Audiopraise VanityPro Review (HDMI Audio Extractor)

[voodooless]

using a blu-ray player as a source.

And that is the major problem: this will only work for whatever the player plays. What about streaming services? Only a handful of players support Netflix or Prime, and then most don’t even support Atmos (are there any players that decide Atmos anyway?)

This seems severely limiting vs an AVR. That extra ADC is probably well worth the trouble.

 

[Dennis_FL]

When I said "this one" I meant Vanity Pro doing 8 channel. Not that box. Sorry was not more clear.

No.. I am pretty sure looking at the manual (link) specs below your box is 8 channel -- each XLR/BNC out is 2 channels - either left and right for front and surrounds or center+ sub

• 8 or 2 channel (stereo) output module options
• 4xBNC/RCA/XLR for 8-channel output
• 1xXLR + 1xBNC + 1xRCA + 1x TOSLINK for 2-channel output

Looks like you can map the channels to the output in the menus for the following 8 channels

The additional names in the brackets follow the naming convention of the CEA-861-D standard.

• FL – Front Left
• FR – Front Right
• C – (Front) Center
• LFE – Low Frequency Effect
• SL – Surround (Rear) Left
• SR – Surround (Rear) Right
• SBL – Surround Back (Rear Center) Left
• SBR – Surround Back (Rear Center) Right

 

[chris719]

HDMI is such a cluster. If it weren’t for HDCP and licensing we’d probably see better products. It’s hard for tiny outfits to justify the costs.

When buying a receiver and tapping I2S at the DACs is sounding appealing you know it’s a sad state of affairs.

 

[PeteL]

And that is the major problem: this will only work for whatever the player plays. What about streaming services? Only a handful of players support Netflix or Prime, and then most don’t even support Atmos (are there any players that decide Atmos anyway?)

This seems severely limiting vs an AVR. That extra ADC is probably well worth the trouble.

It's only limiting if you need Atmos. Personally, it's not limiting but way overkill for my need. I have no need, desire, room nor budget for a Atmos system. This product here is too expensive for my needs but I am however interested in High fidelity HDMI extraction. Anybody has recommendations? I use a Stereo (2.1) High fidelity setup and it will stay that way. My problem tough, For Netflix or other video content from my computer, I run a HDMI straight to my TV currently. The audio out from the TV to my Schiit Freya preamp is unusable, way too low in level whatever I try, all levels that I have controls on are Maxed out. What I ended up doing is running audio trough Bluetooth instead of HDMI, simply because I have a small Bluetooth amp that has some gain to it and can give me a 2V output that is usable. At least I can enjoy my movies but I'd like more audio fidelity than Bluetooth. This is mainly a music system. What would you guys recommend for that use case? I do have Toslink out from the TV but my Toslink in in my DAC is used for something else that I feel is more important to me than TV sound, but I seem to remember trying that and the output was low too. Maybe I'll try again tonight to be sure.Do you guys have any idea? There is no volume setting on my mac computer for HDMI, just the Netflix volume that is maxed out. Am I doing something wrong? I know the Freya is not a High gain Preamp but I can get all my other sources to deafening levels. I am mainly a music person, but this have been bugging me for a while.

 

[Gene LeClair]

It's only limiting if you need Atmos. Personally, it's not limiting but way overkill for my need. I have no need, desire, room nor budget for a Atmos system. This product here is too expensive for my needs but I am however interested in High fidelity HDMI extraction. Anybody has recommendations? I use a Stereo (2.1) High fidelity setup and it will stay that way. My problem tough, For Netflix or other video content from my computer, I run a HDMI straight to my TV currently. The audio out from the TV to my Schiit Freya preamp is unusable, way too low in level whatever I try, all levels that I have controls on are Maxed out. What I ended up doing is running audio trough Bluetooth instead of HDMI, simply because I have a small Bluetooth amp that has some gain to it and can give me a 2V output that is usable. At least I can enjoy my movies but I'd like more audio fidelity than Bluetooth. This is mainly a music system. What would you guys recommend for that use case? I do have Toslink out from the TV but my Toslink in in my DAC is used for something else that I feel is more important to me than TV sound, but I seem to remember trying that and the output was low too. Maybe I'll try again tonight to be sure.Do you guys have any idea? There is no volume setting on my mac computer for HDMI, just the Netflix volume that is maxed out. Am I doing something wrong? I know the Freya is not a High gain Preamp but I can get all my other sources to deafening levels. I am mainly a music person, but this have been bugging me for a while.

Just out of curiosity, what Bluetooth device are you using?

 

[PeteL]

Just out of curiosity, what Bluetooth device are you using?

Bluewave Get, something I designed in a past life. It’s discontinued and the company is shut down.

 

[voodooless]

Why not just use computer audio if that is the source of the content anyway?

 

[tinnitus]

It's only limiting if you need Atmos. Personally, it's not limiting but way overkill for my need. I have no need, desire, room nor budget for a Atmos system. This product here is too expensive for my needs but I am however interested in High fidelity HDMI extraction. Anybody has recommendations? I use a Stereo (2.1) High fidelity setup and it will stay that way. My problem tough, For Netflix or other video content from my

Have a look at this

Evolve II-4K HDMI v2.0b Multi-Channel DAC - Essence For High Res Audio

Upgrade Your Legacy 1080p AVR to 4K UHD With the Evolve II-4K HDMI 7.1 Channel DAC! The Essence Evolve II-4K is a HDMI v2.0b Multi-Channel Hi Res Audio DAC designed to extract the native LPCM multi-channel 24/192K audio from HDMI v2.0b sources such as 4K Blu-ray players, Apple TV4K and other 4K...

www.essenceelectrostatic.com

 

[PeteL]

Why not just use computer audio if that is the source of the content anyway?

I admit my setup is not so conventional. I live in a loft style space with my Entertainment/music/TV setup in one Area that's about 25 feet away from my computer/Office Area. I have a desktop system at my computer, for when I am sitting at my desk and I run a long HDMI cable (still within specs) to the TV where I can chill on the couch watching movies. I guess I could go stereo out, to DI boxes to balance the signal, run a pair of XLR, but I use the balanced Ins of my preamp for other sources, ands it's a bit far for unbalanced audio and quite frankly I would prefer to run just one cable as now and use digital. Or maybe wireless solutions if it could gives me more audio Levels and uncompressed audio. I guess the simplest would be to get a mac mini or a small computer to setup in the entertainment area and call it done. I could then run USB to my DAC.

 

[PeteL]

Have a look at this

Evolve II-4K HDMI v2.0b Multi-Channel DAC - Essence For High Res Audio

Upgrade Your Legacy 1080p AVR to 4K UHD With the Evolve II-4K HDMI 7.1 Channel DAC! The Essence Evolve II-4K is a HDMI v2.0b Multi-Channel Hi Res Audio DAC designed to extract the native LPCM multi-channel 24/192K audio from HDMI v2.0b sources such as 4K Blu-ray players, Apple TV4K and other 4K...

www.essenceelectrostatic.com

Yep, I may go back to that. I had kind of forgot to mention, In the past I used the previous version of that, but It just stopped being recognised as new apple computers don't support HDMI 1, but Essence can't be blamed for that, it's the nature of HDMI. They are however one of these companies that don't take returns. If I do purchase I kinda need to be sure it would solve my level problem, I am not fully certain it's in the conversion or if it's something MacOS does. I would also like to find the specs for the outputs voltage which are not on the web site. I guess I can ask. I had a different system altogether back then so no guarantee this would be the fix. But thanks, yeah that's the kind of products.

 

[voodooless]

Yep, I may go back to that. I had kind of forgot to mention, In the past I used the previous version of that, but It just stopped being recognised as new apple computers don't support HDMI 1, but Essence can't be blamed for that, it's the nature of HDMI. They are however one of these companies that don't take returns. If I do purchase I kinda need to be sure it would solve my level problem, I am not fully certain it's in the conversion or if it's something MacOS does. I would also like to find the specs for the outputs voltage which are not on the web site. I guess I can ask. I had a different system altogether back then so no guarantee this would be the fix. But thanks, yeah that's the kind of products.

Maybe make a new topic for this There are various places where this might go wrong.

 

[gondorff]

Decompression and decoding are interchangeable in this context. TrueHD is Meridians MLP lossless coding which like flac, requires a decoder to PCM. Without it, you just have jumbled bits that are not playable.

Yes indeed, and that process itself should not lead to bit altering, which was what I tried to ask for, or: if the idea of poor decoders was related to the audio decoding quality of a single stream itself. That confused me. The original paragraph coupled PCM output (not the channels) with poor decoders, or at least that was what I was probably reading into it.

There's a lot more to this than reencoding audio channels, which I agree isn't a problem. Dolby Atmos is an object-based format, not a channel-based one. If you rely on the source device for PCM, then you're expecting the source device to mix the Atmos correctly down to 5.1 and 7.1. Now, most devices don't even support Atmos -> 5.1 AT ALL, what they do is fallback to the 5.1 DD encode embedded in most Atmos streams. The minimum for real Atmos object-based decoding is usually 7.1 or 5.1.2. In particular, on the Shield TV, I don't think it will even do multi-channel PCM, it will do DD5.1 but that is a legacy compatibility feature with fairly janky implementation. Apparently the AppleTV will output 7.1 PCM from an Atmos source. What exactly it's doing there or whether it's doing it well is another story, this is obviously a feature that almost nobody will use, so you're hoping that a compatibility feature will work well.

The VanityPro requires channel-based PCM audio and doesn't do Atmos at all. So you better be sure that your source device does PCM 5.1 or 7.1 output and that it's good at downmixing from immersive audio sources. This isn't something you can just assume will be supported. And after spending $1600 on this($100 less than a Denon 4700H, which also has room EQ and great upmixing builtin...), you're stuck with a system that can never use height channels.

The 1 use case I can see for this is basically: I have a pure-music 5.1 or 7.1 multichannel system, I have no interest in using an AVR or ever having height channels, I am using Apple Music with an Apple TV or a Bluray player and I'm fine with the 5.1/7.1 downmixes. That is... an extremely specific set of circumstances, lol. Most people with those kinds of systems already have a 5.1 signal chain that works fine with standard 5.1 music.

Speaking as someone who actually owns a 5.2.4 multi-channel music and HT hybrid system, I don't really understand why someone would want to spend so much money and lock themselves out of height channels AND(as a consequence) Auro3D upmixing at the same time, just so they can have digital outputs.

It's not like this device is even a cheap, replaceable buffer between your system and HDMI compatibility changes. It's more expensive than most AVRs...if it was like, $200-$400 then it would make a lot more sense to me, as then we are talking about something that is much cheaper and less wasteful than replacing big AVRs every 5-10 years.

Hmm, my question was not pointed at Dolby Atmos, I have not considered it in my post. Are you directing your answer to my post or to someone else? I just wanted to give one general example of a use case for the VanityPro. I would even argue that for Dolby Atmos, the box is the wrong tool to use.

------
Regardless, to that use case: A fairly standard BD-Player is capable of outputting the 5.1 or 7.1 PCM stream. Blu-Ray itself is specified as having TrueHD & DTS-MA encoded tracks as just optional, which is a bit unfortunate. However, having a reasonable diffusion rate amongst films means that there is general access to 7.1. The Atmos object-based format extension and metadata gets ignored by incompatible devices and the remaining lossless audio streams, 5.1/7.1, are used without having to downmix, as Dolby Atmos in Dolby TrueHD is running in a separate stream, added later on. The additional fallback to lossy compression of 5.1 in AC3 should happen only if there is no Dolby TrueHD capable decoding unit. The need to downmix Atmos specifically to 5.1/7.1 should only be necessary for the cinema implementation, not the home theatre one.

------
The reasoning behind the digital stuff this is: If it was for just me alone, we would already live in a world of pure digital audio transmission through IP. Maybe even directly up to the speakers. Technically, we came so far, and we are still debating about effects of 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation propagations or conversion influences from different stages of the pipeline to the audio stream. The D/A conversion happens too early in the pipeline (massively encouraged by ugly-as-hell-copy-protections as HDCP and such), and, as a result, several people are trying to reduce the ripple effects wherever possible by various means. I like to consider AES3 a slowly expiring standard, but, right now, it is an option which can pe put to practical use, also thanks to, this unit. I found getting Dante coupled with consumer gear is even a greater pain, so I will steer clear of that one and watch it from the sideline until advancements will make it a bit more easy.

For my setup, I consider leanness of the installation itself a criteria and as such I have no drive for an Atmos system in any way. I also have not much use for a receiver anymore besides the decoding part and introducing another D/A conversion because of unavailable digital alternatives does not seem sensible nor simple (in a minimalistic, cost-benefit sense). In a best case scenario, an additional receiver is just not making the stream any worse. My picture gets projected and this mostly cancels out all streaming images which leads to UHD-BD.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Amir, any chance Audiopraise would send you their CZAP DAC demo board to evaluate? They seem to be an engineering driven company although reading a description of the circuit topology used in the DAC (granted, the description is a little vague), I expect it will be an example of being unorthodox as an engineering exercise rather than being unorthodox to produce state of the art measured results. But who knows? I also wonder if the CZAP is being used as an OEM platform by other manufacturers as that seems to have been its intent.

CZAP | Audiopraise

Reference class DAC platform with advanced signal processing and hybrid volume control.

audiopraise.com

 

[Sancus]

Hmm, my question was not pointed at Dolby Atmos, I have not considered it in my post.

My original post was responding to somebody about Tidal and AppleTV streaming surround music, which is all Atmos. I didn't realize you were focused on just the non-Atmos codecs when you replied. My bad.

The need to downmix Atmos specifically to 5.1/7.1 should only be necessary for the cinema implementation, not the home theatre one.

Well, the Atmos mix is going to be more immersive than the channel-based ones even with a relatively small setup. At least, that's what I've heard from people who have only a 7.1 and have used AVRs which do use the Atmos stream for that.

Other than that, sure, you're correct. If you only care about 5.1/7.1 and your source device(s) all support PCM then this device will work to keep everything digital through to Genelecs or anything else with digital inputs. I still think you're paying $1600 for an inaudible benefit compared to just using analog inputs, and you've introduced some limitations as well, so it still seems like a very very niche product to me. But if it's useful to you, that's cool.

I just don't think it will be useful to most people, especially at its high price point. I know the price is probably necessary given how few units they'll sell. I was mainly wanting to make it as clear as possible how this thing works because it seemed like people were already thinking it could handle all the same audio types as an AVR, which it definitely can't.

 

[Keened]

------
The reasoning behind the digital stuff this is: If it was for just me alone, we would already live in a world of pure digital audio transmission through IP. Maybe even directly up to the speakers.

PoE++ is capable of delivering sufficient wattage for 'most' bookshelf speakers

 

[pma]

Amir, any chance Audiopraise would send you their CZAP DAC demo board to evaluate? They seem to be an engineering driven company although reading a description of the circuit topology used in the DAC (granted, the description is a little vague), I expect it will be an example of being unorthodox as an engineering exercise rather than being unorthodox to produce state of the art measured results. But who knows? I also wonder if the CZAP is being used as an OEM platform by other manufacturers as that seems to have been its intent.

CZAP | Audiopraise

Reference class DAC platform with advanced signal processing and hybrid volume control.

audiopraise.com

This thing is dated 2013.

Audiopraise CZAP: The new DAC platform

 

[Billy Budapest]

This thing is dated 2013.

Audiopraise CZAP: The new DAC platform

Really? Didn’t see any mention of that on the website.

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Given the price and the performance, I'm half surprised they don't claim the hdmi out is better than the hdmi in! Deeper blacks et cetera...

Why only half?

 

[krabapple]

Then it's not good. Some universal player can transmit pure dsd stream to AVR. Currently there is no way to capture dsd stream of sacd except through old version of PlayStation. Sacd is encrypted at physical pit level so no dvd drive can decrypt it except players supporting sacd playback.

In the example above it's converting to 176kHz SR PCM. For heaven's sake, what is the worry? Above 22kHz is mostly noise anyway, and inaudible.
But DSD can certainly be 'captured' off of SACDs by certain SACD players using certain software, nowadays.

 

[krabapple]

I just received this product this week. It gives me the option of 24/176 for DSD to PCM conversion because of the filter options. With my Oppo 105D, and Berkeley Alpha 3 Dac, I'm no longer limited to 24/88 DSD to PCM conversion.

And this matters why?

Previously I was using a GeerFab. It works very well but I wanted the higher conversion option as well as the AES/EBU connection. While I was hoping for a small improvement in sound quality, what I got was much more than I expected. The VanityPro, while expensive, is a major step forward in sound quality.

Riiiiight.

You'll notice Amir did not include a ('subjective') listening report on this one.