My BS Experience

July 3, 2016 - 10:25am

commsysman

Offline

Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago

Joined: Apr 4 2006 - 11:33am

lardog wrote:

So I set up my Bluesound Vault2 and thought I’d share my experience.

SETUP: very easy. Took me about ½ hr but if I had to do it again, probably 5 minutes.

Initially I was disappointed because I just assumed 25 years of technical advances would produce a higher fidelity sound out of the BS as compared to my Sony carousel. But possibly the bottleneck is my Denon. What this is telling me is that a CD with an old Sony DAC is the same fidelity of a FLAC going through the Bluesound DAC. My expectation was that the BS DAC would be better, but in retrospect, the BS DAC isn’t a very expensive DAC (probably equivalent to a $150 new stand-alone DAC?). So my next step is a high quality DAC/preamp, amp, and speakers. Right now the Spatial Audio M3 speakers, Red Dragon S500 (amp), and NAD M51 DAC/Preamp is on my short list – although I’ve been wavering for a while on the M51.

That’s my story.

Larry

You could just spend $549 for a Music Hall 15.3 amplifier and improve your sound 193%. The old Denon is not helping at all.

I think the old Sony will not sound anywhere near as good as the Bluesound once you get a decent amp.

At that point I suggest that you get an OPPO BDP-103, which has a great DAC and can effectively function as DAC, universal player, and a few other things too. A lot of machine for only $500.

July 3, 2016 - 10:25am

#3

commsysman

Offline

Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago

Joined: Apr 4 2006 - 11:33am

July 4, 2016 - 9:11am

#4

lardog

Offline

Last seen: 6 years 8 months ago

Joined: Jan 24 2016 - 8:41am

the Music Hall looks nice. I wish it had a trigger-in. So you are saying a new analog amp only, and still using the BS DAC, might improve the sound. Interesting. I like the idea of of an integrated amp w/o a DAC, that way I can buy an external DAC of my choice.

July 4, 2016 - 2:08pm

#5

commsysman

Offline

Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago

Joined: Apr 4 2006 - 11:33am

lardog wrote:

the Music Hall looks nice. I wish it had a trigger-in. So you are saying a new analog amp only, and still using the BS DAC, might improve the sound. Interesting. I like the idea of of an integrated amp w/o a DAC, that way I can buy an external DAC of my choice.

That is my suggestion.

July 4, 2016 - 2:12pm

#6

commsysman

Offline

Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago

Joined: Apr 4 2006 - 11:33am

lardog wrote:

the Music Hall looks nice. I wish it had a trigger-in. So you are saying a new analog amp only, and still using the BS DAC, might improve the sound. Interesting. I like the idea of of an integrated amp w/o a DAC, that way I can buy an external DAC of my choice.

By the way, does that Bluesound unit have MQA decoding included?

July 4, 2016 - 6:43pm

#7

lardog

Offline

Last seen: 6 years 8 months ago

Joined: Jan 24 2016 - 8:41am

Yes it does. They just updated the software with the MQA decoding early June. I haven't played any MQA files though. In the next week I'm going to try to find some.

July 5, 2016 - 8:37am

#8

commsysman

Offline

Last seen: 2 years 4 months ago

Joined: Apr 4 2006 - 11:33am

lardog wrote:

Yes it does. They just updated the software with the MQA decoding early June. I haven't played any MQA files though. In the next week I'm going to try to find some.

Please report back on your experience with MQA. I am very interested in getting an MQA-capable unit, perhaps the same as yours.

July 27, 2016 - 8:36pm

#9

lardog

Offline

Last seen: 6 years 8 months ago

Joined: Jan 24 2016 - 8:41am

commsysman wrote:

Please report back on your experience with MQA. I am very interested in getting an MQA-capable unit, perhaps the same as yours.

I didn't forget about you commsy. Just busy. I finally got some better equipment, but still using my old ba 930 speakers (my new spatial audio speakers are arriving tomorrow). But I just had a chance to A/B MQA on the bluesound.

Caveats: it takes about 3 seconds to switch between the MQA and non-MQA song that I selected. So it makes it hard to compare well with that latency.

with the utmost uncertainty, I can say the MQA sounds better - slightly. I'm not sure what it is, maybe a fullness or depth? It isn't obvious, and I'm dubious of my own results, and it took 10 minutes of switching back and forth for me to even form an opinion. That should give you an idea as to how obvious the difference in sound quality is - not that obvious. Maybe it will be more obvious with my new speakers.

I reserve the option to change my opinion at any time without notice, rhyme, or reason.

I hereby swear I am not under the influence of any narcotics (at least nothing illegal).

changing subjects:

I now have a red dragon s500 amp, marantz pm5005 integrated, Emotiva Stealth DAC, and a nad M51 dac in house or soon arriving. I will be mixing all these up to compare sounds and see what I like best. This is quite a difference in prices, the S500/NAD being much more expensive than the Stealth/Marantz. I will need to hear a significant difference in sound to keep the expensive combo. Will be interesting. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Search form