So I set up my Bluesound Vault2 and thought I’d share my experience.
SETUP: very easy. Took me about ½ hr but if I had to do it again, probably 5 minutes.
The Build: very small, nice looking. Doesn’t produce much heat so you can put it in a cabinet.
USE: To become a BS ‘expert user’ you have to either ‘learn-by-doing’ or do a lot of web searching because there is no manual (hard to believe but true). I am competent enough to use it, but there are a lot of things I don’t know how to do – yet. And for reasons I don’t understand, there isn’t even a YouTube video explaining all the software features.
The convenience of this thing is amazing. I’m working on my computer and want to play Ricki Lee Jones. I click on the BS app, type in “Ricki Lee Jones”, and w/in 10 seconds I’m playing songs I don’t have in my library, and always wanted to hear. The versatility and breadth of music available is fantastic. Right now I’m using TIDAL for streaming ($20/month), but I’ll probably try ohers too.
You can’t ‘play’ CDs, you can only rip them. To rip, stick it in the slot and it does the rest (takes maybe 10 minutes). When complete, it ejects it back out at you.
SOUND :
System 1: a 25 year old Sony carousel CD player, running into my 6 year old, $600, Denon AVR, then into my same vintage Boston Acoustics T930 (which to my ears are still very nice sounding – I’m going to have a hard time parting with these).
System 2: the Vault2 analog out running into the same AVR/speakers.
The two systems are nearly equivalent in sound. The highs are maybe a little better in the BS, but discernably only by A/B-ing them back and forth for 10 minutes. So close I’ll call it a wash.
Soooo, I’m keeping it. Why, you ask, would I keep it if the BS is the same quality as an ancient Sony CD player? 2 reasons:
1) the convenience factor is fantastic. I’m having a lot of fun listening to a wide assortment of music that I didn’t before, and in addition I can still listen to my own library stored on the Vault2 without getting out of my chair. It’s as easy as moving your finger across a touchscreen or keyboard. Even my wife is listening to music often – after about a 1 minute lesson.
2) My expectation is that if I hookup the Bluesound to a high quality DAC (NAD M51?, Benchmark DAC2? Cambridge Audio 851D?) through the Toslink Optical then I’ll get even better sound. So there IS fidelity growth in the future.
Initially I was disappointed because I just assumed 25 years of technical advances would produce a higher fidelity sound out of the BS as compared to my Sony carousel. But possibly the bottleneck is my Denon. What this is telling me is that a CD with an old Sony DAC is the same fidelity of a FLAC going through the Bluesound DAC. My expectation was that the BS DAC would be better, but in retrospect, the BS DAC isn’t a very expensive DAC (probably equivalent to a $150 new stand-alone DAC?). So my next step is a high quality DAC/preamp, amp, and speakers. Right now the Spatial Audio M3 speakers, Red Dragon S500 (amp), and NAD M51 DAC/Preamp is on my short list – although I’ve been wavering for a while on the M51.
That’s my story.
Larry
So I set up my Bluesound Vault2 and thought I’d share my experience.
SETUP: very easy. Took me about ½ hr but if I had to do it again, probably 5 minutes.
The Build: very small, nice looking. Doesn’t produce much heat so you can put it in a cabinet.
USE: To become a BS ‘expert user’ you have to either ‘learn-by-doing’ or do a lot of web searching because there is no manual (hard to believe but true). I am competent enough to use it, but there are a lot of things I don’t know how to do – yet. And for reasons I don’t understand, there isn’t even a YouTube video explaining all the software features.
The convenience of this thing is amazing. I’m working on my computer and want to play Ricki Lee Jones. I click on the BS app, type in “Ricki Lee Jones”, and w/in 10 seconds I’m playing songs I don’t have in my library, and always wanted to hear. The versatility and breadth of music available is fantastic. Right now I’m using TIDAL for streaming ($20/month), but I’ll probably try ohers too.
You can’t ‘play’ CDs, you can only rip them. To rip, stick it in the slot and it does the rest (takes maybe 10 minutes). When complete, it ejects it back out at you.
SOUND :
System 1: a 25 year old Sony carousel CD player, running into my 6 year old, $600, Denon AVR, then into my same vintage Boston Acoustics T930 (which to my ears are still very nice sounding – I’m going to have a hard time parting with these).
System 2: the Vault2 analog out running into the same AVR/speakers.
The two systems are nearly equivalent in sound. The highs are maybe a little better in the BS, but discernably only by A/B-ing them back and forth for 10 minutes. So close I’ll call it a wash.
Soooo, I’m keeping it. Why, you ask, would I keep it if the BS is the same quality as an ancient Sony CD player? 2 reasons:
1) the convenience factor is fantastic. I’m having a lot of fun listening to a wide assortment of music that I didn’t before, and in addition I can still listen to my own library stored on the Vault2 without getting out of my chair. It’s as easy as moving your finger across a touchscreen or keyboard. Even my wife is listening to music often – after about a 1 minute lesson.
2) My expectation is that if I hookup the Bluesound to a high quality DAC (NAD M51?, Benchmark DAC2? Cambridge Audio 851D?) through the Toslink Optical then I’ll get even better sound. So there IS fidelity growth in the future.
Initially I was disappointed because I just assumed 25 years of technical advances would produce a higher fidelity sound out of the BS as compared to my Sony carousel. But possibly the bottleneck is my Denon. What this is telling me is that a CD with an old Sony DAC is the same fidelity of a FLAC going through the Bluesound DAC. My expectation was that the BS DAC would be better, but in retrospect, the BS DAC isn’t a very expensive DAC (probably equivalent to a $150 new stand-alone DAC?). So my next step is a high quality DAC/preamp, amp, and speakers. Right now the Spatial Audio M3 speakers, Red Dragon S500 (amp), and NAD M51 DAC/Preamp is on my short list – although I’ve been wavering for a while on the M51.
That’s my story.
Larry