; which could take a considerable amount of time depending on how many CDs you’ve burned. I may do a small test of this but it scares me enough to hold off on testing it.
- Album Tagging. Another issue is the sometimes miss-tagging of an album. It will display the wrong album cover and wrong album title. This is rare in my experience; only three out of 200+ that I’ve burned so far. Note that the tracks in the album are correct. The fix for this is to install a metadata editor that is compatible with your computer and the Bluesound’s Music files; export the incorrect albums and songs into the meta-data editor, fix it there, then export them back. Definitely over my head so I will live with the issue.
- Backup: since they’re backup software is proprietary and you cannot see what’s on it you have to trust that when your vault crashes their restore feature will work. If you are overly cautious, like me, get another external drive, attach it to your computer and just copy the “music” folder over to it. Better to be safe than sorry in my book. I would not want to find out, after burning over 1000 CDs, that their backup doesn’t work.
So, that’s it for now. Hopefully, all of this will be a value to those of you using, or wanting to use. the vault. |
Update to the update: after 2+ months of loading all my CDs into the vault (over 1,000), I finally finished. According to the vaults statistics, I have only used up 12% of the hard drive, which sounds a bit too incredible to me. It displayed a total of 10,100 “songs” occupying 245 GB of disc space.
Be that as it may, it has changed my listening life completely! I now listen to CDs in my collection a good 20 times more than I used to. The ability to lie on the couch (or anywhere around the house) and play any CD, or multiple CDs, I want, in an instant, is fantastic. The ease of which I can now search for a CD, a song, a title is simply amazing. Combining albums, songs, etc. is a piece of cake. And the clarity I get through my stereo system is superb; even when using the Internet streaming services, like Amazon HD, Spotify or Radio Paradise (which is a station I highly recommend to anyone.)
Now my biggest problem is what to do with my CD collection. I have put my Theta Miles CD player on eBay and I will keep my NAD CD player as a backup in case the Vault breaks down and I sell the Miles.
And, The Bluesound Node 2 that I have on my bedroom stereo, talks seamlessly with the Vault, giving me the best of both worlds. I cannot be happier! |
Larry- what is tbe distance between the node and vault and are you using wifi ir bluetooth?
Anyone else with vault and node connections and if so, how far away can this be done by wifi? |
Recluse… The Bluesound node 2 is connected to the Vault via Wi-Fi on my home network. I use a TP-link Deco mesh Wi-Fi system and one of the tp-link’s nodes is hardwired to the Vault which is maybe 5 feet from the vault. The Bluesound node 2, although it is in my bedroom (and the vault is in my living room) I don’t think they are more than 10 feet apart, with a wall separating them. I hope that answers your question. L |
I have a Vault 2 in the great room and a Node 2i in a second bedroom system. I can access the stored music files via the Node wirelessly. I experience no connection difficulties or dropouts.
I estimate the distance to about 30 feet with two walls between. The router is a Hitron that was supplied by SparkLight with their internet service. |
That is helpful
Thank you |
@llarry - Thanks for the updates, this is good info. |
Anyone know if my extensive classical collection can be categorized by *last* name rather than first?
|
To my knowledge, not without work on your part. I believe that the bluesound software populates the database’s “artist”, “Album Artist” and “composer” fields using the name of the composer (or conductor/orchestra) by first name then last name. You would need to access each CD recording using a software program like MP3 tag, then change the fields yourself reversing the names. It may not be that daunting since programs like MP3 tag allow you to make the same field change on any number CD recordings in one pass. So you can dump all of say your Mozart CDs into the MP3 tag database and one change to the field will populate all of the CDs that you chose. |
I have to connect via WiFi. I have a NodeX, which operates well via WiFi. I’m adding a Vault 2, which needs to play THROUGH the Node X.
since I rent this house, I cannot drill holes through the wall to connect to my WiFi box. I COULD run a 25’ wire around the wall…from my modem, but I don’t know…
My Apple TV and the eArc in the node are also in the equation. I know my Sony OLED and it’s WIFI (YouTube TV) connection… would ALSO benefit from hardwired connections… but I don’t know how/what that would look like. Anybody want this challenge to suggestions?
so thank full!
|
