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Audiopraise VanityPro Review (HDMI Audio Extractor)

Rate this product:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 5 3.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 15 9.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 77 49.4%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 59 37.8%

  • Total voters
    156

Robbo99999

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For a "flow diagram" --- see page six of the manual for an example
So all this does is extract the audio data in a "high fidelity" manner for further transport to a DAC, so you can't connect active speakers in a theatre system directly to this audio extractor? In fact this audio extractor doesn't process Dolby into seperate channels? You'd have to connect it to an AVR or some kind of "sound processor" that will take the multichannel extracted audio signal & convert it into analog for distribution to active speakers? Is that the case, if that's the case I'm struggling to see a market for this, is audio extraction from HDMI really that difficult that you have to have a seperate box for it? For a theatre system say with active speakers, you'd have to have somekind of "Dolby & DAC processor" connected after the audio extractor to route to each of your 7.1 (etc) active speakers? I'm imagining the choice of that "Dolby & DAC processor" is pretty narrow beyond the realms of the normal AVR's on the market (and most of them would probably seek to do their own extraction of audio from HDMI anyway).
 
Last edited:

aj625

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DSD can bit perfect convert to PCM (64:16) and DoP is perfectly fine.
Edit: you must have been long time out, plenty of tools for SACD extraction now days including Open Source one's (suitable also for educational purposes) .
No it's not dsd into dop conversion. It's dsd to pcm conversion which is not lossless.
 

Xyrium

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Kind of ironic that a product with a name of Audiopraise VanityPro actually performs well. Maybe the naming was a bit tongue in cheek?
Let's also remember, this was chosen and shipped by one of their distributors. I'm not saying there's any additional backstage QC going on, but it certainly could be cherry picked. Wait, I just said it. LOL

...need to see a teardown....assures future buyers that they are getting the same product.

Yes, always a skeptic when anything works (even incrementally) these days. ;)
 

Tatteredmidnight

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It’s great to see a theory of operation and block diagrams in a manual for any technical product, let alone consumer audio. Very nice extra touch, especially considering that these went out if vogue a long time ago.
 

vkhong

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@vkhong Which one exactly do you have? Can you please share with us the link?
No longer available:

My intent was listen to Amazon and Apple Music on my 2.0 system. Since Apple TV re-samples to 48kHz and I lose enhanced video options on the HDMI out, I no longer use it. It is Apple TV direct to AVR and a dedicated DAC for Amazon and Apple Music.
 

peniku8

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So, I could envision someone really into surround music as: tidal surround audio > apple tv > vanity pro > hi end dacs > .... this is where it kinda falls apart because you need multi channel volume control somehow in a 8 channel pre-amp (parasound has one I believe), to a bunch of amps? I dunno, its a tricky niche product, but something like that
You could do Vanity Pro → Hypex FA123 (plate amp for active speakers)
The FA123 accepts AES50 directly, plus you can chain multiple amps together in a master-slave setup, so you can control volume (and presets, mute etc) of a number of speakers with one remote control.
 

MerlinGS

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HDFury makes excellent products and are generally well regarded in video products. I wonder how well (or poorly) the HDFury Integral 2 (or Vertex 2) measures. It has analog and digital audio extraction. The digital extraction is only through S/PDIF

 

michaelahess

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This seems useful, but not for improving audio, just making the streams more flexible. One person on here said it made things SO much better. We are talking picoseconds here. Nobody in the history of humans could detect a deviation at that short of timeframe with ANY senses.

@amirm Can this, in any way, shape, or form, actually improve sound audibly?
 

Robbo99999

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This seems useful, but not for improving audio, just making the streams more flexible. One person on here said it made things SO much better. We are talking picoseconds here. Nobody in the history of humans could detect a deviation at that short of timeframe with ANY senses.

@amirm Can this, in any way, shape, or form, actually improve sound audibly?
I'd like to know about that last part you mention, your question. It might turn out to be of the same ethos of DAC green & orange rankings in terms of SINAD vs audibility.....as in most of the time it's about "good engineering" and making sure everything is 150% bullet proof in terms of making doubly sure you have transparent sound rather than delving into the grey zones of whether it's audible or not.
 

PeteL

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DSD can bit perfect convert to PCM (64:16) and DoP is perfectly fine.
Edit: you must have been long time out, plenty of tools for SACD extraction now days including Open Source one's (suitable also for educational purposes) .
Yes DoP is not the same as DSD to PCM conversion. @Amir said "it converts to PCM" Which is it?
 

ZolaIII

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Yes DoP is not the same as DSD to PCM conversion. @Amir said "it converts to PCM" Which is it?
REED: "The PCM format with the next higher bit rate is 24 bits at a sample rate of 176.4kHz. This gives us 8 bits for this marker of identifier. It seems a bit overkill if all we need is 2 states (8 bits give us 256 states)".
 

Jim777

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For stereo (OPPO to RME ADI-2 DAC), I use this $40 thingy
 

rschoss

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This is a review and measurements of the Audiopraise VanityPro HDMI audio extractor. It was kindly sent to me by their distributor, JVB Digital and costs US $1,599.
View attachment 183101

The VanityPro is a compact device, not much bigger than typical desktop audio products. Its main functionality is to extract audio samples from HDMI interface and pass those on over digital interface of your choice. I asked for the AES/EBU balanced output version:
View attachment 183103

As you see, there is independent power supplies using USB-C connectors for HDMI and audio output as the latter is galvanically isolated from the former (to break nasty ground loops and noise). HDMI interface provides pass through with optional ability to "lie" to the source giving it its own configuration as opposed to that of the target device (so you can extract 8 channels even if your display is only advertising stereo). Clock interface is provided should you want to synchronize other devices to it.

What I really love about this device is its extensive diagnostic information about the HDMI signal. I am absolutely lost most of the time trying to get this out of an AVR or AV Processor. Beyond the above home status screen, you also have these other:

View attachment 183104

View attachment 183105

And a lot of things you can configure including DSD to PCM configuration:
View attachment 183106


View attachment 183107

And nice set of meters:

View attachment 183108

Company provides extensive documentation on measures it takes to reduce jitter over HDMI. To give some background, HDMI was a revision of DVI computer monitor interface that did not have audio capability. Audio samples were buried in the unused section of video frames and as such, was slaved to video clock (which also mandated that even if you are just playing audio, you must have video present). Extracted video clock does not need to be super low jitter as the position of pixels on screen is fixed. For audio though, the output is analog and requires very low jitter especially if we are talking about 24 bit audio at high sample rate. To reduce jitter, high performance processors/AVRs resample the audio as otherwise jitter can be quite extensive. VanityPro provides internal buffering and reclocking to reduce jitter. We will measure this.

VanityPro Measurements
My Audio Precision APx555 has the ability to extract jitter over its digital input. This data can then be analyzed as if it were analog audio using such tools as FFT to see the spectrum of jitter. So here is out standard j-test signal playing over HDMI, going to VanityPro, and then from AES/EBU to Audio Precision:

View attachment 183109

Green is the baseline measurement of the analyzer itself. In orange we have the VanityPro spectrum of jitter. The J-test signal has a buried 250 Hz square wave which triggers jitter sidebands to show up across the full spectrum. This may seem alarming seeing how it is worse than audio analyzer itself but keep in mind that the worst case spike is just 11 picoseconds. Let's compare this spectrum to Topping D10 converting USB to S/PDIF (in blue)

View attachment 183110

As you see, VanityPro has much lower jitter. Seeing how I have shown D10 output to have jitter well within what a good DAC can tolerate and filter, we are in vary good shape with respect to VanityPro's performance.

Here is another comparison against Minidsp UDIO-8:

View attachment 183111

Now the baseline noise floor has shifted way up due to random jitter.

So while not instrument grade, VanityPro is performing very well in this department. What jitter is left is easily handled by a half-decent DAC.

Conclusions
Since data is transferred as is, all we care about in digital to digital "bridge" product such as VanityPro is jitter. And here, it is one of the best performing devices I have tested. Using this box, you can integrated audio from your video devices (assuming you do decoding in software), allowing much easier integration into a high-performance audio system. Yes, it costs a lot of money but if you are going all out, it is a reasonable price to pay. Personally I love to have this box just for its diagnostic capabilities!

I am going to recommend the Audiopraise VanityPro.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
This is a review and measurements of the Audiopraise VanityPro HDMI audio extractor. It was kindly sent to me by their distributor, JVB Digital and costs US $1,599.
View attachment 183101

The VanityPro is a compact device, not much bigger than typical desktop audio products. Its main functionality is to extract audio samples from HDMI interface and pass those on over digital interface of your choice. I asked for the AES/EBU balanced output version:
View attachment 183103

As you see, there is independent power supplies using USB-C connectors for HDMI and audio output as the latter is galvanically isolated from the former (to break nasty ground loops and noise). HDMI interface provides pass through with optional ability to "lie" to the source giving it its own configuration as opposed to that of the target device (so you can extract 8 channels even if your display is only advertising stereo). Clock interface is provided should you want to synchronize other devices to it.

What I really love about this device is its extensive diagnostic information about the HDMI signal. I am absolutely lost most of the time trying to get this out of an AVR or AV Processor. Beyond the above home status screen, you also have these other:

View attachment 183104

View attachment 183105

And a lot of things you can configure including DSD to PCM configuration:
View attachment 183106


View attachment 183107

And nice set of meters:

View attachment 183108

Company provides extensive documentation on measures it takes to reduce jitter over HDMI. To give some background, HDMI was a revision of DVI computer monitor interface that did not have audio capability. Audio samples were buried in the unused section of video frames and as such, was slaved to video clock (which also mandated that even if you are just playing audio, you must have video present). Extracted video clock does not need to be super low jitter as the position of pixels on screen is fixed. For audio though, the output is analog and requires very low jitter especially if we are talking about 24 bit audio at high sample rate. To reduce jitter, high performance processors/AVRs resample the audio as otherwise jitter can be quite extensive. VanityPro provides internal buffering and reclocking to reduce jitter. We will measure this.

VanityPro Measurements
My Audio Precision APx555 has the ability to extract jitter over its digital input. This data can then be analyzed as if it were analog audio using such tools as FFT to see the spectrum of jitter. So here is out standard j-test signal playing over HDMI, going to VanityPro, and then from AES/EBU to Audio Precision:

View attachment 183109

Green is the baseline measurement of the analyzer itself. In orange we have the VanityPro spectrum of jitter. The J-test signal has a buried 250 Hz square wave which triggers jitter sidebands to show up across the full spectrum. This may seem alarming seeing how it is worse than audio analyzer itself but keep in mind that the worst case spike is just 11 picoseconds. Let's compare this spectrum to Topping D10 converting USB to S/PDIF (in blue)

View attachment 183110

As you see, VanityPro has much lower jitter. Seeing how I have shown D10 output to have jitter well within what a good DAC can tolerate and filter, we are in vary good shape with respect to VanityPro's performance.

Here is another comparison against Minidsp UDIO-8:

View attachment 183111

Now the baseline noise floor has shifted way up due to random jitter.

So while not instrument grade, VanityPro is performing very well in this department. What jitter is left is easily handled by a half-decent DAC.

Conclusions
Since data is transferred as is, all we care about in digital to digital "bridge" product such as VanityPro is jitter. And here, it is one of the best performing devices I have tested. Using this box, you can integrated audio from your video devices (assuming you do decoding in software), allowing much easier integration into a high-performance audio system. Yes, it costs a lot of money but if you are going all out, it is a reasonable price to pay. Personally I love to have this box just for its diagnostic capabilities!

I am going to recommend the Audiopraise VanityPro.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Hi Amir,
@amirm, Can you please "give the intuition" regarding the jitter graph where the Y axis represent time. The regular graph where the y axis represents dB is totally intuitive, to me at least.

Thanks in advance.
 
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