Review: Music Vault Diamond Transport


Category: Digital

I recently purchased Neal van Berg’s Music Vault Diamond, a music server designed to output files at any available resolution up to and including 24/192. I had set a number of criteria that were essential, and a few other ‘nice to have’ features. The essentials:

1) Capable of handling high resolution files
2) AES/EBU output
3) Automatic backup
4) Highest quality sound card, preferably Lynx AES 16
5) Quiet

The only feature that I would like to have had – and which the Music Vault lacks – is a touch screen of the quality of Sooloos or Qsonix. This, of course, would have added quite a lot to the cost, and in any event Neal argues that a large screen is a potential sound reflector and should be avoided. Instead, control is via a netbook running either Media Monkey or iTunes at the customer’s discretion. An internet connection must be provided. In my case, I had no such connection available, but a Netgear Powerline adaptor proved to be an easy, reliable, and comparatively inexpensive solution. As for the netbook itself, I’m quite happy with the screen quality, but am less enamored with the touch pad. Let me make it clear that I’m one of those who finds any laptop touch pad to be a real pain, so this is a personal issue. Those of you who are more comfortable with these will likely be quite happy with it. Meanwhile, I’ve tried a conventional mouse (needs a flat surface with some space, obviously), a graphics tablet (initially very nice, but ultimately lacking), and finally a wireless trackball (the best solution by far).

The Music Vault itself is a compact, stylish-looking cube. The Diamond is provided with an output cable bundle that seems to be able to handle any type of connector, including of course AES/EBU. Setup is extremely easy – put the unit in place, connect to the Powerline, run the digital cable to the DAC, and attach the power cable. Power up, wait 2-3 minutes, and turn on the netbook. That’s all there is. It has worked flawlessly from day one. As Neal advertises, it is very quiet, with one exception. The fan tends to run at high speed while ripping a CD. If you are simultaneously doing so and listening to low level music, it can be a bit bothersome. However, I stress that this is the only time you can hear the fan in operation.

Although I am a confirmed Mac user when it comes to my (non-audio) computers, I chose Media Monkey as the primary interface due to its capability for automatic resolution switching. Any iTunes user will need no more than 5 minutes to get used to Media Monkey.

The Sound

In order to provide points of reference, I’ll describe my recent digital gear. But first, let me say that I have been – and to a certain degree remain – a vinyl junkie. Over the years, I’ve probably averaged about 80% LP and 20% CD/SACD, and the digital was there largely for music unavailable on vinyl.

I owned an Ayre C-5xe universal player for nearly 3 years and was generally quite satisfied with it. For the most part, SACD was and is a significant step towards eliminating the digital nasties that typically caused me to fire up the turntable after 30 minutes or so. Redbook CD was as good as I’ve heard from any player, meaning not great.

After reading the rave reviews on the Berkeley Audio Alpha, I placed an order for one with the provision from the dealer that I could return it if it didn’t work out. After a two month wait, the DAC arrived, and it became clear after a very short listening session that a whole new world of digital music reproduction was available. I paired the Alpha with a high quality transport (Accustic Arts Drive), connected by a Purist Audio Aqueous AES/EBU. The immediate reaction was ‘where has the upper mid and high end grain gone?’.

The emergence of functional music servers and the persistent claims from well respected ears that music coming off a hard drive sounds superior to the same disk playing on a transport led to a search for an extremely high quality solution at a reasonable price. As I stated previously, I’m a fan of Macs, so this was an obvious potential route. However, my personal insistence on the Lynx sound card would have required a Mac Pro, plus at least one additional hard drive for backup, plus the backup software, plus either a monitor, or an iPhone or similar for control. In other words, the costs were adding up to the point where I wasn’t feeling great about the DIY solution. There were other options too numerous to mention, and to which I’ll not devote space. Then I read about the Music Vault products. In the Diamond, I apparently had a fully designed and tested unit that met all of the essential criteria. I spoke to Neal van Berg on the telephone and exchanged several emails, and of course ended up ordering a Diamond.

As I still had the transport, I was able to do a direct comparison of playback from it and from the server. I can confirm that there is a significant difference in sound between the two, with the superior sonics invariably coming from the server. I’ll get into the details in a moment, but will first offer a couple of sweeping generalizations.

1) Redbook CD (i.e. 16 bit, 44.1 kHz) reproduction through the Diamond is at least as good as, if not better than, SACD was through the Ayre C-5xe. This includes, of course, the CD layers of hybrid disks. I have many SACD recordings with which I am intimately familiar, and can state this without reservation. I can also say with certainty that a great deal of the improvement is due to the Berkeley DAC, but that this is most certainly not the whole story, because the same CD layer played from the transport vs. that reproduced from the Diamond shows a clear improvement in favor of the latter.

2) High resolution files, such as those from Reference Recordings, provide absolutely the most natural music reproduction I have ever experienced, bar none.

Not being a engineer, it’s unclear to me why music played back from a hard drive should be so much better than that from a high quality transport. Yet, my ears say that it is so, so I’ll avoid the theory and simply describe what I hear.

First and foremost, I admit to a strong bias towards audio gear that provides a great 3D soundstage with rock stable spatial cues. Unlike every other digital source I’ve ever experienced, the Diamond has this in spades. In this regard, it is very LP-like. I would argue that a proper soundstage (assuming that it’s been correctly recorded and engineered) is a fundamental requirement for creating the illusion of audio reality. The Diamond is capable of telling you exactly what sort of venue in which a recording was made. Unfortunately, it will also tell you the difference between a natural soundspace with correctly recorded ambience, and artificially added echo. I have more than a few recordings where I had previously thought the former was the case, but the server/DAC clearly reveals engineering shenanigans. Regardless, I’ll take the honest reproduction any day.

The utter lack of upper midrange and high frequency grain is the other great triumph of the Diamond/Alpha combination. I have literally hundreds of CDs which I had written off as unlistenable. These are largely from the 80s and early 90s, and, while it’s clear that they do have some very fundamental problems, most are quite tolerable now. The apparent harshness and glare that made these disks so unpleasant has been reduced considerably. More recent disks, on the other hand, are now allowed to shine. I find myself saying repeatedly “wow, where did that come from?”. Suffice it to say that I’m enjoying all of my digital music far more these days.

One of the real acid tests for digital is the violin, particularly massed violins in an orchestral setting. The inability of conventional CD players to reproduce these in anything like a fluid, glare-free manner was the single greatest reason for my personal propensity towards running over and pulling out the nearest LP. The Diamond/Berkeley has changed all of that. Apart from a few disks, those same violins are now heard ranging from “quite pleasant” to “stunningly gorgeous”. Color me extremely impressed.

I won’t go into the detail of examining each section of the musical spectrum. All of the traditional strengths of digital are present, and all of the traditional weaknesses are essentially eliminated. What more could one ask?

A primary reason for going the music server route was the ability to play back high resolution files. There seems to be a movement towards providing downloadable music in at least 24/96 format, while Reference Recordings’ HRX copies are available by physical disk only. I have now acquired four of these, and each and every one is at least an order of magnitude above its HDCD counterpart. One must pick and choose carefully, as they are definitely expensive at $45 each. We can only hope that the trend towards selling high selling resolution music in one form or another will continue.

Finally, I’ll touch on one very obvious selling point for the music server, namely the convenience factor. I hate searching through shelves of CDs to find a particular title. Those days are over. Media Monkey provides a decent, though slightly clunky, interface which makes that search vastly easier. True, the automatic information download from freedb.org will occasionally come up with missing track information or cover art, but it’s comparatively rare. Of course, this is not the Diamond’s fault, but is a consideration for anyone contemplating a move to a music server. Other than that, it’s all quite functional.

To summarize, the Music Vault Diamond, along with the Berkeley Alpha, has elevated my digital listening experience far beyond expectations. I stated early in this review that perhaps 20% of my listening time was devoted to digital reproduction. I would estimate that this figure is closer to 60% now. This, from a long time vinyl fan, is the highest possible recommendation.

Associated gear
Click to view my Virtual System
curriemt11

Showing 4 responses by dob

Hello Negli,

The Music Vault Diamond described here in 2009 is not the same as it (or similar server) in 2013 !

You can use iPAD for controlling most if not all "quality" servers offered today.

You integrate server (this or any other) with the rest of your system ONLY via digital-to-analof converter. It could be stand alone, it could be part of CD Player (just with its own digital input), part of the server etc.

I would recommend to look on other servers availble today too. Reecently,I purchased Musica Pristina Virtuoso and I am immensely happy with: a) sound quality and b) may be even more with the ease of use. Equally important for me is extraordinary support I get from the company!
Hello Neal,

Your contributions to computer audio over so many years should be recognized and applouded.

Still, with you permission I will ask two questions which bother me in your new server

#1 Your "best" switching power supplies: as it seem to me from the photo its Seasonic which is well spoken on DYI forums. Yet,the sound with this PSU is GRAINY !!!! Even using sophisticated filters. Instead of saying "its the best" - ain;t it simler jist post specs?

#2 Your server does not have fans nor does it have external heavy duty heatsinks. In other words it does not concern itself with heat dissipation. From elementary physics (2nd law of thermodynamics) - if there is little heat generation then there is little power consumption to begin with.

So...what is your CPU ? Definitely NOT Intel Core i7 or equivalent or even close? If so then complex tasks will create long latency with rather high jitter...or I am wrong?

With switching PSU and low power CPU, how do you deal with ground noise?

Thank you and my deepest respects to your work !
Hello Neal,

Thank you kindly for your reply. Its always very nice when manufacturers participate in audio forums and we can learn a lot from their contributions. Thank you.

I think your idea of adding fan at 9 Hz is great (I have similar two fans) and if you will make them temperature triggered it will be even (slightly) better for most AMD processors.

Regarding Seasonic... you are absolutely right in that you want to produce highest possible current but if that would be sole purpose for the power supplies, pwoplw would use not 400 watts ones but 4,000 watts... Nobody does it and for the reason. Despite Seasonic been accepted as one of the best switching power suppies on audio forums, the fact remain that it is switching.....power supply and as such has high-frequency noise (albeit less then other switching PSU)... this noise cause graininess.

I apologize by using absolute ategory as "grainy sound" as there is "grainless sound". All electronically reproduced music has "grain" some more...some less...some much, much less. So when I said that Seasonic produce "grainy sound" I had to say "more grainy" or even "much more grainy" as compared to high quality linear power supply. There are number of such e.g. by Red Wine, Teddy Pardo, King Rex, Empirical Audio, Spectron Audio etc. Of course they cost substantially more then $130 Seasonic so may be to match inexpensive AMD processor Seasonic is the best...

I would strongly suggest to all users of Seasonic or other switching power supply (e.g. in regular computer) who utilize USB output to get outboard inexpensive plug-in "USB power regenerator" so your USB signal will carry minimum noise. They cost about $200 and are great investment to improve performance of your server and one can hear or do not hear it.

Thank you again Neal - I deeply appreciate your post where I can see confirmation of where I was right or wrong - it is great help.
“ Your grain(y) sound definition doesn't really hold any water for me and I know you haven't heard a Music Vault Diamond …”

Hello Neal,

I auditioned your server about 18 months ago and it was good, actually very good but, not groundbreaking. To be fair I did not like any of the servers on market at that time. Please note that I DID NOT criticize sound of your current server and even in one of the posts suggested not to assume that your current server is equal to that of 2009 as OP or somebody else assumed but should be much better and I recall you answered that I was right.

Two days ago, Enjoy The Music published article by Ryan Mintz where he wrote and I quote:

“The power supply, of course, is the most important element to system performance. However the processing power is the next element that garners large amounts of improvement.“

He is not alone in this thinking. This why I asked you about power capabilities of your CPU as you do not use chassis heatsinks and fans (at least this is what I saw in your ad). You replied that actually you do use a fan (and judiciously so at 9 Hz). On other hand, my 2nd question regarding $100+ Seasonic switching power supply - seems to me greatly irritated you.

I am sorry , I did not mean it but lets clarify what I said. Contrary to your statement I quoted above I did not provided any definition of grainy sound. May be it was mistake but I felt all of us know what is it when we hear it.

Next, I said that some equipment produce more grain, some less grain and some extremely little grain: if you disagree then be so (but sorry anyway).

In bad equipment we hear grain right away. Immediately. On the spot. In 1st second. In good equipment (as I am sure your server is and I never said otherwise) its different - you hear its grain only in comparison, most frequently when your equipment is upgraded. Most of us experienced this phenomenon. When your, say, preamp comes back from upgrade you hear, suddenly, upper midrange & low treble became more “liquid”, more silky, more seductive etc. and you say “I did not realize how the original was grainy”.

Finally, the crust of the matter i.e your power supply, Seasonic: I will repeat: YES, ITS GRAINY, GRAINY & GRAINY as compared to many other non-switching power supplies, some I mentioned. If your mentors at “HP Agilent Power Supply Engineers “ had auditioned , say Empirical Audio Monolith or Redwine (recommended by Chris Connaker for his server) and disapproved their performance and “entertained” - a word you used – its their problem not mine and frankly my dear…. I trust my ears, not theirs...

I deliberately did not compare sound of my server (Musica Pristina, Virtuoso) with current Diamond because it costs more than twice ($4k vs $2k) and thus it would be unfair comparison (very unfair, I believe). On the contrary, I feel it is your great achievement to build the server with decent (yes Seasonic is decent & not bad) power supplies, adequate processor and put it into nicest $80 chassis , price it at below $2k and create very good sound!

Congratulations!

Hopefully, matter is closed