Bluesound - VAULT 2i 2TB Streaming Media Player - Black Matte

Audiophiles Dream Over the years many of us have amassed a large number of our favorite music on CDs, even though it used to be a good option, in todays day and age it seems a bit outdated. You need change the CD when you want to listen to something else and when you move to another place you have to drag all your music collection with you. Well, Bluesound came up with a great solution with the Bluesound Vault 2i. The Vault allows you to rip, store, and stream all your favorite music CDs into one convenient device all without a need for a computer. Now, let’s go over some of the features PROS and CONS of the Bluesound Vault 2i. Specs: The Vault measures in at about 3.5 inches in Height, 8.5 in Width and 7.5 in Depth and roughly weighs about 4 lbs. and comes in two color options black and white. The Vault has built-in storage of 2 terabytes, but you also have the option of adding an external storage via the two USB slots in the back. The Vault offers a variety of output options 3.5mm audio, Coaxial digital audio, Ethernet, RCA, Toslink optical, USB x 2, Micro USB and lastly Bluetooth. Features: The vault offers the option to connect your favorite online music service provider and also offers a ton a free online radio and music options. The vault is also compatible with Amazon Alexa, Apple Home Kit, Siri and google home. I don’t not have an Amazon Alexa, or Apple Home kit but I did not encounter any issues connecting to my Google Home devices and was able to use the Vault on my Bluetooth headphones, soundbar and even my Bluetooth soundbar built-in to my kitchen refrigerator and the sound was amazing on all my devices. The vault offers high resolution sound quality in a variety of playable formats such as AAC, AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, MP3, MQA, OGG, Opus, WAV, WMA, WMA Lossless. The best feature of the Vault is its ability to rip and store and stream all your favorite CDs. On the provided 2 terabytes of space you can rip and store almost 5000 CDs as a FLAC format, that’s a lot of storage space for your CDs. You can customize your playlist as you like using the BluOS app. So, far I have ripped almost about 20 CDs on to the Vault and they all work great and sound amazing. The only thing I noticed was that the ripping process was a bit slow, but not terribly slow, as long as it preserves the integrity and quality of music, which it did, I didn’t mind. The BlueOS app is probably the only thing I had encountered and issue with. I must say its not user friendly and I had to google stuff to figure out how to connect certain things. In my opinion the BluOS app could use some improvements to make things a bit easier to find and to connect Bluetooth devices, but this should be an easy fix. PRO- High Resolution Audio Storage Capacity – 2 Terabytes Network Streaming CD Ripping Ability Multiple audio outputs Multiple Playable formats CON- BluOS app – Not user friendly at all All in all, the Bluesound Vault 2i is great product for any audiophile. I would highly recommend anyone in the market and anyone looking to cut down on their CDs collection to definitely check this unit out.

Beware this only works if hard wired LAN (ethernet connection) into your router or extender, despite confusing references to WiFI. Virtually no user documentation for set up of the device or use/navigation of the necessary Blue0S app. But if you can handle a lot of set up frustration it will eventually work great as a streamer. Just ripped my first CD for storage, which worked. But, can't comment on ease of use for a large collection which is why I bought it.

I purchased this item because of its advertised ability to rip and store CDs. I have over 250 CDs in an player and wanted to be able to store them digitally. I found this unit very difficult to navigate. It comes with no manual so you have to go online try to find an answer to the simplest of questions. It will not simply play one CD and advance to the next; you must build play list, which I also found hard to navigate. For such an expensive unit, I cannot say it is worth the money. Customer support is minimally helpful. Would not recommend this product.

The Bluesound Vault 2i is a great device, capable of doing many things. Unfortunately, figuring out how to use it is not so simple. If you’re familiar with how a NAS drive works, then this shouldn’t be that difficult for you. Otherwise, you will have to do some research as the instructions (or lack thereof) don’t tell you anything. What is the Bluesound Vault 2i? Essentially, the Vault is a CD ripper, music streamer, 32-bit DAC, NAS (Network attached storage), and a 2tb hard drive – all built into one small box. The Vault comes equipped with an RCA out output, optical output, 2 – USB slots used for extra storage or you can back up your library, a gigabit ethernet port, and supports Bluetooth and AirPlay2. The Vault lets you connect to many HiFi music streaming services such as Tidal, Amazon Music, TuneIn etc... Unfortunately, it does not connect to Apple Music as of now, but you can just stream it using airplay2. How it works? The way the Vault works, is it rips a CD into FLAC files, then stores it onto the built in HDD. It does take a few minutes to complete, as it rips at a speed of about 2.1x. This is actually a good thing, as it carefully reads the files accurately bit by bit. Once the CD is ripped, it is then automatically stored into your library with track names and cover art. You can then stream it to other Bluesound devices or play it directly from the Vault 2i with wired speakers. When I first received the Vault, I spent about 3 days trying to figure out how to get the full use out of it. The manual that comes in the box, is just a quick set up on how to plug it in and download the app. Once I was able to figure it all out, I really started to like it a lot. I went and grabbed my old CD collection and went to town. Seeing how some of my CD’s I purchased where over 20 years ago, many of them were fairly scratched. The ripper has a hard time decoding scratched CD’s, and many times failed to rip the CD, or it rips half the CD and then ejects due to read error. The good thing about this, if you want to clean it off and try again, the Vault will just add the files to the CD instead of making a whole new copy. I also tried to insert a CD-R disc that I had, just to see if it would work. While it does work and rips the files in your library, it does not add track names or artwork. Editing music stored on your Vault’s HDD requires you to connect it a PC or Mac using filesharing. In my case, I connected it to my Macbook pro which was very easy. This is when I started to appreciate the Vault’s software, the way it organizes and stores all your files is very articulate and clean. It would be nice if the app would let you edit your vault’s contents, but the only thing you can do is re index your library. The BluOS app is the app that you use to control your Vault and play music. This is also where you would add your music streaming services. The app is limited to just viewing the contents of your Vault and re indexing your library. Overall, the app does function well although I have had trouble connecting Bluetooth devices through the app. Sometimes it just hangs while trying to find the device, other times it won’t ever find the device. Also, the artwork does tend to be low quality. The Vault needs to be plugged in directly to your router in order to work, there is no built-in WiFi. This is not really ideal, seeing how my good speakers are in another room and can’t bring them to the Vault. The good news about the Vault being connected to the router, you are able to access your vault’s library through network share. And yes, you can add your Vault’s library to Sonos!! Overall, I really like the Bluesound Vault 2i. The ability to rip and store all my CDs in FLAC files on the 2TB built in HDD is great. The sound quality of the built-in DAC is really good. Plus, the ability to add my Vault to Sonos is a huge bonus. The built-in software that organizes and stores your CDs is very impressive and works flawlessly. The BluOS app is a little buggy when trying to connect Bluetooth speakers, and the artwork quality could use some improvements but overall, it works as intended. The one thing the company really needs to work on, is the instructions. They need to do a much better job explaining how to set up the network share and so forth. If you are looking to store all you CDs on a NAS drive, then I would definitely recommend this to anyone. Pro: Good sound quality 2TB internal storage Great built-in organizing software Can add your stored library to Sonos! Cons: Terrible instructions BluOS app has limited features/buggy The ripper is bad at ripping scratched CDs Has to be hardwired to the router/no WIFI

Excellent product. Easy to use. Would recommend to someone in the market.