The Bluesound Vault 2i is $1,400 and the Zen Mini Mk3 $1,550 - both with 2TB. They have their ±’s, the main one being for $750 the Zen Mini Mk3 can be fitted with an external power supply. Ripping with the Zen Mk3 is totally automatic and fast. Both are optimised for Roon, which is brilliant for modifying file data such as tags, artwork etc.
Ripping manually really depends on the databases the software uses and they can be a real headache. I used MP3Tag and it is pretty painful in comparison.
My iMac with BluOS app outperformed the Vault 2 configured as server / ripper only (DAC not utilized)
The BluOS and apple AirPlay 2 streamers are integral parts of my NAD amps.
iMac in sleep mode consumes much less energy than the Vault2 in sleep mode.
The iMac server operates even in sleep mode and MacOS is smart enough to activate only the minimum required hardware, ie. The screen stays off if you are not currently working on it. By the way, there is no audible difference whether I am working on the iMac or not.
Biggest problem when ripping CD’s on a automated system are the cover arts.
First hurdle / problem is the limited availability of cover art.
Then If the cover art is found, it is sometimes a completely different image as on my CD Cover.
Than on-line databases offer such inconsistent quality, that half of the cover file formats are not displayed properly by the streamers and/or control apps.
I have decided to scan all cover art myself to a consistent pixel count and file format (jpg) staying below 600 kbyte such that all artwork is displayed on any streamer and controller without trouble.
Editing the metadata of the ripped files is most convenient if the library is on the same computer.
I love the big screen user interface of the iMac to browse my local library and Apple Music.
My personal view on the usage of renderer, streamer, and bridge…
In my time with digital audio the thing that plugged into network on one side and DAC on the other has taken many names. The term “renderer” was probably the most defined because the upnp/dlna standards use the word “renderer” to mean something specific in the standard. Early network devices were called renderer because they met this standard. Except, upnp/dlna turned out to be not so great for audio so it fell a bit out of favor and so did the term renderer.
The word “stream” is commonly referred to mean “from the Internet” and it’s only been very recently where the “from the Internet” audio streams were worth piping through your hifi. I assume, for this reason, using the word “streamer” a few years back for something that was targeted at hifi would make one hesitant. I, personally, would not have wanted to “stream” or use a “streamer” for Internet audio to my system even 6 years ago.
If a company was not building a renderer, something that conformed to or only conformed to the upnp/dlna standard, and they didn’t want their device to hold the low-bitrate / poor quality “stream” association what should they call it? And that’s where “bridge” came from. However, “bridge” means nothing in relation to what it does. What standard stuff should a bridge support? Where does it get its audio bits from? Again… ball of confusion.
Since we do have very good ways of pulling a stream from the Internet into our hifi then the term “streamer” makes a ton of sense today. We can be happy to put a streamer into our systems with very good results. Streamers are expected to stream all the normal hifi stuff including Tidal, Qobuz, Roon, etc. If a manufacturer wants to support more than the standard stuff great but the priority of these devices has moved from local (upnp/dlna type) to Internet streams. Call it a streamer.