I will (not) return my RS130…

ROSE Products RS130
#1

After a week experience with the Ultimative Network Transport Hifi Rose RS130 I am disillusioned.

This is definitely NOT the Ultimative Network Transport, probably it looks like, but the software destroy’s everything.

What are the problems? I will mention only the real important things (for me):

  • Most critical: DB scan lasts forever, we are talking of many hours or days, depending on the size of your music library. The worst thing is that Re-Scan has a (much) longer duration than the endless first scan. And you have to disable standby, because otherwise the scan will stop when standby mode is activated (which happens despite active DB-Scan / Re-Scan). Imagine: You add a new album to your media library and you have to wait a day or more to listen to it. And during this time you have to switched on all your depending devices. This is ridiculous and absolute unusable.

  • Rose Connect / Rose App: The user experience is really bad and has a lot of bugs. Following some examples:

    • UI is not for music lovers, is does not support intuitive use a music lover is expecting
    • thumbnails quality is bad or distorted, dependig on the choosen view (most noticeable on the playback view)
    • bad or even missing translations (German)
    • Rose Connect for Windows is very slow, which surprises because iOS / Android apps are much more responsive (within the same network)
    • a lot of bugs and software quirks, e.g.
      • display artist albums > view all - sometimes it works, sometimes not, and why the hell it is on the bottom of the artist view, so you have to scroll all the way down to see all albums of a artist???
      • some settings are not stored permanently (e.g. Country Channel Option)
      • search criteria very rudimentarily and confusing - why All, 88.2Khz, 176.4Khz, please all sampling frequencies or none), and many more…

My Summary:
Hifi Rose Streamer or devices with integrated streamers are not recommendable, at least for users who using Rose Connect / Rose App ONLY (for alternative software ONLY e.g. ROON it’s probably acceptable, but only for them). This is a shame, because Hifi Rose devices (and the RS130 particularly) are so well build, have such a unique design (huge touch display) and promising hardware inside. But in the price range of RS130 it’s not acceptable to deliver such a worse software & UI for the customer. I have to return my RS130 with a heavy heart…

3 Likes
#2

I think I agree. Can’t get over how unfinished the software feels.

#3

I removed the RS130 of my setup, back to Auralic Aries G2. DB rescan 10 minutes for 83000 files, Rose 130 DB scan for the same network folder cancelled after 18 hours.

Rose SW guys - read this, you should cancel EVERYTHING you are working to fix the DB scan problem instead of ANY other feature or bugfixing!

I am software developer for critical finance systems, but your SW is nowhere near as good as your hardware - please, please focus your resources on this, otherwise you will have absolutely no chance against the competition, and this would be a shame, because your hardware is exceptional!

4 Likes
#4

I can’t disagree with any of this, but I’m keeping my RS130. It’s a great piece of hardware, with unfinished software. But if one is willing to use something else (in my case mConnect with MinimServer), the SW can be ignored. Probably not an answer that will suit everyone, but it works for me until or if Rose ever gets their SW done.

I can see, though, Rose taking a big hit in this pricey market space if they don’t get their SW act together. There are too many other choices in this space with much more mature SW, if someone wanted to look at something else.

2 Likes
#5

I can follow your arguments, it’s a decision everyone has to choose for himself. But I am not willing to buy such expensive peace of kit which just delivers exiting hardware and (in my believing) will never deliver competitive software (DB scan problems exists since beginning of ROSE OS, so they are not able or not willing to solve the problem).

I have a ROON lifetime license so I can overlook this software problem. But as a software developer I can’t ignore this massive and probably persistent flaw, but that’s just my way of looking at the ROSE software situation.

1 Like
#6

Hello,
For your information, scanning my 156599 files takes about 5 hours. My library is on a 14 terrabyte external USB disk.

#7

Ok, that’s a external disk, not a network folder. Roon needs less a minute for rescan of my network folder, you got it? I got for the first scan 3 hours for 83000 files. But rescan is completely buggy. I am not willing to delete the Rose Media DB, detach / attach the network folder again, start a new DB Scan, wait at least 3 hours for finishing DB-Scan to access a new album of my music library. Oh, I forgot - I have to disable standbye and should avoid to switch off all the depending devices. You don’t care about?

Sorry about my sarcasm, but the ROSE OS software is a piece of crap, it’s absolutely not competitive for the price point of the RS130.

But if you have a great experience with your ROSE device & software, nice for you - my expectations for a nearly € 5000 device are not delivered.

1 Like
#8

All depends on your expectations and how you want to use it. As a self-contained unit containing a large local collection it is woefully inadequate. Even a tiny Bluesound Flex xpesaker can index my collection faster. Although it definitely does not take days to index my 50+K files. Only hours.

With Roon it works perfectly fine, definitely fewer issues with updates breaking compatibility than BluOS has (Rose isn’t exactly unique in pushing updates that break things), and I like eshtetics and ergonomics of the unit when used that way.

Having said that I still fail to see what is the point of the RS130 specifically, let alone of paying more than what RS250, which will do everything that 130 does, just better, costs…

#9

For me it’s not only the expectation, it’s the general trust into the manufacturer of the product. Scanning of the media library and providing the music via intuitive UI to the user is the key feature of a streamer, beside the sound quality. And seriously, you are really happy with hours of rescan after adding one album to your media library?

Regarding rescan: It never comes to end in my setup with Rose RS130, latest duration I was waiting before cancelling was 18 hours, my NAS shows always traffic of a few megabytes. And rescan shows no progress, just waiting (genius UI design). A new scan has a duration of 3 hours, but needs deleting Database, de/re-atach of network folder, start DB-Scan, deactivate standby and switch on of all depending devices. Thank you, HiFi Rose…

Again, I can use ROON and forgive HiFi Rose their incompetency in SW development, but I can’t …. Enjoy your HiFi Rose equipment!

#10

I would not be happy if I cared about it.But I don’t. I did not see any specific promises about scan performance before buying, so there’s nothing to be disappointed with either.

Although interestingly, rescan does complete on both of my systems. Slowly, but it does, so there might be some problem with your setup.

And if you refuse to use any equipment with incompetent software, well, good luck finding something that suits you. Maybe Sonos, they are a software company after all…

#11

You must be very unlucky with your hardware purchases in the past. All my music stuff I bought in the past (and I am a music lover since a teenager) was better in User experience and concerning digital components in software.

I could not really believe that you are so happy with your Hifi Rose system, but I don’t know which equipment you own before. But trust me, there is a lot of digital stuff out there with much, much better software and user experience!

Regarding my setup, I have a lot of digital equipment (SAT-Receiver, SmartTV, Smartphones, Streamers, Laptops, PC) which are using my network to access my (ultra-responsive, overpowered 10G Synology NAS), none of them has any performance issues. I don’t think my Rose setup has one, because the first DB scan is in line with your (still slow) scan speed. But the Re-Scan never works like the first scan, on the same network setup. So what is your idea, where the problem could be?

1 Like
#12

Never really had any issues with McIntosh or top of the line Denon and Yamaha products. Mark Levinson headphones are quite flaky on the other hand. And a NAD streamer kept breaking Roon compatibility in various interesting ways. Back it went, to be replaced by RS520 that, for my usage works perfectly well (why is it that I don’t get logged out of Qobuz, rescan finishes, Rose Account stays logged in etc.?!) and looks better, too.

Did you have any problems using Roon to play to Rose? I don’t think so. Sure, if Samsung decides too kill off Roon I might need to start looking at alternatives, but it would still be something server-based anyway. While it does pain me professionally that the music catalog implementation is so hare-brained (you could find something open source much better than that; and my old Drobo box with Media Tomb server could catalog a collection faster, despite having a 15 years old phone CPU), it does not affect my usage.

Do you know any other device that would be a Roon Ready streamer with same size screen, similar functionality, and not costing significantly more? I could cobble together something out of an RPi, touchscreen and a standalone DAC, but I have better things to do with my time…

Not offhand, but on my setup (less overprowered Synology on a single 1Gb link, and running my Roon server in the meanwhile) completes a DB Rescan of about 55K tracks by now in 4-5 hours (never timed it precisely, but it is in this range. Are you using SMB2 with optimized settings?

#13

Roon works fine, but from a € 4800 device I am expecting a own competitive software solution, but that’s just my imagination.

My Synology NAS logs SMB2 for the user I use on Rose Connect App for the network share. I can do a first scan within 3 hours. Next scan will last forever (I cancel the scan after 18 hours). So how could you explain the different behavior between first scan and rescan. For sure not my setup…

Probably I will give the RS130 a last test directly attached to the same switch as the Synology NAS, but my hope is very low, all my other digital devices are working very fast regardless how connected to the network.

#14

Makes me wonder… could the difference be that I initiate the (re)scan from the front panel, not from Rose Connect?..

Do you see any connections on Synology coming from the device itself?

#15

I did a factory reset and started a new (first) DB scan, duration 3h8m. Then I added 3 music albums to my music library on the attached network folder and started a DB rescan. So let’s see what happens, but I am not optimistic, because network traffic on Synology is around 1MB/s, which is much less as during the first scan (around 4 to 8 MB/s). That would explain the endless duration of DB-Rescan. Let’s wait a few hours…

Another extremely negative side effect of DB-Rescan: During DB-Rescan the Rose Music Library is reset, so no album are shown on Rose Connect App, but only on the physical device where the DB-Rescan was started, on other devices with installed Rose Connect App the albums are still visible.

Oh Rose guys, you made it so difficult to fall in love to your products… :frowning_face:

#16

Maybe there is a difference by this players. I have the 150b with a build in 4tb
When I made a rescan of the DB, the Player works as usual with all Covers etc.

A new record, before or in the meantime of the rescan I Play over the folders

Perhaps this helps you

#17

And did you start the rescan on the same device you control your music, and on this device you have during rescan still all music available/ visible?

I have Rose Connect App installed on my Android Phone and on my iPad, start the rescan on the iPad - on the iPad all music is gone (have to use the folder view), on the Android Phone all music still available.

And does your rescan work, I mean does it come to an end and if yes, what’s the duration (and how big is your music library)?

#18

Yes, no Problems here

Have you all updates, also on the iPad?

#19

You have only make a „rescan“ on /storage/ROSEDISK

#20

I use no local disk, my music is on a attached network folder. So sadly you can’t give me an advice from your own experience.