Audiopraise VanityPro Review (HDMI Audio Extractor)

[krabapple]

I'm glad we have solid objective foundation for the audible improvements some are claiming from their various DAC swappings here.

Oh, wait.

Sighted is easy, audio science is hard.

This device looks great if I ever want to go fully powered-speaker in a multichannel system. Though I'd still need to insert room DSP in there somewhere.

 

[Nattage]

Unless you choose digital, powered speakers that come with their own room adjustment system, then technically it's not an addition (but likely and add on cost).

 

[poldo]

I just got a heads up on this thread, but don't recall posting. I am somewhat bemused. I have a cheap, about £40, Chinese box which extracts audio from hdmi and delivers it as dsd to my Terminator Plus DAC via I2S. This is from SACD discs on my old Oppo player. Thus I can use the far superior DAC to play SACD. Given that this expensive device converts to PCM I would say my little box is superior.
Yes, it doesn't have the galvanic isolation and jitter reduction, but I reckon my Denafrips can deal with that easily.
This device seems super expensive for what it does, and these little Chinese boxes have been around for several years. You can also buy the board and retro fit it to your Oppo, but that means modifying the casework for the I2S output.

Hi. I'm going your way (likewise have to handle only ~30 SACDs, etc) and totally agree. What would you recommend about feeding external power to the box (is the polarity and amperage clear?!?) vs hdmi power and about using I2S vs coax/optical? Thanks!

 

[Brian Hall]

The one I use to extract audio from an Xbox in my office was $34. Very small, has one HDMI in, one HDMI out and one optical out. It works great for what I needed.

 

[Nattage]

Aren't the 40 quid boxes stereo only?

 

[staticV3]

Aren't the 40 quid boxes stereo only?

 

[Nattage]

Like the red circle
But presumably the output is optical or RCA spdif, which a home cinema receiver or processor, with notably poor DACs and implementation, could decode the DD5.1, but this little box isn't outputting 3 lots of 2.0 (5.1) for dedicated 6 channels of DACs (Digital speakers, 3 stereo DACs or a multi channel dac) to convert?
And which sources like streamers output a 5.1 track that can passed over spdif?

 

[Bulldogger]

Oof, this is what I was worried about with the Apple TV. Someone said you can get it to output separate streams that aren't Dolby, but as far as I know, everything is moving towards Dolby Atmos (Which from a practical standpoint is also every other Dolby format.)

Is it Dolby Atmos specifically that it can't decode?

Does anyone have an Apple TV and can you stream surround sound music and movies on this device or is it only compatible with a decoder in front of it, LPCM from a Nintendo Switch, and a PC with LPCM outputs?

I wish a Dolby decoder were an option, even if it cost $1000 since the next options for digital output are JBL SDP systems and then you need to play the Dante dongle game.

I have used the Vanity Pro with the Apple TV set to LPCM and it works well. I set it to output LPCM.

 

[staticV3]

Like the red circle
But presumably the output is optical or RCA spdif, which a home cinema receiver or processor, with notably poor DACs and implementation, could decode the DD5.1, but this little box isn't outputting 3 lots of 2.0 (5.1) for dedicated 6 channels of DACs (Digital speakers, 3 stereo DACs or a multi channel dac) to convert?
And which sources like streamers output a 5.1 track that can passed over spdif?

It's an inexpensive box that outputs 5.1 audio via a single Coax or Toslink connection.

It does not split 5.1 into separate 2.0 Coax outputs.

 

[Nattage]

So it/they can't be used with well reviewed higher performant DACs for 5.1, only 2.0.

Making the vanity pro cheap amongst it's peers for the purpose of best quality digital to analogue multi channels

 

[ZolaIII]

So it/they can't be used with well reviewed higher performant DACs for 5.1, only 2.0.

Making the vanity pro cheap amongst it's peers for the purpose of best quality digital to analogue multi channels

If the DAC is multichannel and have appropriate decoder only then it can output nalog multichannel audio. This day's such are very rare and expensive, similar boxes if they have optical out can only bitstream such audio to something that can decode it. In case with stereo only DAC's you have to set output from input surce (TV, GPU...) to stereo PCM. Only cheap external and not performing bad stereo DAC & headphone amp (that I know of) which can decode such supported Dolby bit streams on it's own and of course convert it to stereo is Sound Blaster G6. On the other end you have PC multichannel sound cards with Toslink input which can decode and output multichannel analog audio like Sound Blaster Z SE for about 100$ which performs fine no - 1 dB and of course with desktop PC only.

 

[Brian Hall]

Aren't the 40 quid boxes stereo only?

Yes. That is all I needed for the Xbox series S in my office. My Atmos system is in the living room and I have the series X in there.

 

[Bulldogger]

So it/they can't be used with well reviewed higher performant DACs for 5.1, only 2.0.

Making the vanity pro cheap amongst it's peers for the purpose of best quality digital to analogue multi channels

I primarily bought it because I have external dacs and my prepro only has balanced digital out. The VanityPro I have has bnc outs. Vanity going directly into my dacs sounds significantly better than the HTPC connected to my prepro via HDMI and then out it's digital outs or using the Minidsp UDIO-8 or Lynx AES16e. The Minidsp UDIO-8 is a USB interface and the Lynx AES16e a PC card. But even those devices are more than $40 so I'm sure they would get "push back" around here.

 

[Nattage]

I'd buy mine again in a heart beat.
I keep an eye out for alternatives.
I've 5.1 digital input (XLR AES) genelecs (and a stereo DAC and 2 non digital genelecs for very occasional 7.1) and haven't seen or heard a better way of feeding them.

 

[mdsimon2]

So it/they can't be used with well reviewed higher performant DACs for 5.1, only 2.0.

Making the vanity pro cheap amongst it's peers for the purpose of best quality digital to analogue multi channels

Pair it with a Dolby DP562 decoder and your choice our high performance DACs and you are good to go. I got my DP562 for $40 on eBay. Dealing with DD 5.1 is pretty easy these days.

Michael

 

[Nattage]

I'll concede! Apple tv4k -> hdmi audio stripper -> spdif to XLR/aes convertor (or cable with different ends if impedance works) -> DP562 -> multiple DACs... Should work.

Some gripes which probably don't warrant the uplift in cost...
5.1 not 7.1
Aesthetics (it's a big ugly box)
Reliability (grasping here) they're old out of support boxes
ARC control support (my apple remote, wakes the TV and the audio praise and vice versa)

Plus side though it encodes stereo up to 5.1, so stereo YouTube can be made to be sort of surround..

 

[Sprint]

I'll concede! Apple tv4k -> hdmi audio stripper -> spdif to XLR/aes convertor (or cable with different ends if impedance works) -> DP562 -> multiple DACs... Should work.

Some gripes which probably don't warrant the uplift in cost...
5.1 not 7.1
Aesthetics (it's a big ugly box)
Reliability (grasping here) they're old out of support boxes
ARC control support (my apple remote, wakes the TV and the audio praise and vice versa)

Plus side though it encodes stereo up to 5.1, so stereo YouTube can be made to be sort of surround..

Do you mean Plus side with DP562? If I am not wrong, Vanity Pro does not do any encoding. It just accepts LPCM from ATV4K. That was one of the reason I had to take the AV processor route with Yamaha CX-A5200 for 2 reasons - You tube encoded to 5.1 via Dolby Surround Decoder and Atmos possibilities as a future upgrade even though the current Apple Music Atmos is lossy. I will replace my AVP with Vanity Pro once it offers Atmos and find some solution for You tube 2.0 ch to 5.1 encoding.

 

[Nattage]

Yes plus side with dp562, though I may have been wrong, it's the 563 that's the encoder, a separate box.
I nearly went your route, in fact did with a tone winner processor for a bit, but figured I'd "live" with 7.1 as best it can sound, over 7.2.4 ability.

 

[CINERAMAX]

Depends if you are looking for a 2ch, 5.1ch or Atmos. 2ch and 5.1 ch from a source like Apple TV will work easily.

If it is 2ch and your source is not Apple TV but a source like streamer, then a cheaper solution is a combo of RPI + Topping D10s which I have as well.

I was almost about to pull trigger to buy this instead of a AV processor with balanced out like IOTAVX AVX17 or Yamaha CX-A5200. Plan was to use this device for a 5.1 set up feeding decoded 5.1 or stereo signals from Apple 4K TV to my Genelecs..I have a minidsp Dirac for sub correction - 2 SVS subs.

I spoke to the owner who is a nice Gentleman...From their forum it seems a few are doing this from Apple 4K TV already and it works...

I spoke to Genelec reps....Their recommendation was this is excellent but I would have a better sonic enjoyment in my set up if I go for Dolby Atmos, which I am considering in a year or two. Unfortunately, Vanity pro supports only 8 channels whereas I would need atleast 9 + 1 LFE channels for an Atmos set up. If there had been one more AES/ebu output and an option to re-configure SBL/SBR channels to two ATMOS, it would have fit perfectly for a 5.2.4. I could have used a AES splitter to get my LFE channel and in Genelec I would have set a high pass to filter everything under 80hz coming into Genelec.

But now comes the next catch, Apple 4K TV decodes only to 5.1 DD or 2ch stereo however it can send other higher lossless signals like Atmos in an encoded format which needs a software.

Next issue, I watch lot of You tube music which is 2ch. AV processors offer up-mixing via their surround decoders like Neo6 or Dolby to 5.1. I would badly miss this.

So looks like there is no way avoiding an AVR. Getting ATMOS via HTPC is not possible as well that I learnt.

Looks like I still have to live with a AVR for few more years, unless until Vanity Pro supports ATMOS with more AES outputs, Apple 4KT TV sends decoded or Vanity Pro offers decoding possibilities.

I would also be ready to pay few hundred euros more to go for a Vanity Pro instead of a AVR as Genelecs would love the pure digital signal, if it offers the following:
- a couple of more HDMI inputs
- atleast one additional output for Projector.
- support ATMOS with minimum 1 more AES/EBU and reconfigure SBR/SBL to Atmos
- a multichannel decoder

If I have a 6 channel bed and 2 Atmos tops, sans centre and sans sub, I assume this cannot decode the Atmos tops, correct? Meanwhile look at his device:

Arvus

shop.arvus.com

 

[Sprint]

If I have a 6 channel bed and 2 Atmos tops, sans centre and sans sub, I assume this cannot decode the Atmos tops, correct? Meanwhile look at his device:

Arvus

shop.arvus.com

This one seems to check all the boxes . Not able to see from the documentation if it can encode 2ch to 5.1 Surround for You tube. If it does, then AVR chapter is over for me assuming it measures well. Hope some one will send to ASR for a review.