BlueSound Vault: User experiences

Soundhero

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BlueSound Vault User experiences

This thread is intended to share and learn experiences with BlueSound Vault
 
Just started this thread and will share my experiences

Since a few weeks I am the owner of a BlueSound Vault 2. It is really easy. Streaming, ripping cd's and playing all from one device. And with an app on a tablet or phone, you can manage the playlists, select the source, and scroll thru the library.

Installation was a piece of cake; really plug (power and network), and play. You can't go wrong.
Sound quality overall is really good. I do like the sound, it is crystal clear.
Integration with streaming services is super! Especially with Spotify.
I like that TuneIn is also included. Internet radio is a lot better sounding than normal radio. And all stations are also available.
The app is ok. User interface and library are not as easy to use as could be, so improvements may be possible there. But one can play around with settings, etc all from the app. No need to go thru the player. It is also easy to add music stored on other network devices to the library.
CD ripping initially is also perfect. Just slot in a cd, the he library blue light starts flashing and after a while, it appears in the library.

What happened with my Vault, is that the first few cds were ripped perfectly and smoothly. Being very happy with it, I inserted a lot more cd's. And suddenly some were rejected - It did not read the cd at all. And then after a few days, I found that at some cds, ripping stopped after a few tracks, without completing it. You just go about your business, and take out the cd when it is ejected, without paying too much attention to it. But it is really annoying that you miss tracks. Then, after paying more attention, you do get a notification on the app after ejecting, whether ripping is completed, rejected or stopped, because it takes too much time. So you have to check each and every cd individually. I continued and the cd player part is making every time more noise. It was very silent in the beginning, but it becomes very noisy when (trying to) rip cds. It is now also rejecting more and more cd's.

I checked the rejected or incompleted cd's and they were undamaged, played on my cd player perfectly and did rip via a laptop. Now I am not good at that, so I needed help with this.

It is the reason to buy the Vault, that you do not have to worry about this. Otherwise I could buy any streaming device and connect that to a NAS.

I am in contact with BlueSound Support. They are quick to respond and willing to resolve the issue. But no success yet, we will continue later today.

How are your experiences with the Vault? Or Vault 2? Better than mine?
 
Ok, so here follows an update.

Again, some emails back and forth on how to resolve the issue I experienced. Without success. A remote session was then set up in which they accessed my Vault2 and reinstalled the software. It did go a little better, but still many cds timed out or were rejected. They then concluded that it was a hardware issue with my Vault, and I should return it to the store.

Annoyingly, they came back to me the following day, stating that it still may be a software issue, and wanted to switch off CD Paranoia. I am not that technical, so I have no idea what this means. But it seemed strange to switch off a quality check of ripping, as they told me that that is what CD Paranoia does. Anyway, they did so. Again with the same results; CDs do rip, time out or are rejected. Equally split. So they now concluded it is a hardware issue. I have yet to return it to the dealer. Hopefully it is switched for a new and correct one. The dealer informed me, that so far they have not experiences any problem with a Vault, and they sold more than a few.

It really is a pity. Because the sound is great, it is easy to use, and all the family can use it with the app. Integration with streaming services and internet radio is also good.
 
I had bought a Vault (original version) from my local dealer a few weeks ago. I was offered a bargain in that it was a store demo and at only 20% over the price of the ripping incapable Node 2, and may have come with data on the hard drive. ;)

At first it was fine for using as a player. I had ripped 110GB worth of my own CD's onto a USB hard drive and wanted to get those onto the Vault. I couldn't find the Vault on my network even though I could see every other device/drive, etc. Some e-mail exchanged with Bluesound tech support gained nothing, so I called me cousin who had built my PC for me. Disabling the Windows firewall got me the results I needed.

So I copied all my files over and the only issue now is about a dozen "unknown" albums have to be identified, all songs renamed and artwork found. Some were mine, 2/3'rds of them were on the Vault already. I had thought I could just use the Windows Media Player to listen and do the work but saved as FLAC that program won't play them. Grrrr.... I'm left to play them one by one with the Vault and sound system, using Shazzam or similar app on my Android phone to identify those I don't recognize.

Going back to before I bought my KEF speakers, I had (unknowingly) used Bluesound at the store to demo speakers. With an iPad in hand the salesman showed me how to find and play music I knew to listen to various speakers. I thought wow, this is so cool. Well, I have Android phone and tablet and the app locks up if I do certain things. The IOS version seemed to work flawlessly, though I didn't try to do anything beyond basics. I hope they can update the app soon.

Overall I just love how good the unit does it's job. My computer is in my office and my audio system is not convenient to construct a bulkier NAS. The Vault is a better solution for me because it fits where my system lives, doesn't need a PC running to work, and is easy to backup. The robust array of streaming services it can run is great, I use Tidal Hi-Fi. No regrets and much joy with the Vault for me!
 
Thanks for sharing. And happy to hear that it works faultlessly! I agree with you on all the positives, which is why I bought it as well.

Being away for a few days, I could not return the Vault to the dealer sooner, but did so last weekend. Including all the correspondence with Bluesound support. As it clearly stated that there is a hardware issue in this particular Vault, I got a call yesterday that this unit will be replace by a brand new one. Hopefully that will work better. Glad I made a backup of the music library.

Update will follow once the new unit is installed. Now that I do not have it, I actually miss it, beacause of its ease of use listening to either internet radio, streaming service or the music library. Back to playing cd's. Good that I still have not stored them in the attic.....
 
So after switching the unit, all the positives actually come true!
Been working with my new unit now for one and a half week, without any troubles. Happy to have the Vault 2. Restored the music library. CDs are ripped flawlessly now. I do notice occasionally that it makes noise, but it seems to be cd dependent. The good thing is that all my cds are now being ripped. It reads all cds and also it rips them completely.
I now have created playlists and so on on using the app. It is really nice. And it sounds great, just like normal cd's.
Two final wishes: 1) The app is not bad, but it is definitely not as intuitive as it can be. Spotify has a much better app for instance. And 2) Apple Music is not yet supported. I hope it will be in the near future.
 
Great news, glad you got it all straightened out and working again.

Which device do you use for controlling the Vault 2? Is it Android, IOS or Windows based?
 
I found the iPad app to be the best way to run the Vault even though I'm not a guy who would ever be beholden to Apple for any device or software. I run Android/Win10 on my stuff. On my tablet the app isn't as good as Apple IOS but it works good enough to get all my music playing. And Tidal HiFi.
 
Being an Apple only person myself, I have the app both on the iphone and ipad. For some reason, on my iphone there seems to be some kind of delay before it shows newly ripped albums, or when I want to connect to Spotify. With the ipad, there is no delay, and a bigger screen works better to create and manage playlists.

How does Tidal sound? Is it integrated into Bluesound?
 
Some might argue that Tidal Hi-Fi (not Tidal Premium) sounds better than "CD quality". It sounds the same to me. On my Android tablet the Bluesound app seems to handle Tidal brilliantly. It actually works better than accessing my own files. The Tidal Premium should be equivalent to Spotify.

How it actually sounds would depend upon what amplification you feed the Vault signal to, and what speakers are driven. The source file is top quality.
 
Hello Soundhero,

Like you I've bought a Bluesound Vault 2 recently (in early February 2016)

CD ripping works fine in the first month and I've successfully ripped approximately 800 CDs without any issues (less than 1%).

But, like it's happened to you, since a few days now, I've encountered many problems with ripping my CDs.
I've got a lot of aborted Rip (uncompleted) of my Vault 2 simply reject my CDs without ripping at all.

My CDs are, for most of them, like new and without any scratches or damages on their surface.
Also, I've checked with different kind of CDs (used, still new & never opened...) and my ripping problems are still there... :(

Also, like you, I've double checked by playing the CDs on different audio CD players or computers CD-rom players, and they've all played without any problems at all.

I think I've got some kind of hardware issue with my Vault 2 and I'm going to contact the store where I've bought it to try to get a replacement unit, like you did.

If I'm right, you've received and used your second Vault 2 for almost 1 month now isn't it ?
It seems that everything works fine again for you with this new one (like the previous unit at the beginning), but I'd like to know if it's still the case and if you've ripped as many CDs with the new Vault 2 unit as you did with the first one before it begins to have issues ?

My point is, even if Bluesound accept to exchange the default Vault 2 unit(s), maybe the issues encountered will reappear after a while like it did before...?

I've got nearly 6000 CDs (or maybe a little more as I didn't recount all of them for some times now) and so far, I've successfully ripped less than 15% before issues with Vault 2 begins.

I don't want to be pessimistic, but I'm afraid that, even if I've got a new Vault 2, the ripping problems will appear again after ripping a few hundreds more CDs :(

So, please, could you share with me your experience and opinion about your second Vault 2, and how does it works since you've got it back ?

Thanks in advance for your answer !
 
Hi David,

Thanks for the sharing.

The reason to share my experiences on this forum was (and is) so that other people may learn on what happened. So in a sense I am happy that you found this forum. But I am not happy to hear that you actually experienced the same problems as me, but then only after a while. That is even more frustrating, I can imagine, as it actually did rip perfectly in the beginning.

I did have quite some email exchange and telephone calls with Bluesound support. They are very helpful and really try to make an effort to resolve the issues. They tried to fix the issues remotely, but to no avail. Are you in touch with Bluesound support?

In the end, they concluded it was a hardware issue. The unit was switched for a brand new one. The dealer told me that they had sold quite a few units already, but mine was the only one with this issue (of course). They did mention that cd players occasionally have issues with the reader of the cd player. But they were also keen to resolve the issue.

With the new unit, I have no problem at all. It rips basically every cd perfectly, and without any issue. It is really silent when ripping, compared to the previous unit. One does notice some rotation noise of the disc spinning, but it is nothing compared to the old unit.

I do not own as many cd's as you do. I think I have now ripped about 300 cds since I switched the units and I have now 3 cds that I have to rip via the laptop, as it stops after five tracks. But I can live with that. I am a bit worried about

I am really happy with the Vault. I love the sound quality and the simplicity. Now my kids also understand how to operate Bluesound app and it is a matter of time before they get a Bluesound speaker!
 
Hi,

Thanks for your quick answer.

I'm a little bit frustrated indeed...
The ripping problem occurs since this WE so I'm only at the beginning of the "support process" by now.

I didn't try to get in touch with Bluesound as I'd first prefered to refer to my local retailer to let them know about the ripping issues and see what they'll do about that annoying problem.

So, that's what I've done this morning, right after writing you my first message on avforums.

I've called my local retailer and the guy on the phone was pretty nice and he takes good notes about my ripping problems. He told me he had to contact Bluesound's technical support first to see with them how to deal with the situation.
In the meantime, he let me understand that my Vault 2 will certainly be switched for a new one, but he can't confirm anything yet until he talk to someone at Bluesound first.

I hope it will be just a matter of days before I can get a replacement unit...

As I've explained before, the ripping issue is not (yet) happening all the times and hopefully, I should be able to successfully ripped some other CDs waiting for a callback from my retailer.

What I'm a little bit worried about is that I've still got thousands of CDs to rip (more than 5000 I think) and I hope it will not take too long to get a new Vault 2 as I'd like to get all my CD library ripped by this summer.
Otherwise, I'm a rather optimistic person, but even with a brand new unit, I still fear to encountered the same problem again after a new ripping session of hundreds CDs...

But, I prefer to stay positive and think everything will be fine and OK soon !

To conclude, as you've noticed for your first unit, my actual Vault 2 isn't very silent when ripping and most of the times it makes rotation noise even if it's not so regular and seems to depend on the CD ripped.
But there's a clear noise difference between few CDs ripped very quietly and the most of them ripped with a rotation noise pretty remarkable...
It's maybe an indication of a defective unit.

Well, thanks again to share with me your experience.
I'll let you know what will happened next.

PS: if you wish, maybe you could tell me your first name and country/city in a private post, it would be more friendly.
 
How are you going to rip 5000 CD's to a single 2TB drive? I have the original (early model) Vault with a 1TB hard drive and when I ripped the approximately 230 CD's I have, that occupied about 12% of the space in .wav format.

I hope you have a NAS hooked up to the Vault 2.
 
Hi Ken,

Of course I have a NAS (Synology DS213j 2x4To) and obviously, I've planned to store all of my ripped CDs collection on it.

I'm well aware about the Vault 2's 2To hard drive's limited capacity, and that's the only point that make me hesitate when I was thinking of buying it.
Nevertheless, what I needed the most is a good, simple and efficient CDs ripper and that's why I've finally bought the Vault 2.

For your information, I've choose to ripped my CDs in Flac (with the DUAL Flac/Mp3 320Kbps encoding option).

Until this WE, I were pretty satisfied with my Vault 2 and I've successfully ripped about 800 CDs in a month since I've got it early February.
Unfortunately, as I told in a previous post, I've encountered a lot more rip failures since this WE, and if it was around less than 1% at the beginning, I'm now between 50 to 70% :(

It seems pretty clear to me that it's an hardware issue, and I'm already in touch with my local retailer who should take care of the problem directly with Bluesound and I hope to get a new Vault 2 asap.
 
Best of luck to you. From what I've seen both in North America and the UK, the support from Bluesound seems to be the standard to which others should be held. I hope (and expect) you'll experience the same.
 
Hey Folks. I'm in the market for a Vault 2 and have found this forum extremely helpful -- thank you for detailing the bugs so well. Wonder if you'd mind answering some naive questions from a potential buyer?

First of all, based on all the reviews and consumer ratings I've read, I'd rather wait for the next generation and see if they can fix the ripping issues (and possibly add another terabyte of storage). However, there's a good chance I'll be moving cross-country within a year and I don't want to have to ship my CDs -- there's somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000, I lost count. (Around 30 heavy boxes stacked in my garage.) So now I'm thinking I should just dive in and get the Vault 2, start ripping and hope for the best. With that in mind...

How well are your units ripping now that it's the end of summer 2016?

Clipsyder: did Bluesound end up replacing your unit as well?

Assuming the ripper functions properly 98% of the time, about how many weekends would it take me to rip 4,000 CDs?

Is there a limit to how many CDs you'd recommend ripping in a day?

Which lossless format do you recommend, ALAC or FLAC? Or both? I admit that part of the Vault's appeal to me is that it can operate independently from the iTunes ecosystem -- though I'm assuming there will be some library overlap. Is ALAC preferable for that reason?

Will 4,000 CDs even fit on 2 terabytes in lossless format?

I have a decent collection of jazz audiophile discs (SACDs, DVD-As and HDCDs). Does anyone know if those can be ripped to lossless as well?

What kind of back-up drive do you recommend? The Synology NAS?

And finally, a not-so-simple basic setup question: My system is pretty old-school. I still have a stereo receiver (wifi capable), components and wired "A" and "B" speakers. Simply for convenience, the vast majority of music I listen to is streamed from my computer's iTunes library to my receiver via an Apple TV. With the Vault 2, I know it must be hardwired to my router/internet connection. And for best results, it should be hardwired to my receiver as well. Unfortunately, my router and my receiver are on opposite sides of the house (something I'll remedy when I move). For the time being, can I stream music from the Vault 2 to my receiver, like I do with iTunes? Or will I need to run a really, really long cable?

Thank you so much for any insight you can share, and forgive my assumptions that you would have time to do so.
 
Homeplugs / Powerline adators will solve the problem of connecting everything together in your network without the need for 'long cables'.
 
Thanks for the lightning-fast response, larkone. Are you saying I could plug the Vault 2 into an extender instead of the router? If so then I could hardwire it to the receiver as well. I've had extender issues at work so have avoided adding one at home, but that sounds like a logical solution.

I still wonder if I'd even have to hardwire the Vault to my receiver for playback. Obviously for best sound. But as a temporary setup, it should be able to stream music to my wifi-capable receiver. Or at least AirPlay to my Apple TV (which IS hardwired to the receiver). That's what their website leads me to think, anyway.
 
I rip my CD's as FLAC now after doing many in 1:1 WAV. I can't tell the difference. If you prefer wireless everything, you're not benefitting from the best feature of the Vault 2: lossless files direct to your amplifier. This is why the outputs offered on the Vault are RCA analog and TosLink fiberoptic.

Admittedly I don't know enough about Apple Airplay and Apple TV to be sure, but I believe those systems are geared toward no more than 320kbps, perhaps less as it's all engineered for iTunes and such. If that's the case, rip all your CD's in lower res and you'll have room for all 4000 with plenty of space left. If you rip in FLAC, that 2TB would be just about full.
 
Thanks for the lightning-fast response, larkone. Are you saying I could plug the Vault 2 into an extender instead of the router? If so then I could hardwire it to the receiver as well. I've had extender issues at work so have avoided adding one at home, but that sounds like a logical solution.

I still wonder if I'd even have to hardwire the Vault to my receiver for playback. Obviously for best sound. But as a temporary setup, it should be able to stream music to my wifi-capable receiver. Or at least AirPlay to my Apple TV (which IS hardwired to the receiver). That's what their website leads me to think, anyway.
I dont know what you mean by extenders - possibly WiFi extenders? - if so then not those. I am talking about homeplugs that use your house wiring to create an ethernet network. You plug one into your router and one on to every device you want to connect.




Sound quality between wifi and ethernet will be the same as the music is still in the digital domain and encapsulated in ethernet packages. Sound quality will only suffer if there is a break in the signal causing dropouts which will be heard as stuttering as packets are lost. However as long as all of the packets turn up in a timely fashion then both forms of network will sound the same.
 
@larkone -- thank you for the video and further explanation. I get it now. However, in my situation that won't work because I've maxed out my electrical outlet options (13 plug-ins at my computer hub and 12 at my stereo hub, 4 surge protector extension blocks in all!). I dare not overload my circuitry any more than I already have -- especially if I'm going to add another component with the Vault 2. But in theory, it makes a lot of sense.

@KenM10759 -- thanks for reminding me why a physical connection to my receiver (amplifier) is crucial. I don't understand all the laws of wifi and streaming, but I can see why an uncompressed (or lossless) audio format would be harder to stream than mp4's. (Although streaming HD movies doesn't seem to be a problem...?) I'm curious why you chose FLAC over ALAC. Any reason in particular? My original plan was to save all my CDs in lossless, but taking your advice, I'll convert my less favorite CDs to mp4's instead and save some storage space. Unless ... hooking the Vault up to a NAS would allow me to store and play more than 2TB of music while still using the Vault 2 mobile app. Is that what you did?
 
I chose the FLAC instead of ALAC because I'm a die-hard anti-Apple guy. :D

As for the Vault and NAS storage, I only have about 230-250 CD's so they all fit fine. With Tidal Hi-Fi streaming, I now only buy the ones I love and feel I should OWN a copy. My Vault is an original, early version with only a 1TB drive and I got it with over 280GB of music "accidentally" left on it. It was an audio store demo unit at a bargain price barely more than a Node. If I need a NAS in the future, a hard-wired Ethernet attached one is in the works as the Vault accesses them easily and painlessly. One of my cousins has a Node and a 3TB USB drive attached to his Windows PC. We mapped it to his Node without an issue, but it's noticeably slow to load artwork. An Ethernet based NAS would work flawlessly.

Hope this helps.
 
It does indeed, KenM10759. Thank you very, very much. I only asked about your lossless preference because I'm debating which format will be more convenient. As much as I'd like to ditch iTunes and never look back, I suppose it's necessary to keep around for downloading music to my iPhone and iPod. From what I understand, iTunes won't store FLAC files at all. With ALAC I should be able to create easy down-res versions for downloading to my devices.
 

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