Vault sound quality
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Vault 2 playback sound quality is poor. I ripped my CD collection to Vault2 using FLAC encoding - the best quality avail. But when I play it back, the sound quality is poor, nowhere near as good as say TIDAL streaming, or Radio Paradise, or my CD player for that matter. I understand the kbps is set lower-than-optimum when ripping CD's to the Vault, instead of the highest kbps possible - which is what we all want with our precious music libraries. I guess my question is Why? Why is the quality of the music so poor on playback from the Vault 2? Why is the quality of the ripped CD so poor on the Vault 2? And why isn't there a fix by way of a software update to bring the quality of any further rips on Vault 2 up to an acceptable standard - say on a par with Tidal CD, Radio Paradise CD, or even my old but good CD player?
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I cannot answer your issue you have with what you are hearing but can about FLAC. Perhaps you need to detail how you are connected up and the hardware you are using. There is an option to set the ripped output to MP3 within BluOS?
FLAC is lossless, period. The compression ratio can be changed but this has no bearing on the quality, likewise the bitrate is not an indication of FLAC quality rather the amount of compression required on the track.
Take a album of FLAC files (and some software) and you can burn a CD that bit perfect to the original.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC
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The VAULT will perform a bit-perfect replication of the content on your CD, and BluOS does not downsample. More information can be found here: https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/204430203-Why-does-the-Vault-take-so-long-to-RIP-my-CDs-
Further to Seppi's point - there are many factors at play here that need to be considered. Your VAULT will have a 'neutral' sounding DAC as it aims to provide music as original as possible. Your CD player may have a 'warmer' DAC signature which is more to your taste. Knowing more about your hardware setup would be crucial.
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I have exactly the same issue as hifiguy above. I ripped lots of CDs to the Vault2i recording carefully in FLAC format but when I play them back from the Vault the quality of the sound is very dull compared to streaming from Spotify and Tidal, playing through the same system. The Vault is hard wired into my home network and to a wifi sender. I'm using 2 Pulse Flex speakers and a sub-woofer which are all connected to the same wifi network. Spotify and Tidal sound great, CDs ripped to the Vault and then played are as I say just dull, little top end or base. No comparison to the quality of Spotify or TIdal. I used to think it was my ears, but now it's quite obvious to me. I just avoid using the Vault because the quality is so disappointing. A few others have mentioned this, but others seem happy. Can I improve my set up somehow? Any advice much appreciated.
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I had the exact same issue when I purchased my Vault 2i about a year ago. I ripped a few hundred CDs. For me it wasn't that it was "poor" sound quality, it was just kind of muted. Somebody told me to rip them again as WAV files. The thought of that was almost unbearable, but i tried a few. It was night and day difference between the FLAC and WAV files. I have no idea why, as it shouldn't be any noticeable difference. It was was like the difference between a flawless audio file and low res MP3. I was worried about burning through my internal drive space. I have over 15K songs all ripped into WAV and the highest MP3 resolution files (for easy transport to SD cards), and I've only used a little over 600 gig of the 2 TB drive. A big job, but totally worth it. Just try it with any of your favorite albums. You'll see an IMMEDIATE improvement!
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Many thanks for the suggestion Dave. That's very encouraging to hear. Thank you. I will definitely try that and let you know how I get on,
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I was very skeptical, but it worked perfectly. I bought a new McIntosh CD player with 4 Quad DACs at the end of last year. Crazy i know in the 2020's. With the WAV files, it's almost impossible to tell the Vault and CD player apart. Worth the extra effort
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