Fully agree with you -
I was One of the first customers in Denmark ( Europe)
And I knew I was on a Journey together with the Korean start up, I have had NAIM before, but much prefer the HI-FI Rose 150, I have tried different external DAC’s, but I still return to standard,
I have had great support on this forum -
Reading Duffy’s post - I imagine he will never be satisfied….
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I think many of the items raised in this chat are similar to all universal streamer systems. Especially those that are not a closed eco-system. Hifi Rose products, like the RS150b, are unique on the market for what it offers. I could not find another product to match the range of features, sound quality and flexibility. I am sure we all bought it and use it for different reasons / use case. Managing a product with this range of features and flexibility is incredibly difficult. There are certain things it could do better, relative to other products, but as an overall package there is really nothing else I could find that compares for my use case. Finding the right balance of trade-offs is a decision we will all have to make for ourselves. If the product is not right for you that is unfortunate but I don’t think that is a basis to question the commitment of a company who is pioneering a new product into a highly demanding market and doing an good enough job that other manufacturers are taking notice and playing catch up. Will be interesting to see in 5 years whether Hifi Rose has maintained their position or if others overtake them.
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Agreed!
I for one am of the same take as Morebeach. Jeep & Melm in that I was a relatively early adopter of their kit as soon as it was available (the RS250) in the UK and I too feel I am on a journey with HiFi Rose and have have-not disappointed to date.
No one at the time offered such a complete audio source solution package with a fantastic display and ticked all the boxes for me with decent in built apps and a control app to boot.
I guess given they are relatively new company along with the complexity of the software and hardware there are hobby elements to it that will evolve over time to perhaps become serious functions with regard to these “nice to have” features folk request to be implemented.
Though I agree it can be an expensive hobby so expectations will be high but I am happy to go stick with them as they seem to iron out most problems given time (even if not in the time scales some folk expect which I get) plus nothing seems to be catastrophic which prevents me from listening to the music one way or another. They also come across a genuine and willing to try and please the customers (I mean at least they have this forum where everyone can voice their opinion happy or un happy which is a good sign of honesty). Again the fact that this forum exists kind of gives it that hobby element feel which I don’t mind at all like an open source product where we can all try to get the stuff we want added and more importantly – working.
Music also sounds pretty damn decent to me on the RS250. I am not a heavy user of the features and have no interest in Roon or other streaming services of the like which is probably why my expectations are not quite so high or encounter as many issues. I love internet radio, and playing my own music from the installed hard drive on the RS250 or other networked drives. Rosetube is a blast and no adverts!!!
I would have rather they had put a 6.3mm headphone jack on the front though rather than a 3.5mm as a hardware whinge but no big deal.
My only concern is if and when something does go wrong with the hardware that needs it to be returned and if that means it has to go all the way back to Hifi Rose south Korea as they the only folk who can fix their kit which then means all the customs and duty paper work crap- So I would hope in such instances their distributors would front and handle all that for the customer. As you say time will tell on how successful Hifi Rose are and I wish them well on staying the course based on their current offerings
I think it depends how you use it. For me I have ssd drive plugged in the bottom with 20000 songs and I use apple airplay for any new music I want to listen to. Works great, never had an issue.
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Are here people getting paid to give positive comments?
- The rescan time of the device is a joke for collectors of CD’s.
- A shuffle feature which is amateurish is not on.
- A non existing proper folder structure is bad in anybodies book! When I want to play one CD of a box set then I don’t want to play all 4 CD’s.
So, you think these are unreasonable requests??? I’d say you do not understand what a good streamer should do
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A Streamer should stream and sound good - not manage your entire Music Database as a primary function, because other applications do just better. Same goes for Ripping CD’s. A device with no built in CD Drive is probably not made for this specific function. (Even it would work)
I can agree, that you are not happy with the device - but why don’t you just change it with something that meets your needs?
I created my structure the way I wanted on my NAS. I ripped all my CDs on my PC, did a manual tagging to make sure that I get the best result in quality. And once you have done manual tagging, you will soon find out, that this is not so easy to do.
I got Roon to get additional meta data out of my collection.
So honestly, I don’t care how the built in things do work.
And NO, I’m not paid by Rose - but Yes, I’m happy with my Streamer.
Everything works for me, and I can enjoy my music.
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That really depends on how you want to use the device. Bluesound can scan the library much faster, ,but once you get past a trivial number of tracks, it’s still a pain to actually use it to play something you want. With an external management tool like Roon, Rose is really good (and at least unlike BluOS, Rose does not break compatibility with every other firmware upgrade). YOu just need to use things for what they are designed for.
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I’ve done all the tagging and the images with the help of dbPoweramp - so no problem there. On my NAS the structure is like that:
Artist name or Band -
Name of Album -
List of Songs
And all the streamers I’ve had so far understand that! ROSE wants you to have:
Artist or Name of Band - Name of Album -
List of Songs
This is bloody BS then you have 3000 or so Names in one long list!!! Totally impractical
I do agree that ROSE needs to get external software engineers in to sort their amateurish software out as otherwise they will loose a lot of customers, but I think they don’t give a damn 
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That’s a hugely fallacious argument about Rose streamers made precisely to be much more than just a streamer !!
Otherwise Rose Streamers would not have internal ssd, usb ports, and card slots to manage local music library !!
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I agree 100%. All I hear is excuses so far. There are so many shortcomings, but to me it seems some people are just sticking their head in the sand 
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Who are you calling amateur here really? Is this how you get things done by professionals; calling them amateurs?
The payoff from Rose for me is that I notice they actually listen to me. Other than that I’m one of those amateur companies who sold a couple of tens of my own modifications. I know what I’m doing but it doesn’t pay anything anywhere satisfactory or fair. So I understand what it takes to find errors and fix things. I also have a good understanding of my limitations.
Hiring ‘professionals’ is the beginning of the end. They don’t care about anyone but their bank account.
The word amateur should be considered high praise because it means you do something because you love it. But then again, I don’t suppose you ever learned French, did you?
I’d rather be an amateur than a professional asshole. It takes a special kind of person to like that level of professionalism I guess. Or a professional troll.
What are you getting payed btw?
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Have you ever heard of a ‘file manager’? Or a tag and rename function? You can now even use the new file manager the Rose team has integrated. Although it’s easier to do that organising from your network. Or rip on your pc. Because then you are in control of the software instead of having to push your demands on the whole world.
Follow the stream, and as you go, you will reach the mouth, peacefully.
(I guess I wrote my first haiku?)
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I don’t know how I can explain to you, but I am trying again.
Firstly, the tagging and the images I sort out on the PC. And I’ve done this for years! So no problem there. Also, every streamer I’ve had so far understood my (logical) folder structure. The way ROSE has implemented theirs is for people with a few hundred songs and not for people with libraries of 40000+ songs!
Secondly, the shuffle feature is important to many users. Now, my Olive 4HD could manage to shuffle my 20000+ tracks 12 years ago with no problem. The ROSE can’t shuffle as the 3000 songs it selects from the first letters of the alphabet. That is amateurish.
Thirdly, the rescan feature to take hours brings us back to the Microsoft DOS days! Really? Maybe you do live in a different century?
Sorry, but unless we change their understanding they will fall behind their competitors in a short time.
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So, from what I can understand from your writing, and my own experience is:
When you use the Rose to rip a cd it places the contents in a single, unbranched, folder named
%artist% - %album%/ % #% - %title%
And we want it to be
%albumartist% or %artist%/%date% - %album%/ % #%-%title%
We’ll, at least that’s how I would do it to remain the right chronological order of albums.
To be honest I hate the shuffle function even for cd’s. Not to mention mixing AC/DC ‘Highway to hell’ with Bach’s ‘Ostermesse’ Oh Jesu, meine Freude’. Anyone using shuffle is not listening or totally mindless. Try using shuffle on an audio book!
It’s also IMHO a vestigial function of the first MP3 players invented by IT geeks instead of music lovers. It’s like a wooden cartwheel on a Tesla.
Every time I think my music app is malfunctioning I accidentally tapped that #&%* shuffle button.
That said, a random function should be able to pick from anywhere in the database. It’s a bit like ‘Ye olde’ y2k problem.
Just recently the SMB access has been updated to SMB2. The Rose team is addressing issues and updating known problems one by one. Which is the right way to go. As we speak I am preparing to test for myself how long it takes to do a rescan. Iirc last time it took a few seconds.
It might have to do with the ssd speed. I bought a fast and reliable one with this in mind.
Edit: it took just over 20 minutes for just under ½ a TB. I put a lot of sacd iso’s on it. They usually take longer. I think this is acceptable under 2h even if my 2TB were full. But faster would be nice.
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Some of the comments on here are at best laughable. Hifi Rose only launched in 2017/18 and some of their products are already blowing away established brands which have been around for 50+ years. The innovation and disruption they are bringing to the sector is commendable.
I’m not saying there cannot be improvements in both software and technical support but jeez, give them a chance and they will deliver. Feedback is essential and if after 12 months the position has not improved and feedback not addressed, move on to the next manufacturer.
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If you want something steady, maybe HiFi Rose isn’t really for you.
A startup will never be able to deliver something that is stable enough for daily driving, that is for sure given other startups in other markets.
Though a startup will provide something state of the art to the market, be it something that could get revolutionary or something that does not follow the traditional mindset. I think that’s pretty much what HiFi Rose is doing with their products.
I have to say though, HiFi Rose isn’t really that bad, there are much worse products from more popular brands, such as Denon (sorry for defaming but I can’t really stand them anymore to be honest), Marantz and Cambridge especially the Evo series.
If you have a huge library of music, clearly a streamer isn’t for that. It’s a streamer because it streams, it is not designed to take care of your collection. There are products designed for that. Such as Innuos Zenith, Roon Nucleus, Bluesound Vault. Heck you can even use a Mac Mini with Roon, without a doubt way better than with a streamer.
About the VU meter, I highly don’t recommend putting too much expectations onto it, if you really want a good-looking one, get a tube amplifier with VU meters, analogue meters are always better than a digital one especially if the digital one is done in software.
Now, okay, sure, the music queueing system is a complete joke but remember, HiFi Rose is a startup. There always will have some flaws but they will definitely fix them as their products become more mature over time, just have patience.
At the end,
HiFi Rose is a startup company, it has definitely provided something revolutionary to the audiophile market (heck! I never seen an Android integrated amplifier and its cheaper and performs better than a Evo 75), but it also has brought many flaws to the products itself (such as the music queueing mechanism, the stability etc)
HiFi Rose is still in its early years, you as an early adopter shouldn’t be holding too much expectation of what they will deliver to us. Give them a little bit more time. They will be forced to fix those issues eventually if they want to continue with the brand.
If you want something steady and stable, haha wrong brand mate, just pay up and get a Cambridge lmao. clearly you went to the wrong place for that.
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While I appreciate your perspective and opinions I would like to share with you that HifiRose is far from a startup. The parent company has been around for decades and focuses on touch kiosks as the main source of revenue. Much of the tech built into the Hifi Rose 150b comes from the decades of experience that Citec has gained through engineering and human factors experience. I would venture to guess that many of the core folks who are with the HifiRose division have worked at one time or another on the mainstream products for Citec. So I disagree that this is a niche company with little resources and lack the experience to handle big problems because they are just starting out. That is just not the case. Big company, with lots of resources and experience in the software and hardware development of screen driven devices designed for human interaction. Just sayin…
Now the question again is Hifi Rose a hobby for Citec or are they going to make a real go of it. If Citec wants to make a go of it they need to invest in real customer service and technical support and they need to NOT use their users as beta testers.
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Exactly my point! As the company is the leader in the kiosk technology (by the way one of the reasons I did buy my 250), therefore they should be able to react must faster.
I had a similar discussion three years ago with representatives von Naim. In the end they had to admit that they only had 8 software engineers doing their software for the digital units. I was shocked and knew there was no further point to complain!
Is there a similar situation at ROSE?….
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Agree with @duffer5 and @Bruab.
But Citech acquires sound specialty company KEVIC in 2022 for its broadcast, acoustics business.
https://bit.ly/404zdV8
(I suggest you scratch the text and try to translate that article).
So I don’t think the kiosk specialists are working on Rose.
I’m cautiously assuming it’s a collaboration between KEVIC’s acoustics engineers and Citech’s touchscreen engineers.
I’ve been voicing my opinion here for a while now, but don’t think of it as a traditional hi-fi machine with a few knobs and no controls other than volume or power switch.
ROSE is a giant Android machine optimized to play music.
Control is also done via a large touchscreen and an App installed on various devices, so the user experience has to be consistent and intuitive.
An engineer’s role should be just that: an engineer.
Design, usability, and operability are another realm.
ROSE’s interface is a labyrinth: somewhat complex and obsessed with playlists.
DB issues and convoluted navigation are surprisingly easy to solve with the help of outside experts.
I also find it hard to accept the comment that people can’t understand listening to music randomly or selecting songs from 3000+ songs.
If you have a DB structure that indexes meta-information and fetches minimal information sequentially on each request, it’s hard to say that 3000 songs is the limit, which is a basic skill for anyone who has dabbled in SQL.
If someone has a large music collection, should they use TIDAL or ROON?
I’m not a fan of random playback either, where I’m listening to Highway Star and then Mahler’s 5th.
But you also have to take into account the vast majority of people who have classical or rock collections of over 3000 songs and don’t use paid streaming like TIDAL or ROON.
I don’t feel the need to pay for those platforms, I’m just making demands that I wish my machine had after buying a ROSE.
ROSE is not a machine with 4 buttons: volume, bass, travel, and power.
The majority of users here are not asking to drill a hole in the machine and put another mid-bass knob on it.
This is because the ROSE is a new level of machine that could use an OS upgrade to fix a number of issues and provide a more fruitful user experience.
Thanks for reading this long humble post and I’m off to upgrade my macOS.
Ryan
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