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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

Sal1950

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Short of being in a dedicated room, that would still stand for 7.2.4 Genelecs, because I'm an aesthetics snob.:)
I'd be there thinking it sounds great, but when I open my eyes, I'm in a cluttered room.
What's aesthetics got to do with sound?
I really don't give a rodents behind what my room looks like.
It's all about the music.
Sorry to hear you have this hang-up with room appearance. :(
 

Sprint

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If you are using Genelec subs and want a full SAM setup, they make just the product.
how does it work if I need to attach to 2 SAM subs? Do I need a splitter? Also if I need 5.2.4, I would need two of them...correct? I already have 3 8340 as LCR, 2 8330 as surrounds. One of my future idea would be add 4 8320 as Atmos speakers.
 

PavelV

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Hi there,
A quick update on the upcoming new firmware release. Apart from some other minor changes and bug fixes, there will be a new downmix feature available. More details our forum. The new USB and I2S boards are currently being tested and we are working on the USB audio software side. The support for these two new board will be included most likely after the next firmware release. I will keep you guys updated.
Regards,
Pavel
 

pseudoid

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What's aesthetics got to do with sound?
I really don't give a rodents behind what my room looks like.
It's all about the music.
Sorry to hear you have this hang-up with room appearance. :(
You do you but you do not do others! That's a good thing!;)

I dare you to start a constructive thread >with a poll< to find out which other ASR members do (or do not) believe in listening environment aesthetics!

I think this is the 'industry' which invented and uses the W.A.F. as an integral part of the subjective part of creating an environment for listening to music.
And if that is not a 'hang-up'; ASR members would not argue the virtues of... ummmm... good looking VU meters on hardware!:cool:
 
Last edited:

Sal1950

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I think this is the 'industry' which invented and uses the W.A.F. as an integral part of the subjective part of creating an environment for listening to music.
Your absolutely right, I realize that as a bachelor, and even before when I had a wife, I always insisted on making the decisions on what went in the living/listening/entertainment room.
She could do whatever she liked in the rest of the house, but the living room and garage were my territories at home, there just was no such thing as a WAF to consider. Back up north where I lived for 32 years I had both a 5.2 surround system plus a dedicated stereo system with giant Klispch La Scala speakers and a pair of 7' tall HSU subwoofers in the living room. The OL was never to happy with the appearance with all the wires, gear, etc but she just had to deal with it or leave.
Anywho, yea the room has a lot of clutter, the windows have been converted to room treatment panels, and as said I couldn't care less, all that matters to me is the sound, not the aesthetics
IMG_3076c.jpg


Shears panels are now covering all sound treatment windows as appears on the left grouping. Looks good enough for me. :p
IMG_3068.JPG
 

pseudoid

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I dare you to start a constructive thread >with a poll< to
I like your answer but I have a feeling you are not willing to do that poll.:(
BTW: It sounds like you are in the closet (=denial) about audio feng-shui.:facepalm:
 

Doodski

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Your absolutely right, I realize that as a bachelor, and even before when I had a wife, I always insisted on making the decisions on what went in the living/listening/entertainment room.
She could do whatever she liked in the rest of the house, but the living room and garage were my territories at home, there just was no such thing as a WAF to consider. Back up north where I lived for 32 years I had both a 5.2 surround system plus a dedicated stereo system with giant Klispch La Scala speakers and a pair of 7' tall HSU subwoofers in the living room. The OL was never to happy with the appearance with all the wires, gear, etc but she just had to deal with it or leave.
Anywho, yea the room has a lot of clutter, the windows have been converted to room treatment panels, and as said I couldn't care less, all that matters to me is the sound, not the aesthetics
View attachment 246001

Shears panels are now covering all sound treatment windows as appears on the left grouping. Looks good enough for me. :p
View attachment 246003
You mentioned before that the insulation/sound dampening in the windows would work well to keep the heat out. Have you any idea of the change in temperature before and after?
 

Sal1950

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"I like your answer but I have a feeling you are not willing to do that poll.
Nope, Not really, I can only speak for myself, never intended to speak for anyone else.
I simply replied to member @Nattage who said he's personally "an aesthetics snob" and couldn't live with the clutter of a 7.2.4 rig.
I thought that unfortunate to deny himself the pleasure of a wonderful surround rig like that but in the end that's his call.
If your that curious on the subject be my guest to start the poll. ;)

You mentioned before that the insulation/sound dampening in the windows would work well to keep the heat out. Have you any idea of the change in temperature before and after?
I did hope for a side benefit of some savings in energy use but I haven't noticed anything to speak of.
There is the fact of run-away inflation in the US due to our current leadership so I have no way of telling. :(
 

Doodski

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I did hope for a side benefit of some savings in energy use but I haven't noticed anything to speak of.
There is the fact of run-away inflation in the US due to our current leadership so I have no way of telling. :(
Yeah, perhaps the rate for electricity has gone up and hidden any savings. We have run-away inflation too. I chatted other peeps in Europe and they have the same dilemma. It's all over. Red meat is up maybe 35%-40% and the pasta aisle shelving is bare @ Walmart from people economizing and eating pasta. I'm pretty sure my grocery bill has gone up by ~$100+ per month. Crazy stuff. :D
 

Nattage

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Talisman

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I would point out that an amazon basic hdmi audio extractor has just been reviewed for the price of 22 euros with a bit perfect digital output
 

Nattage

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That can feed a quality stereo DAC or a traditional Receiver (all having poor DACs) with Dolby digital 5.1.
The vanity pro, uniquely (discounting Trinov and datasat) separates multi channel digital audio into pairs of digital outs which can be sent to posh DACs, potentially improving the quality of sound possible for multi channel sources.
 

Nattage

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Nattage

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how does it work if I need to attach to 2 SAM subs? Do I need a splitter? Also if I need 5.2.4, I would need two of them...correct? I already have 3 8340 as LCR, 2 8330 as surrounds. One of my future idea would be add 4 8320 as Atmos speakers.
What DAC would you use for those 4, 8320s? They're analogue only.
I've 8020s for surround at present. Going to use a topping Ex5. Discoverd that I need an aes to spdif convertor for this. Whilst Genelecs with aes in, can handle consumer spdif input without conversion (some use Hosa converters but I never needed to), the same can't be said of my chosen consumer DAC recieving AES3.
 

Sprint

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What DAC would you use for those 4, 8320s? They're analogue only.
I've 8020s for surround at present. Going to use a topping Ex5. Discoverd that I need an aes to spdif convertor for this. Whilst Genelecs with aes in, can handle consumer spdif input without conversion (some use Hosa converters but I never needed to), the same can't be said of my chosen consumer DAC recieving AES3.
Sorry, that was my mistake. I have 8330 as surrounds which has digital options.
 

Nattage

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So the above picture is my set-up whilst demoing the VanityPro.
Previously had the ToneWinner AT-300 fed only by eARC from the TV and the Nvidia Shield Pro.
This meant having Analogue XLR cables running to the sub, L/R and Centre.
NB the 8331's shares the same physical XLR input for Analogue and Digital. The 8341 has separate inputs and auto senses after a power cycle.
The 8331 is constantly checking the input signal, which makes a click between menu items being fed the VanityPro from the ATV4K. So after a while I set all the digital Genelecs to Digital only (not auto) to avoid this.

The ATV4K is new and will go back if I don't keep the VanityPro. It's needed as seemingly the only device that decode everything from streaming services to 5.1/7.1 LPCM and from rips using the purchased Infuse app.

I had a few issues with lip synch. This wasn't the VanityPro's fault. Best I can figure it was my TV struggling to render Dolby Vision from the ATV4k, quickly enough. I went to HD10 and back to Dolby Vision and now there's no problems. I'll share all the settings in ATV4k and my TV if anyone wants.

Before I get onto how it sounds, I'll share some niggles.
Not sure what the ARC volume setting does in the VanityPro. Have to keep it off. Somehow I imagined the APTV remote adjusting the volume.
If you want to use ARC, you have to set it to on on the front panel. Obvious really and probably going to be a rare change over, only for Aerial TV and UHD bbc iPlayer (APTV doesn't offer UHD for iPlayer, so no 4k world cup).
Ultimately, with the Genelecs you're resigned to using their volume controller.
This isn't what you get the VanityPro for though.

Also, it's not designed to put delays, distance or adjust individual volume levels of channels. I thought I'd miss this, as the Tonewinner has separate volume controls for surounds, sub and centre, but in reality it sounds so nice and clean I've not minded.

Movies - streaming services and local files.
No measurements as we should have here, just my subjective opinion. Absolutely love it! Sounds so open, like the proverbial veil has been lifted. The best I've heard.

Stereo Music. Roon as source.
So I've compared it to my Roon endpoint, an Allo Digital Signature SPDIF out hat for a Rasberry Pi running RopieeeXL. the idea with this is the audio section is somewhat separate to that of the RasberryPi innards.
This feeds the Genelec L/R and sub via the 9301a (which enables Genelec bass management).
Vs feeding the VanityPro with a Display port to HDMI lead, directly from my ROON core, a silent Intel NUC i7. No fancy linear power supplies for that as A) I don't believe in all that and B) I'd never considered using the on board audio of the ROCK as a source (so perhaps I do).
Roon player I had set to:
Beuna Vista Social Club, Chan Chan (a track I know really well, I know how that recording room should sound and echo, where the voices and instruments should come from and how wide and open they should be)
Source FLAC 44.1kHz 16bit 2ch
Bit depth conversion 16bit to 64bit Float
Volume leveling -5.2dB
Bit depth conversion 64bit to 16bit Float

Had this set for both Ropieee and Cores HDMI outputs, and swapped between these to outputs and swapped the XLR feed to the Genelecs.

So as an A/B test quite good, but there were gaps between hearing one and the other, but volume was identical.
My personal bias when listening was that of wanting the VanityPro to be as good as if not better than the Ropieee, but suspecting it wouldn't be.
I figured if it could be that good, I could ditch the roon endpoint, have one less box, just get an HDMI switch between Roon music to APTV
My 16 year old daughter and 49 year old girlfriend had no such biases and I was able to blind test with them.

So to my ears and that of the 2 girls, it sounds amazing. 2 channel stereo has no business sounding that good, coming over HDMI!
However, it can't quite match the dedicated endpoint doing sound alone.
It's really really close though!
If you weren't A/Bing you'd struggle to tell.
But the ropieee source is slightly more "open" and unveiled, you can hear the echoes of the hall, with positioning of voices and trumpet (on that track) "imaging"? seeming slightly tighter. Both of them spotted this without prompting (maybe some, I'm being honest).

As such, being a perfectionist, I'd probably keep the RasberryPi for music listening sessions of Roon.
It means swapping the L/R XLR cable when I do this, which is easier than swapping the HDMI inputs.

Stereo Music. Spotify as source.
Spotify from ATV4K through the VanityPro will probably get quite a bit of use. Even at 48Khz, it sounds amazing when one's pottering around.

Final thoughts.....

But loving this for TV and movie watching. Nothing I've plaid with has come close. Had Audiolab 8000 for a bit and then an ADA Cinema Rhapsody m4 balanced and now the Tonewinner.
You basically compromise some convenience of choices of source and source switching and volume control, for best audio performance possible from HDMI.
Which is basically what designed to do.
I love the box. It's smaller, solid and more living room friendly.
I love not having to remember to lower the volume of the Genelec system, when switching from analogue to digital (analogue needed them pumped up 15 clicks, forgetting to set them down before swapping to digital woke the neighbours), because they're permanently digital.
I love the audio meters screen and all the info it tells you.
 

egradyh

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Hi there,
A quick update on the upcoming new firmware release. Apart from some other minor changes and bug fixes, there will be a new downmix feature available. More details our forum. The new USB and I2S boards are currently being tested and we are working on the USB audio software side. The support for these two new board will be included most likely after the next firmware release. I will keep you guys updated.
Regards,
Pavel
Any chance the dropout problem I had with my Berkeley DAC has been fixed? I really miss my VanityPro.
 

Nattage

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I've had no drop outs.
 
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