To whom it may concern,
I thought this topic deserved a thread for visibility within Rose. (I hope this provides someone else the level of information I was looking for when coping with this issue.)
I purchased a brand new Rose 150b in Dec 2023 and in retrospect the unit had a software or hardware problem with the network interface from the beginning.
The device consistently dropped music and I spent 10 months and a lot of money trying to isolate the issue to the rose.
I have recently confirmed the issue was with the rose, and I’m disappointed in Hifi Rose and the way this was handled.
This issue could (and should) have been diagnosed from your end much earlier based on my initial reports - especially since there have been many reports of similar issues from other customers. your team should have pulled diags or provided some support - but I was left to deal with it myself. So I did the work on my own.
here’s a recap of the issue timeline:
Dec 2023 - March 2024
- When the Rose was first hooked up I did notice a couple of song skips right away - but I attributed this to initial config/break-in/etc. I didnt have any reason to think there was an issue.
- As far as I can remember the Rose was pretty stable for the first few months of use (Dec 2023-April 2024). I don’t remember major issues during this time. (This was also almost universally streaming MQA which has lower performance requirements - which, in retrospect was probably why there werent any major problems)
March/April 2024 - Summer 2024
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The drops began at some point between March and April of 2024 - however the error on the Roon was “Tidal loading slowly” - so I had no reason to suspect any particular components. Anything could have been causing it. (I have a 1 gig ethernet pipe from Verizon and the network thats dedicated for audio streaming maintains 600mbps+ download speeds - so there shouldnt have been any bandwidth limitations)
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I did eventually reach out to both Roon and Rose support
- The first Rose support thread I initiated is here (from May 2024): https://community.roseaudio.kr/t/dropouts-when-streaming-lossless-format/871
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I also opened multiple issues with Roon support.
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I believe this is the time when Tidal and Qobuz switched from MQA to Lossless FLAC as their standard - (this may have been the main catalyst due to larger buffering requirements.)
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I received some recommendations for testing out different methods like connecting the Rose directly to the router - but the issues would reappear.
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Over this period of about 2 months music skips were somewhat consistent, and I would follow a routine of power cycling everything, or rebooting, unplugging and I would eventually get it stable.
Summer 2024 - Present
- At some point over the summer it became so bad that I purchased a USB cable to connect the Roon to the Rose over USB, This method always worked, and became my main listening method. I would switch back to ethernet from time to time because the sound was better. I would just always take some effort to get it stable.
- By February of 2025, having just purchased a new upgraded ethernet switch (thinking this may finally fix the issue)- the drops did not stop and became so frequent I had to perform a factory reset of the Rose every days to use ethernet.
- I had also received remote diagnostics from Roon support which showed the drops were occurring when the Roon was attempting to send ethernet packets to the Rose. The Rose was suffering a buffer overflow and could not handle the traffic. At this point the Roon would skip to the next track.
- *** This is the point where I finally knew the Rose was the bottleneck- but I needed to bypass it to prove it*
(I also did finally hear from Mofi’s Rose support team on the issue, they have the issue documented in ticket # 10509)
Steps I took over time to attempt to resolve the issue:
I probably spent at least 50 hours and $1k over 9 months trying to figure out the root cause - considering how many variables were in play it was a lengthy task without direct support from the vendors.
Steps I took:
- power cycling and rebooting
- upgrading firmware
- trying different streaming services (I signed up for Qobuz to test)
- Purchased new ethernet cables.
- Purchased a high-end ethernet switch
- Tried multiple network configurations to bypass every component (cables, roon, switch)
When I had finally exhausted every possibility it became apparent the Rose was at fault. The only test I wasnt able to run was bypassing the Rose.
I was finally loaned a 250a to test and the entire system fell into place and worked seamlessly. What a difference.
Thankfully we did it the right way and kept the environment constant (my setup) and switched out the suspect device (my Rose).
After a few days of stress testing the Rose 250a, I’m happy (relatively speaking) to report that it was completely issue free. What a pleasure to be able to stream music and never have any drops or skips, (and not to have to worry that bumping into it or breathing on it wrong might disturb the music stream…lol)
Here are the tests I ran over the weekend:
Usage testing:
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Streamed for approx 8-9 hoursover 3 days and nights. Used the Roon as the Tidal streamer. (different genres of music and resolution - focused on 96 +)
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The Rose / Roon / Internet router were all connected to the English Electric 8 switch via ethernet.
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I switched between the turntable and the Rrose at least10 times throughout the duration of testing to simulate normal activity.
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I left the Rose in standby mode overnight, and switched to standby mode sometimes during turntable use.
Volatility testing:
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pulled the power chord out of the switch to cause an unexpected network shutdown, and then powered back up. Playing the Rose immediately after it came back online.
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shut down and rebooted the Roon Nucleus. (Playing the Rose abut 10 minutes after it came back online.)
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I messed around with the Rose app during playback (tried different displays and VU meters and left Rose app open and closed.)
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Lots of switching between songs, playlists, genres.
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Sudden song stops, restarts, replacements, etc…
The 250a was stable throughout.
Note - Under any of these scenarios my 150b’s network input would become unusable until I switched to USB or performed a factory reset
Rose distribution claimed it wasnt your issue, and that its never happened before, but using simple google searches its easy to find multiple issues raised with the Rose 150b relating to network stability. (And btw I wouldnt expect any device that runs software to be “issue free” - I sell software for a living and issues are inevitable. The true measure in the value of the product is how quickly the issues can be identified and resolved.)
here’s a few random 150b network issues raised by other people over the past 3 years:
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/problem-with-my-rose-150-b/post?postid=2509136
Next Steps
Now that we have identified the Rose has had a technical issue of some sort from the beginning (network card, firmware, memory leak, could be a lot of things I guess), I had hoped Rose would take appropriate measures to resolve it.
All the distributor is willing to do is replace with another 150b in silver (mine was black). This unit is now depricated in favor of the RS151, so if this is the best they do, it will mean I paid $5k US for a brand new Rose and neverexperienced a brand new working Rose. And now I’m getting an old deprecated replacement as a ”solution”.
I had hoped Hifi Rose would step up and at the very least provide me with the updated RS151 so I can have the experience I expected and paid for and the greater performance. But no. Not only was Rose not able to diagnose and support me until it was too late, now they are treating me like a burden.
I really liked the unit when it was functioning. It’s impressive and the quality of playback is top notch. But what am I supposed to do when a Vendor doesnt stand behind their product? or isnt able to provide adequate support?
I have gone out of my way to promote and praise the Rose on my audio focused Instagram account - and I do believe that it is (or could be) a great unit. But this whole experience has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. I am surprised an up and coming vendor in the hifi space wouldnt do more to help the customer experience and would be satisfied with this outcome.
But I have received your final word, and after a year of a malfunctioning 150b and all the angst that came along with it - I am being sent another 150b (in the wrong color and which is now deprecated in favor of the 151 which has essential fixes) as a remedy, instead of providing me with the experience of owning a functioning “new” Rose.
It is my last hope that someone from Rose headquarters see’s the issues I went through and allows me the opportunity to exchange my defective unit for the RS151 - so I can have the experience I paid for. Otherwise, I will have to accept the replacement deprecated 150b as Hifi Rose’s final say in the matter.
I understand it is nobody’s responsibility to go a little above and beyond - I had hoped maybe my case warranted it. But whatever the outcome I will accept it graciously and move forward.