Bluesound Vault 2i High-Res 2TB Network Hard Drive CD Ripper and Streamer - Black - Compatible with Alexa and Siri

The Vault works very well and is a good value. It would be nice if it had a SSD. I'm using an optical link into a PS Audio Stellar DAC and the sound is great. Finding Internet radio stations works well too. Initially I liked the product and it performed as advertised. I copied my FLAC cd library to it and set up a couple of internet stations I like and all was well. Over a few months it began to drop the stream. I would have to restart it and this happened 2 to 3 times a day and then it would be fine for several days and then it happen again. After about a year this behavior got worse. after I had it for about 15 months it became very difficult to restart the stream. I could stream the same station on my phone over WiFi but the Vault would not connect. About this time it also would no longer connect to the BlueSound site to perform updates. Then it failed to rip CDs. I looked online and followed all the directions I could find but nothing helped. I contacted BuleSound's support via email and I discovered a new level poor customer service. Absolutely the WORST ever. They will recommend a solution and close the ticket before you can even try it. They kept asking me to re-configure my home WiFi. The Vault does not use WiFi. I finally gave up. I recently contacted BuleSound directly and I'm waiting to find out how much it will cost to return it for a refurb unit. If it's cheap I'll send it in and then sell the exchange unit on Craig's List. In the meantime I bought a Marantz NA6006. It doesn't store music but it has a better interface and sounds great. I will never buy another BlueSound product. A companies product is no better than their customer service and their on-line support set a new low for me.

I've been playing with this for six months now and it's a brilliant machine, a true in-home digital jukebox. I've ripped almost 1,000 cds and it's not even close to being full, the only bummer is I've run out of CDs to rip. A couple of things to note: - It requires a wired internet connection; other Bluesound components can connect through wifi but the Vault 2i does not. The router is in another room and I tried a third-party, plug-in wifi adaptor but it cut out too much, a real bummer when you don't notice until after you've ripped a bunch of disks (or thought you did). Switched to a network extender from the cable provider and have had no problems since. - If you want or need to change the info of a song or disk you have to use third-party metadata software, it's not like iTunes. They recommend MP3tag, it took a while but fairly easy once you get the hang of it. - It's rare (maybe 1%), but every once in a while a disk will not rip, it'll drive you crazy but it happens, have a beer and move on. - The support materials on the website are somewhat cumbersome but tech support is excellent. Overall I highly recommend, a blast.

Bottom line: The Sound is great. Streaming music and playing previously downloaded or ripped music seems to be flawless, but the BluOs app takes some getting used to and has significant limits, especially in regards to integration with Amazon Music and, I imagine, likely other music services as well. Also “ripping” CDs, although it usually works without problems, can be at times frustrating, and editing any mistakes in track names or other errors that occur when CDs are ripped is not a job for the technically naïve. One reviewer complained about the noise from the fan. I don’t find that bothersome, but I can imagine if you were sitting right next to it listening to music with very quiet passages, it might be noticeable. The Vault 2i is rather noisy while it is ripping CDs, once you are done doing so however, that will be irrelevant. The Alexa “skill” for the BluOs is rudimentary at best. Don’t buy this thing expecting to be able to do much with it via Alexa. Finally, be aware that this device needs to be hardwired to an Ethernet. You cannot use it with a Wi-Fi connection. If you want to put it someplace you can’t get a wire to, you will have to do some sort of workaround, such as hardwiring it to a mesh Wi-Fi node. It also needs to be on the same network as the Wi-Fi your phone is connected to. FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION AND SOME TIPS ON USING THE THING, READ MY FULL REVIEW BELOW DISCUSSING BOTH THE DEVICE AND THE APP. I REVIEWED THE ALEXA “SKILL” ON THE PAGE FOR THAT. I am writing a very long review both in the hopes that this will be helpful to some, and because the issues I have experienced all take some describing at length to explain. Although there are professional reviews of this device out there on the Web, I don’t think the professionals always notice the frustrations that the less technically astute can have with such equipment or apps and don’t even mention things that would bother others. Also, I may be able to spare folks some of the “learning curve” I have been going through. If you just look at the length of this review, you may assume all of this is very complicated, but (with the exception of editing the music library) most of it is very simple once you get used to it. Why did I buy this? I wanted both to be able to stream high definition music from Amazon Music HD to my hardwired whole house audio system (Tidal HD is another option for HD music) and be able to download music from my CD collection to a hard drive so it would be easier to access. I wanted to be able to “rip”/download my CDs to a hard drive, because even though I now have an Amazon Music HD subscription, it can be much quicker/easier to find something specific or what I like best in my “Library” on the Vault 2i than searching Amazon Music. This is specifically the case with classical music, where you may have to look through a long list of recordings of a specific piece to find the one you want. Also, although there is a lot on Amazon Music, I have things on CDs that are not there, probably either due to obscurity of copyright issues. As to ripping the CDs to a hard drive, assuming you do it in a high resolution format, typically FLAC on the Vault 2i, and not a lower resolution/compressed format like an MP3, you can get about the same quality sound as playing a CD without the hassle of finding it on a shelf, pulling it out, and putting it in the player and can avoid having to do that every time you want to listen to a different CD. I also wanted an easy way to access such downloaded/ripped CDs or other music on a hard drive without going into a computer to do so. The Vault 2i seemed to be the simplest and easiest way to get all of my CDs onto a hard drive in a way where it would be possible to access the music on that hard drive via an app and play it over my preexisting music system. SINCE THE VAULT ALSO FUNCTIONS AS A STREAMING DEVICE AND THE CORRESPONDING NODE 2I WAS RATED AS ONE OF THE BEST DEVICES AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING HD MUSIC, THE VAULT 2I SEEMED TO BE THE OBVIOUS CHOICE TO FULFILL BOTH FUNCTIONS. And, it may well be the only choice to do both without spending thousands, instead of hundreds. At the same time, although my whole house audio is mostly hard-wired, I wanted to add one wireless speaker, so I also ordered a Pulse Mini 2i. Be aware that the BluOs, like Sonos and several others, is a proprietary system. Devices on such systems communicate with each other via their own W-Fi and can’t be synchronized with a wireless speaker from another system or be cast to through Google Home. The Vault does have an audio input however, and the Pulse Mini can be cast to via Bluetooth. Naturally, however, the sound quality when connecting via Bluetooth will be lower. The Vault 2i has the same streaming hardware/software as the Node 2i, and if I were reviewing that, I would probably give it 5 stars (although less for the app). THE SOUND WHEN STREAMING HD, AND ESPECIALLY ULTRA HD MUSIC FROM AMAZON MUSIC VIA THE DEVICE TO A SET OF HIGH-END HARDWIRED SPEAKERS IS FANTASTIC. (And, I imagine it would be so with Tidal also.) I believe the positives for the Vault 2i well outweigh the negatives, but, while it is generally very easy to “rip” CDs onto the hard drive, I have had a lot of issues/frustrations doing so, generally of two sorts: 1) Issues with using the device to listen to music while “ripping” and of trying to/waiting for the app to update after ripping CDs - half the menu often temporarily disappears. 2) If the information on a ripped CD is incorrect (which luckily is rare), it is, except in one instance, not easy to correct it. (More on both of these below.) Also, for Bluesound devices, documentation is abysmal. There is no actual manual. What they call a “manual” online is really just the same rudimentary “quick start” guide that comes in the box. Practically everything else in the way of information is in forums on the BluOs site, where it is very difficult to find what you are looking for. I found it best to Google a question then look for answers that come up from the BluOs site on Google. The only issue I have with streaming on the device is that the integration between Amazon Music and the BluOs app is considerably less than what one might hope for. (I strongly suspect that is the case for other music services as well.) YOU NOT ONLY CAN’T ADD MUSIC FROM AMAZON MUSIC TO AN AMAZON MUSIC PLAYLIST, YOU CAN’T EVEN ADD IT TO A BLUOS PLAYLIST. I can only do that on the app for music from “My Library,” i.e. CDs that I have ripped or music otherwise stored on the hard disk. You really can’t do anything in Amazon Music from the app except play music. You can’t add items to “My Music” in Amazon while on the BluOs app either, although if you put things in that on the Amazon Music app you can see what is in that from the BluOs app. (By the way, YouTube Music is not supported by the BluOs app, but if you are buying this device, it is probably because you want to stream HD music, which you can’t get on YouTube Music.) Although you could just make playlists in the Amazon Music app, then play them under “Amazon Music” on the BluOs app, IF YOU WANT TO USE ALEXA VOICE CONTROL TO PICK A PLAYLIST, IT NEEDS TO BE ONE THAT IS IN THE “MY PLAYLISTS” ON THE BLUOS APP – i.e. one you made in BluOs – ALTHOUGH I DISCOVERED A TRICK (SEE BELOW) TO EASILY “IMPORT” A PLAYLIST FROM AMAZON MUSIC TO THE BLUOS AND MAKE IT INTO A BLUOS PLAYLIST. I haven’t managed to get the Alexa “skill” for BluOs to play a playlist on Amazon music or anything else from Amazon music directly and don’t think it can be done. Note: Unlike YouTube Music, you can’t choose shuffle as an option to start a playlist in the BluOs app. You can’t shuffle until after you start playing a song, and if you are starting it with Alexa you don’t have any choice except playing the first song on the list first, so I’d suggest that for the first song on a playlist you use a song with a quiet beginning which you don’t mind hearing over and over again. The BluOs app is also frustrating in that it does NOT delete music from the “cue” after it is played and, at times, seems to put things into the cue unexpectedly. I find myself having to erase the cue over and over again. Another thing to know about the AP is that BluOs and Amazon Music label the quality of the music stream differently: “Ultra HD” on Amazon is “HR” on BluOs. “HD” on Amazon is “CD” on BluOs. “Standard” is generally unmarked on both, but on Amazon Music, you will see “Standard” while a track is playing, whereas on BluOs, it will just be blank. Of note: When you scroll through tracks or albums on Amazon Music, it will tell you which of the above applies, whereas on BluOs, it doesn’t seem to show up until you start playing a track. (And, by the way, some pre-existing playlists in Amazon Music will say “UltraHD” when in fact only some of the tracks in them are actually Ultra HD.) One very odd thing about the app: Whereas “My Presets” on the main menu is player dependent, whereas “My Playlists” is not. In my case I have two players, the Vault 2i and a Pulse Mini 2i. I apparently had the app set to play on the Vault when I set up my presets, and if I have it set to play on the Pulse Mini, and tap “My Presets” I get the message “No presets.” Since it is possible to “GROUP ALL” players on the home screen (see below), you might think that would be an easy way to get the presets while playing on the other player, BUT not as easy as you would think, because you actually get a different result depending on which device it is set on when you do the grouping. So, in my case, if it is on the Pulse Mini when I tap “GROUP ALL” it says “Pulse Mini+Den” and I still don’t have the presets, but if it is on the Den (i.e. the Vault – that is another long story, you have to pick a room name when you link Alexa to the BluOs app) it will say “Den+Pulse Mini” and I do get them!!! NOW, HERE IS HOW TO “IMPORT” A PLAYLIST FROM AMAZON MUSIC TO A BLUOS PLAYLIST (much easier than it sounds from the description, once you have done it): First make sure the “cue” is clear with nothing in it. Then, open the playlist you want to import under “Amazon Music” on the BluOs app. Next start to play the first song on the playlist. Next tap on the banner with the name of the song that is playing scrolling across the bottom of the screen so that the artwork for the album/song largely fills the screen. Next, tap the three parallel lines next to the “home” button on the upper right, so the list of what is on the cue shows up instead of the artwork. Next tap the three parallel lines with a down arrow on lower left. This will bring up a dialogue box to create a playlist from the songs in the cue and name it. If you plan to access it with Alexa, be sure to give it a simple name that is easy for Alexa to understand and doesn’t sound too much like anything else. NOTA BENE: YOU CANNOT ADD SONGS TO A PLAYLIST OR MERGE TWO PLAYLISTS THIS WAY. IF YOU TYPE IN THE NAME OF AN EXISTING BLUOS PLAYLIST, IT WILL DELETE THE EXISTING PLAYLIST AND REPLACE IT WITH A NEW ONE CONTAINING WHAT WAS IN THE CUE, AND IT WON’T ASK BEFORE DOING SO. By the way, the “home” button (in the upper right) which I mentioned is not like a webpage home button that takes you to the main screen. Rather, it is more like Google Home – it lists whatever players (Vault, Node or speaker) you have on your system. And lets you pick which one you want to play from or group them all together (see above). As to ripping CDs: If you want to listen to music through the device while you are ripping CDs, the safest thing to do is put it on an Amazon Music “station” or other station, i.e. something that does not involve a play list and just leave it there. If you try to play previously ripped/downloaded music from the drive while ripping a CD, it will likely skip out periodically. Also, at times, doing so has seemed to interfere with downloading the disc properly. I am not absolutely certain of this as after it seemed to happen once or twice, I did not chance it again. Best to leave the app open but minimized on the phone while ripping CDs. Otherwise it will take a while to download the information from recently ripped CD’s and you will think something is missing. When I have closed the app (and perhaps even at times when I have left it open), both the “Library” (downloaded/ripped music) and even Amazon Music and other music services will disappear from the menu after ripping CDs and you have to wait a bit for them to reappear. Until I figured this out, I wasted a lot of time and effort rebooting the Vault 2i and closing and reopening the app to try to get the full menu back. Also, sometimes one or both of my “players” (I also have a Pulse 2i) will disappear after ripping and I have to wait for them to reappear. While most CDs have ripped/downloaded without difficulty, I have had a few where one or more tracks were missing at the end. In most cases if I put the CD back in the vault, it would download the missing tracks, but I have had at least one case where they were still missing. On one occasion, I happened to be looking at the app when this happened and it produced a message somewhere along the lines of “taking too long, ejecting CD.” GIVEN THE ABOVE, I SUGGEST CHECKING EVERY CD RIPPED TO MAKE SURE ALL THE TRACKS WERE COPIED. I found it most convenient to rip about 4 or 5 CD and then check the tracks before moving on. If tracks are still missing, the best option is likely to rip the CD to a computer in an appropriate file format and then paste the files onto the Vault’s hard drive. I haven’t tried this as yet, but suspect it is not difficult. “Ripping” time varies considerably from one CD to another, but it is not fast and you would not want to sit around and watch it while it is doing that. It definitely takes longer than ripping to a computer. Allegedly that has something to do with trying to minimize errors. I don’t know. Best to stick in CDs periodically while doing other things around the house. If you want to delete tracks you don’t like from an album, you have to access the Vault 2i as a network device and do it from a computer. I think that is also the easiest way to back up the music on the device. On the BluOs website, it says you can plug a flash drive or SSD into the back of the Vault and backup that way, but I did not want to try it because it also says it will reformat the device into the format BluOs uses, which I am guessing would make it useless for anything else. Also, I preferred to have the music backed up on a hard drive where I can access it without the Vault and potentially transfer it to some future device, whereas the direct backup would likely only be useful for restoring music to the Vault. Accessing the device from a computer is easy, but you have to know the Vault’s IP address and be sure you are on the same network, which might be a problem if you were trying to do it via Wi-Fi with your computer connected to an Wi-Fi extender or the like, or, like me, you had more than one network. From Windows 10, you just need to go to “This PC” on File Explorer and click “Map Network Device” then type in the IP address for the Vault 2i, which you can find under “Help” then “Diagnostics.” Hardly intuitive, and one of the things I had to do a Google search to find. (… and the instructions on the BluOs site were less than optimally clear. At first glance it looked like you had to type in Vault-IP address, whereas you have to just type in the numbers. If I were more computer savvy, I would have known that to start with.) Once you are connected, deleting tracks (or albums) is very easy. You just click on the file name corresponding to the track or album and click delete. After you do that, you have to “Reindex music collection” on the app for the change to take effect. If you have tracks with incorrect names, however, that is much more problematic. You might think you could just change the names of the files, since they correspond to song names, but that has NO effect, because the song names displayed are actually part of a “tag,” which is somehow a part of the music file. Other programs, specifically metadata editors, let you change the tags. The BloOs folks recommend Mp3tag, which is available for free. I downloaded that, but have not tried using it as yet. As mentioned, most CDs rip fine. I have had a couple problem ones so far, however. One ripped with missing tracks that did not correct with re-inserting it into the Vault and one with incorrect track information. Both ripped fine when I did it with my computer. Windows Media Player can also change song names on tags, although not conveniently, and I tried fixing the incorrectly labelled tracks with that before I heard back from BluOs about the metadata editor. Although it corrected the track names in my computer, whether I tried either by cutting the album from the Vault disk, fixing it and pasting it back in or doing it directly in the Vault file, it had no effect. I am not sure if that was because of the program or because I did not do a “rebuild index” afterwards.Online it says in relation to a different, but similar issue, you have to do a “Rebuild index” (instead of “Reindex music”), but I did not do so because at first because I thought such a choice did not exist on my version of the app. After writing to BluOs, I discovered that it is hidden under “Help”>”Diagnostics,” and then in a very tiny button that is hard to see. it is not in sSettings where you would expect it to be! Also, you try tapping “rebuild index,” it just says “please wait,” giving you no indication of whether or not it is making progress or how long it is going to take. I accidentally backed out of it a few minutes after starting it and nothing looked any different. Online, however, it suggests this is a rather quick process. Thus, I don’t know if it actually rebuilt the index before I backed out and just didn’t tell me it was done or did nothing. The Vault was able to locate cover art for most of the CDs that I ripped. You can add missing cover art if you find it online (or, I suppose, scan it in and downsize it), by accessing the Vault from a computer, and pasting it in where missing as a .JPEG called “Folder.” After doing so, you have to do “reload cover art” and may have to do a “reindex music” or “rebuild index” – I’m not sure at this point, as I may done all three. As to “Reindex Music,” the first time I did that, I ended up with a phantom empty album on my list, which seemed to be one it had accidentally partly duplicated when first ripped. That scared me a bit about redoing a reindex, but the next time I did one, that disappeared. Two other times, when I ripped CDs, a second partial copy of the album showed up, but those also disappeared with reindexing. Potentially confusing, sometimes Disk One and Disk Two of a two disk set are indexed differently. For example, if I scroll through the alphabetical list of albums one disk of Bernstein’s Candide is under “B” for Bernstein and the other is under “C” for Candide. It you want to fix things like that, you need to access the data via a network computer and use a metadata editing program to. I’m not sure it is something I would want to be bothered with. I may never-the-less try Mp3tag to fix the track names in the one album. First, I will probably try pasting in the copy I ripped to my computer, where the track names came out correctly in the first place. COULDN’T FIT THE ALEXA “SILL” REVIEW IN HERE, SO MY REVIEW OF THAT IS ON THE SKILL PAGE.

None of the literature I read prior to purchasing this item indicated that the Vault 2i couldn't handle WiFi. In this day and age, that seems absolutely ridiculous. They have no user manuals that provide any type of help or support to the user. The only way to get support is to go online and enter a request through their system. Spent several hours trying to get the item set up and even though initially we could find the Vault on my network, at one point it was lost and we could never recover/re-add it. Horrible experience and we have a lot of experience with Bluesound products that are all WiFi capable. No clue that this item would NOT be WiFi able.

It's fantastic . Once set up just put your cd in and away you go! Phone app is easy to use too.

Malheureusement mon appareil s’eteind tout seul apre 30 minutes e ne fonctionne pad comme prevu J’ai mis beaucoup d’argent et je suis déçu

Genau das, was ich gesucht habe! Endlich konnte ich meine CD Sammlung in einer 1A Qualität archivieren. Das Zusammenspiel mit der Roon Software funktioniert perfekt. Dahinter habe ich ein Yamaha A-S2100 mit B&W Lautsprecher geschaltet, welches ein super Hörerlebnis garantiert.

Rapport qualité/prix imbattable!

Purchased in 2019, crapped out two days ago, bulging caps in the power supply, 6 years of use and now it's screwed, along with all the cd's I ripped to it. This problem is known, garbage.