Did you buy direct from Roon?
Roon Support, or lack thereof
Nucleus Plus went offline a couple weeks ago at less than a year old. Went looking for Roon support but there is no contact info for phone, chat, email etc. Instead, you are supposed to post your issue on the "Roon Labs Community" website where they expect other members of the Roon community to actually do the troubleshooting rather than they themselves getting involved. I found a wonderful guy who helped me troubleshoot and came to the conclusion that the box was dead. I waited another day or so for someone from Roon to notice and when they did not, I went to a different thread, got the contact info for a Roonie who was helping someone else and private messaged him. It took another few days for them to finally issue an RMA. I just found out they had to replace the motherboard under warranty.
I find this approach selfish and not customer-oriented. I paid retail for the unit and continue to pay a not-insignificant subscription fee. Xfinity, Verizon and other subscription services have a much more responsive approach. While I appreciate the efficiencies for them, it was only frustrating for me. If they think this is a good idea, they need to do a better job of surveying their forum and identifying those who need help. I didn’t realize I needed to beg.
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Just received it back. It works. I didn’t have the original packaging but did a nice job with foam, bubble wrap, etc. They returned it in my same packaging, which I found “cheap”. I suppose they thought I would just throw their packaging away again, but after this experience, I don’t know why they would think that. I think part of my disappointment with the experience is that I’ve been spoiled by the likes of Apple and other manufacturers of expensive and assumingly premium hardware. Nice packaging, responsive customer service and a sense that they have a high performance product they are proud to stand behind. Instead, Roon strikes me as a bunch of penny-pinchers with questionable quality control operating out of a basement and they would rather have someone else deal with their products’ software and hardware problems. Again, I appreciate the efficiencies they employ, but classy it ain’t. More self-centered than customer oriented. |
Roon is a software company which sells some hardware. I decided to instead get a Sonictransporter Roon server from Small Green Computer https://www.smallgreencomputer.com instead of a Nucleus because SGC does direct customer support. I like the looks of the Nucleus, but the SGC box is a better value imo. So far, Andrew of SGC has been excellent at providing support when (rarely) needed. I also like that if I ever want to quit Roon (which I don’t anticipate), I can use the Sonictransporter with other apps for streaming, like Squeezebox (iirc). |
I’ve got a new view on Roon, it sucks! I can’t figure out how to get it to stop dumping music that I don’t want into my library. Every week I have to go through and delete all the junk it drops in there. It’s not even stuff you would think I’d like. Also, lots of times I got a fight with it to play a song I want. It says it’s not available? It’s crazy. I don’t know what they’re doing but it seems like they’re going backwards. I do all the updates and it still is a mess. I think I’m ready to get rid of it. Does anybody else have these problems? |
in my personal experience... roon people are slow to respond to emailed requests and queries but their forum is good, well populated... make a post there with a question, there will usually be replies from users or roon personnel within 24 hrs sgc/andrew is responsive... small shop, single guy, but he is a good guy, gets a lot of traffic, tries hard, usually is helpful, reachable by phone or email |
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Roon appears to be seriously understaffed presently and to have poor QC with their releases. Everyone is in this mess right now. It’s just Roon won’t admit it and doesn’t apologize whilst still charging full price. it’s a great product but an odd team over there. They are product oriented but not customer oriented. |
I was hoping this was a software issue and thought I would deal directly with the device experts to try to troubleshoot the problem. After It was apparent that it was a hardware problem I finally contacted him since the folks at Roon appeared to be incommunicado. At that point, he did get involved. It’s too bad he had to. |
