A very Practical Bluetooth Monoblock Amplifier

The Vera-fi Veralink is an innovative solution in the world of audio amplification, offering a compact and efficient way to transform your speakers into wireless units. Designed to work seamlessly with Bluetooth transmitters, the Veralink makes for a versatile and convenient addition to your audio setup.

Priced at $199, the Veralink promises to deliver an exception audio experience, particularly when paired with easy-to-drive speakers like the Vanguard Scout.

So lets get into the details of what you can expect with the Veralink-amp

Packaging and Accessories

The packaging of the Veralink-amp is straightforward, ensuring the amplifiers are well-protected and easy to set up.

Opening the box you can see the protective packaging:

Then the manual:

And then the 2 separate mono-blocks carefully packaged:

Each Monoblock includes some doublesided sticky tape to allow them to be attached to your speakers:

Underneath the Mono-blocks are the cables and power supplies:

Included in the package are the following accessories:

Which consists of:

• Power Supply: Two power adapters for the amplifiers.
• Cables: For easy attachment to the back of your speakers.
• Power leads: For each monoblock
• User Manual: Comprehensive manual with setup and usage instructions.

Setup

The Veralink-amplifiers are designed with practicality in mind. They are incredible simple to setup, here is an individual one with all the cables connected:

Then you simply use the double-sided stick tape to attach the Amplifier to the back of your speaker in a suitable location:

While there is just about enough space on the back of the Vanguard Scout, I did also try them with some larger speakers:

Power

While not the most powerful amplifiers each monoblock delivers 50W of exceptional clear sound. When paired with the right speakers, especially with the Vanguard Scout speakers, but they worked well with most of my speakers, though they did seem to struggle with my much harder to drive LS50 Meta speakers.

I think the size of these little mono-blocks is exceptional, here they are compared to some of my other Monoblocks:

That is a Schiit Audio Aegir 2 monoblock which itself is only rated to 50W into 4Ohms, so technically a similar power rating to the Veralink-Amp, though the Aegir 2 is a class A Amplifier and is really in a different performance league to either the Fosi Audio or the Veralink-Amp. The other Monoblock is a Fosi Audio V3 Mono which is about twice the size of the Veralink-Amp and is too big to ‘hide’ behind your speaker.

Bluetooth Connectivity Recommendation

So the ingenious technical feature to the Veralink-amp is that they work like a True Wireless Set (like Airpods Pro) where the Left and Right bluetooth signals are separated at source and sent separately but synchronised perfectly to both monoblocks. Therefore, compared to most bluetooth enabled Amplifiers you do no need cables between the 2 speakers. My wife who hates speaker cables being visible, loved this approach.

So obviously you can then use your smartphone bluetooth to send audio to the speakers, but I would highly recommend a different approach. Mostly modern Streamers even cheap streamers like the WiiM Mini have bluetooth output options, where you pair the Veralink-Amp within the streamer and then can switch whenever you want (or have it permanently set to Bluetooth).

Here is my WiiM Mini with the Veralink-amp paired and set as the output:

All similar streamers, including the Wiim Amp has optional bluetooth output that is compatible with the Veralink-amp, so it provides a versatile solution for a second listening space, like the A/B Zone outputs on a traditional home Stereo Receiver except without the need for cables.

This has 3 huge advantages over using just your smartphone for streaming audio to your speakers:

1. Bluetooth’s connection stability
   I believe a significant amount of the bad press that bluetooth gets is because as you move around your house (maybe to make a cup of tea) while listening to bluetooth often causing the bluetooth connection to get unstable and sound bad. Older Bluetooth implementations were also terrible at recovering their bandwidth even when you went back to your seat. Having a fixed bluetooth source (i.e. the Streamer) and a fixed destination (the Veralink-amps) means this will never be a problem, it will continue to sound great all evening.
2. Music Continues to play even when you get a call on your smartphone
3. Can play music even when you are not in your house

Audio Impressions

I found Veralink-Amp provided a mostly neutral tuning as any good monoblock should do, not colouring the output instead letting the music and the connected speakers shine. But like most Class D amplifiers when paired with a harder to drive speaker, it will show some load dependency issues which can lead to some treble issues. Thankfully this mainly happens with speakers with more exotic tweeters e.g. AMT tweeters and therefore was not a problem when pairing with the Vanguard Scott.

Therefore, when paired with the Vanguard Scout you can expect a neutral sound where the Vanguard Scott exception midrange will shine.

Specifications

Here are the published specifications for the Vera-fi Veralink:

Note: one minor complaint I have is the lack of a second input on the monoblocks. I understand the purpose is to remove cable ‘vomit’ (as Darko would call it) but it would have been a nice extra option if each Monoblock had a mono input cable option.

Rating

I have given the Veralink-amp a very pragmatic 4-star rating. It is a very clever solution to a those situations where you can’t run wires, or you are under pressure from your “significant other” to not have cables yet want to enable for example a second listening space.

My only 2 minor complaints (and I understand both of these are due to size constraints) would be that it was a bit more powerful and that each monoblock had an option to plug in a mono cable.

I would recommend everyone who is looking at a multiroom setup have a pair a Veralink-Amp, especially if you are investing in a Streamer with bluetooth output options.

Conclusion

The Vera-fi Veralink is an excellent solution for those looking to add wireless capability to their audio setup without breaking the bank. While it may not be the best choice for harder-to-drive speakers, it performs admirably with models like the Vanguard Scout.

Its compact design, ease of use, and solid performance make it a highly recommended product for anyone looking to streamline their audio experience.