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My thoughts on the HiFi Rose 150B

Well, after the honeymoon wore off I ended sending the HiFiRose 150 back. It boiled down to how I’d use it and it just wasn’t 3k better than my Auralic Aries G1. The Rose is a great piece with tons of features and it sounded great. The video features (RoseTube, Tidal music videos) is certainly cool along with the display and all the other things it can do but streaming Qobuz and Tidal it did one thing noticeably better and that was MQA which I figured it would. My Anthem isn’t MQA certified so using my Auralic USB into it doesn’t give me the full MQA experience but listening to Tidal SD and Qobuz HD/SD it was pretty close. I could have added a TV to my music room to fully enjoy what the Rose does but I have a great movie/video system so it’s not something I was ultimately willing to do. So in the end, I don’t have anything bad to say about the 150, it’s built really well, sounds great and has tons of features but it doesn’t fit my needs.

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Showing 4 responses by mapman

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,853 posts
 

My only issue with NAD m10 is no headphone output.

The Rose all-in-1 Integrated does check all the boxes I think except I read the sound quality is  not quite up with some others. I heard a brief demo on Klipschorns and while not conclusive I did not hear quite what I would like. Maybe some new models will come down the pike. With these new innovative digital centric products the longer one waits the better the choices in most cases.

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,853 posts
 

Regarding why need a touch screen…..why need any of these things? Just because…..

Because that’s the one thing my Cambridge Evo 150 does not have that others do. Oh and a VU meter display mode.  Maybe with future software upgrades 

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,853 posts
 

One difference is Rose is touchscreen, Cambridge is not. That would be a nice added feature. My Cambridge replaces Squeezebox Touch which had touchscreen. NAD, Naim and Rose are 3 these days that do have touchscreen. FWIW. Evo 150 has a very nice remote but I almost always use Cambridge Streammagic on iPhone instead. AirPlay is a very nice streaming option for up to CD resolution. 

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,853 posts
 

Yes nice but overkill perhaps for audio only has been my impression. Seems like the bees knees for a/v fans.

I run a Cambridge Evo 150 and that nails it all pretty well for less $$$  for hifi buffs, including the on-board amplification . Just add speakers. Does have hdmi video input but have not tried that yet.

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