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Digital Audio for Dummies

As I have stated before, I'm a bit of an audio dinosaur.  I love simple.  I love reliable.  I love a high performance/price ratio.  So no surprise I'm still happily spinning discs.  Give me a nice CD player direct to an integrated and I'm good to go.

But it is 2018.  Reading on this forum about the demise of Oppo was a bit of a wake up call. Also the Lyngdorf 2170 has inspired me.  An elegant all in one box product that is ready to connect with many of the digital options now available.  So I'd like to get educated on what's out there and what you suggest.  Basically I would want to know about ripping all my CD's--exactly how that is done.  Dedicated audio computer?  How big of a hard drive/other considerations?  Wired vs. wireless.  And then what streaming services are out there?  Cost, quality, ease of use?

PLEASE keep things simple and don't assume the reader knows, for example, what Roon is.  I've seen it mentioned, but would want to know exactly what this does, how it functions, etc.

THANKS!
corelli
frazeur1
345 posts
 

corelli, while there are many good replies and suggestions to your post, I will recommend one thing, find a dealer(if you do not already have one near by)that you feel you can trust and has some options for you on the digital end of things.

Go and discuss what you want out of your system, how it will be used, and have some demonstrations of the equipment, interface etc. Make sure it is simple and useable by you and that the sound quality too will meet your expectations.

There are so many ways to skin the cat, but in the end, it has to fit you and your budget, not to mention work the way you want it to, and a good dealer should be able to provide the assistance you need! FWIW

uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
Been there, was that guy a year or so ago...lol

Bluesound vault 2 gets my vote, bought one over a year ago and have never looked back or felt the desire to upgrade, bonus is that you need to know absolutely NOTHING about computers to use it!

As soon as I connected it to my internet cable it found my network and connected right away so I can view and access all of the ripped music on it from my pc or laptop as well. Majority of cds went and ripped with all cover art etc, a few very old obscure ones I had to use the pc to fix the metadata with an aftermarket program but even that was easy peasy.

One of the best aspects of the Vault is you can stream countless internet radio stations and paid streaming like Tidal, Spotify, Deezer etc.

I output by digital coax to my Lyngdorf 2170 as it gives me better sq than the single ended analog outputs. I also output by toslink to another system in another room so can play Tidal or my ripped cd collection on another system entirely. I use my android phone to control everything including Tidal, Bluos regularly updates both the droid software and the Vault gets regular updates over the network.

One very satisfied customer, I paid exactly $1000 for mine as an open box item. Buy a quality digital cable to use for the output and reap even bigger benefits
rhljazz
1,255 posts
 
The more I use my Bluesound Vault 2, the more I’m impressed with its capabilities and features. I recently made a complete backup file to an external usb hard drive for peace of mind and it was super easy. The Bluesound is one of the best values in audio.
Totally agree with Uberwaltz.
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
rhljazz

Thank you, forgot to mention the ease of backup, all you need do is plug in a local 2tb usb hard drive ($60 off ebay) and just select backup in the settings. First backup will take a while ( depending on how many cds you have ripped) but even while it is backing up you can still play music through your system.
Versatile is not the right word here!
Are there higher quality units out there, sure there is, but at a higher price and some are much more complex to set up and use.
All boils down to how far you want to go and if like me you need to keep it all house hold friendly ( ie, my wife needs to be able to just push a couple buttons to hear music!) then the vault is hard to beat imho
Obviously YMMV.
Good luck and whatever you do, have fun!
reubent
7,004 posts
 
@uberwaltz @rhljazz - I'm very curious about the Bluesound Vault 2. I'm leaning in that direction. Question: Once you rip your CDs and have a backup, is the file structure a common standard and are the files portable to another platform if you change/upgrade to a different digital music server in the future?
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