I purchased a second-hand Rose three months ago from a very reputable retailer here in the US. I was replacing a Cocktail streamer whose functionality was fine, but it could no longer rip CDs because a) its database license was out of date, and b) the company had gone bankrupt. I had wanted a Rose device to begin with, so I pulled the trigger.
Overall, my opinions are decidedly mixed. But if someone were to ask me, I would recommend against purchasing a Hifi Rose device.
The positives:
The Rose took the place of two devices in my whole-house setup: the aforementioned Cocktail x14 and a Cyrus OneHD receiver. From that standpoint, it has exceeded expectations. I can run the audio out to my Niles distribution amp and no longer have to worry about input switching from afar. To that point, I have a turntable as the RCA in to this amp, and if I forget I’ve been playing a record and start streaming, the Rose switches for me automatically. Fantastic!
And the sound quality is superb, though perhaps a bit clinical. It pushes my in ceiling speakers directly, as well as giving sufficient power to the distribution amp, and I never lack for dynamics even at the lowest volume settings. In fact, I am often playing this at 10-20 or below on the volume.
The onboard UI is terrific, even if a bit laggy at times. That said, there are a lot of places where the steps to perform a given task are cumbersome and unintuitive, and that holds the unit back a bit.
The negatives:
The app is absolute garbage. I have no idea who designed this, but it is clearly centered around streaming apps, which is completely pointless. If people are streaming from Qobuz, Tidal, etc. they will primarily use the native app. No one is coming to your app first to stream from these services. The app should be centered on the storage of local files, or at the very least give you the ability to choose that as a preference. Instead, you have to go six clicks deep to get what you want. The app is stable, which is a plus, but having something this functionally useless be stable isn’t exactly saying much.
The device fails to store metadata properly, when it even recognizes it, which it fails to do often when ripping. And then it fails to sort and index properly by the metadata it does have, and you cannot search solely on the device. So I have hundreds of incorrect entries in my database, and now it is pulling them all separate from the intended sort factor. When you can store 2TB of files, that is a HUGE problem that is seemingly being ignored, or at least underplayed.
You cannot use DLNA or UPnP with this device. You can access the device from a PC, but these tools simply don’t work, even though there are a couple Rose claims as partners. I’ve tested them, and they fail. Meaning you have the Rose app… and no other option.
These latter negatives overwhelm what is undoubtedly a stellar playback device. It is a shame that it appears so little user research has gone into the app, and so much input from their online community goes seemingly ignored. Whereas the folks at Novatron who built the Cocktail were downright rude to me as an interested customer, Rose appears to just be apathetic.
