RS130 or RS151, which one?

Hi,
I have DAC LAiV Harmony and Chord TT2.
So, which model I should choose between RS130 and RS151 due to specs compare seem RS151 update more than RS130.

Please help me and give me the reason.
Thanks.

Do you want to use your existing DACs or do you want to also be able to use a DAC in the Rose (in which case you need 151, since 130 doesn’t have one)?

If you believe that one will sound different from the other when using a digital output to an external DAC, well, you should use the more expensive one (Wadax would be good) because those dollars make bits that much more musical!!!1111 :roll_eyes:

I want to used my dac TT2 or Harmony but between RS130 and RS151 which one will be best combination.
I will not used DAC of 151 but due to RS151 update a lot hardware and new os then I hesitate to choose

To this question my importer advised me RS130+RD160 rather than RS151+RD160.

Of course he would. Margins on 130 must be astronomical.

If you spend some time reading these forums, updated software from Rose is not necessarily a good thing.

If you believe that different brands of fiber-optic cable sound different or that generally paying more for less is better, get the 130.

If you want the most flexibility, get a mini PC, which will stream anything to either of your DACs and allow for room correction and other useful things.

If you want something that looks and works like a stereo component, comes with a remote, 151 will work with an external DAC exactly the same as 130, but for less money you also get a perfectly fine DAC that you may end up using, if you feel like it. And it costs a bit less, too.

Really, 150 (or 250, but 250 has a smaller screen, which at least makes for a material difference) would sound exactly the same in your setup but at least the 151 is a current model.

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RS151 et RS130 sont au même coût ici.

That’s what you pay (although here 130 is a few hundred dollars more in the couple of stores I checked). What it costs to produce and what the reseller is charged is quite another thing. The 151 at least has DAC chip(s), op-amps etc. that do cost some real money even in bulk. SFP jacks and other snake oil that 130 adds come from a network supply discount bin and cost pennies. Everything else is pure profit for Rose. Which would’ve been fine if they invested it into some competent programmers. Instead they just tell us that EQ is bad…

If you want to choose a separate streamer and DAC, you might as well go for the RS130/RD160 pair, otherwise the DAC part of the RS151 is useless.

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@Jimbo569 By the way, our deeply revered @StandardModel still hasn’t bothered to share his wisdom on the RS130 + RD160 combo. If I’m not mistaken, he used to run the external DAC LAiV Harmony — so maybe, one day, the oracle will finally speak and bless our humble ears with the truth…

Nice one, you really trolled him there. :eyeglasses:

Vik,

Sadly you are correct. I have been in another home in Ireland where I have a RS 520 but the RS 130 and RD 160 are in the States. I’ll be back after the Summer sojourn later this week. Then I’ll compare. Your memory is correct. I’m currently running three systems there.
The RS 130 to the RD 160.
A FiiO S15 and an RS 250 with the LAiV Dac
A Babyface Pro Dac for a Bacch system.

StandardModel

Come to think of it, Wadax may not be good enough for the eggsperds here – they are to cheap to include those sweet, sweet SFP jacks

But he already has a a Chord (and a Laiv, but that thing is just meh) which is a better DAC that the 160. While I personally would not buy anything from Chord because IMHO their products are terrifyingly ugly and overpriced for no reason, they are competently designed and overdesigned, and would sound the same whether fed by a 130, 151, or a $200 PC.

If you would use your external DAC no matter which one you get then the RS130 would be much better sounding as the transport circuitry is better that in the RS151.

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There is literally no such thing. But that does not stop audiophiles from embarrassing themselves…

Maybe you should not embarrass yourself!! The 131 has better and more isolated power supplies and improvements to the rest of the circuits in the streaming platform. I am a HIFI Rose dealer and if you haven’t heard them side by side maybe you should stay out of the discussion.

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I compared a RS130 and an Eversolo DMP-A8 connected with USB as a transport side by side while they were both reading the same stream from my Roon server. I didn’t hear any difference between the 2 of them. I had the RS130 connected with the XLR digital input. I kept going back and forth between the 2 being fed through the same DAC. I sold the RS130 as I couldn’t justify the cost. Since then, I purchased an Eversolo DMP-A10 and using it as a streaming DAC. It sounds better with the internal DAC than the DAC in my Mark Levinson No 5206 preamp. Rose can only be used as a Roon endpoint. The app is the pits. It’s a bunch of hogwash with your special power supplies. Sorry, I wouldn’t buy another piece of Rose audio equipment in my lifetime. It’s the DAC that makes the biggest difference.

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LOL, now we have Uncle Paulie’s defenders roaming the forum!

Of course anyone listening to whatever that baboon is selling today, with transparent honest eyes of someone having absolutely no idea what he’s talking about, would be stupid enough to believe that a streamer makes sonic difference…

The only difference, really, And even that is questionable for anything that isn’t specifically designed to be inaccurate, whether on purpose (some kind of a Lampizator or something) or sheer incompetence (anything from Uncle Bull McSwindler and the BS Audio company).