I love my Vault 2i.... amazing what it can do. It has great sound quality and convenience. I also have it connected to my DAC but it sounds good in it's own right . It's like the Swiss Army Knife of digital playback. Bi directional Blutooth is a great feature too. Today I used it to play my Magnum Dynalab tuner in another room via Blutooth. Tonight I' m streaming Tidal . It's an awesome machine that does everything and sounds great. |
Hello, I am considering to buy Vault 2i. I would like to use it as CD player too. But not sure if this is possible. Is it possible to use it as CD player (not to rip the cd, just play it)? thx for your help |
Vault 2 cd drive is designed to rip cd’s only. While streaming quality is very good without an external DAC, the files stored on its internal drive sounds flat and dull to my ears. I highly recommend an external DAC if plan to playback ripped files. |
I run Roon on a Mac Mini that sends files via ethernet and USB to DACs. The files are those I’ve ripped, as well as from Qobuz and Tidal. I was given a Bluesound Vault 2i recently, but I’m not sure how it fits into my existing setups, or what it adds. I think the Ayre Codex has two inputs and can take USB from the Roon network and directly from the Vault 2i. The Ayre QX-5 Twenty digital hub has both ethernet and USB inputs. Is the Vault 2i primarily a NAS? |
This product was attractive to me as I had a large number of CD's to rip and liked the idea of an integrated approach to storing my music digitally. So I went ahead and purchased a Vault 2. I later discovered that the integration is however also its weakness: if something fails, the unit becomes an expensive paperweight.
The good:
- Ripping a large CD collection works well with the Vault. Some of your more obscure discs may not be found, but that is rare.
- Storage provided is adequate for most needs.
- Sound quality when paired with an appropriate amplifier and speakers is always excellent.
The bad:
- Ripping takes time, and is not as accurate as other PC based ripping sofware
This Vault is essentially a Bluesound node cobbled with a CD reader (only CD's BTW, and not DTS or other HiRes music discs), and 2TB of storage. Very expensive when you consider what the three separate functions would cost.
- Meta tags from ripping, album art etc. must all be carefully checked if you have a large library.
- Failures: the achilles heal of the vault is reliability of the storage. And when it fails, it fails hard: your library is no longer accessible by any other devices. Yes you can back up your Vault, but no real way to restore your music to anything other than a vault. Which leads you to:
- Poor warranty. At only one year for hardware, you are left high and dry by Bluesound to deal with the failure. Nor anyway to get your music back.
In short:
- Poor value relative to the functionality provided
- Poor warranty, and you should count on an eventual failure of your storage and plan accordingly
Don't purchase a Vault from Bluesound. Your are far better off with a Node and using professional quality storage, and ripping your CD's with a computer.
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