Can’t speak to the ROSE 250, however the ROSE 150 (their flagship model, 5 K MSRP) is superb.
Has an excellent built in Dac , using the ESS 9038 Pro chip with a Femto Clock (don’t know the value/ model of The Femto). The resultant sound is very good. It has a very transparent, smooth and liquid presentation that’s leans slightly on the warm side of the spectrum. Most Dac’s utilizing the ESS 9038 PRO, tend to be on the neutral to slightly cool side of the spectrum, but HI FI ROSE had done an excellent job of tuning their Dac implementation.
However the “star” of the show is the Transport capability of the ROSE 150. It has numerous connectivity capabilities, and offers DAC OUT to allow the use of your own Dac ( AES, I2S (both DVI and RJ 45), and Coax.
The unit also features a 14 inch OLED type, touch screen display , with 4 K resolution. All in all a huge bang for the buck.
Cheers..... |
Thanks, that's helpful info! |
I am a proud owner of a HiFi Rose RS250 Streamer/DAC.
I auditioned the RS150 first. Quite a wonderful experience, both in strict audio quality terms and a surfeit of features (many I've never seen on any device before).
Quite a pricey device, so I thought I would return it and try the RS250, roughly half the cost. Bottom line, I kept the RS250 and sold my previous streamer and separate DAC. Audio quality, for me at least, was virtually indistinguishable from the RS150. And no, it doesn't have a single Balanced input/output. But neither do I on my current tube amp. All the same features, except for the aforementioned Balanced, also no ARC HDMI input or AES. The RS250 is a certified Roon Ready component and has MQA. It was immediately recognized by my ROCK server as a Roon endpoint. I continue to be amazed at the quality of sound and abundance of features. And everything works together very well. This unit has a real remote AND a full-function Apple App.
|
Didn't John Atkinson review it this month in Stereophile?
|
I did end up buying a RS250 about 10 days ago, and I can concur with thegm--it is a fantastic unit that is capable of SO much. I have several other DACs including a Naim, Auralic, and Holo Audio May and this little guy sounds great! I have it connected to two Dynaudio Focus XD powered speakers and with just the 3 boxes, you have a very complete system that covers all the bases. The Rose app can use a bit more work, but the touchscreen is worth its weight in gold--and looks just fantastic.
Really happy with this purchase!
|
I ordred mine last week to go with my MA352 amp and still waiting.
In the meantime, we have a fresh review to read from Stereophile.
|
Guy’s and their gadgets...
Streaming is strictly for background noise in my house. I have a great DAC in my Bel Canto DAC 2.7 and it is fed by my Bel Canto CD3t, streaming is the new Node 2.
I am intrigued with the RS250 and 150 and will consider if I ever retire my BC gear but I doubt that will be anytime soon.
Thanks for the reviews.
|
Thegm, since you already have the rs250, could you describe how does the rosetube work? Can you surf anything in rosetube and display it on the screen exactly like youtube?
I plan to connect an external monitor on the DAC if we could watch other things than listening music on rosetube...
|
I just received my 250. Looking forward to seeing how it performs.
On paper this looks like a wonderful streamer/DAC. I'm replacing an Evo 150 (had problems with two units and the screen randomly locking up). Over the last couple of years had the NT-505, M10, C658 and Bluesound as previous front end devices.
Using Roon and stream with Qobuz....
|
Hi mbolek,
i am using mine as well for a week now and enjoy it. Have you tried Tidal application in the rs250? It looks like the tidal app in the rs250 does not recognize my existing playlists already stored in Tidal connect with my cell ?
AddingTidal tunes into personnal playlist is not clear in the rs250. I have to work on it and find a way..
Spotify connect is not and issue since it is not available in the rs250 list of application..
Daniel
|
Hi Daniel,
Sorry. I no longer use Tidal. Tried it for awhile and prefer Qobuz.
Still trying to get acclimated with all of the features. This could be a fantastic front end.
|
@Dandion - you are incorrect. Spotify connect is available on the RS250.
I have had the RS250 for a few days connected to my Directstream DAC via USB and using Roon. Seems to sound better than the Bridge II but will need to do more testing.
|
What i meant is the Spotify application is not built-in the rs250 while Tidal and Qobuz applications are already there in the RS250. However and like you, i can stream music in the rs250 by using Spotify connect with my cell phone.
I must use the Rose connect application to stream music with Tidal.
I am going to try adding SATA SSD in the dac shortly..
Daniel
|
Second firmware upgrade in 2 months, Those engineers at Hifi rose are not sleeping! 😁
|
I own the Big Brother RS150B and previously had the RS250.
They both sound similar. The only real difference is size, XLRs and price.
If given the choice... I will pick the RS250 and save half the money.
I am the admin at the HifiRose Streamer DAC Facebook group. Come and join us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/607615360286528/?ref=share
|
Hi guys, does someone know how to transfer music from bluesound vault to rose250 or 150 ????
Im not computer geek, as far as I know bluesound is base on Linux and rose is kind Android 😟 l have a lot cd ripped on vault.....
lm planing to buy one of them , but not decided yet which one now if there is no difference in sound....
However I’m mostly using xlr but not necessarily have to if I have a chance to safe half money .
thanks
|
You could try by using a USB cable from your Vault to the RS250 if it works.
In my case, I had 1TB of FLAC files stored in a external hard disk. I bought a SATA disk and transfered all my music files in the SATA disk. I installed the sata disk into the rose dac and it gives me a clean setup, all included in the dac.
|
Thank you I’ll try that. Seems pretty easy
|
RS250 and SSD arriving this week sometime. Is the included instruction manual clearly described. The pdf that I downloaded is partly in Korean and not so clear in the exact procedure. Specifically transferring files onto the internal SSD. Is it more straight forward than my fears are suggesting?
Setting up settings to play DSD (and streaming MQA) also seemed vague and confusing. Any suggestions on if this is indeed complex or pretty straight forward once in hand?
|
Hello everyone,
the rs 250 does not have balanced XLR out connections. Would it be pissible to connect the HiFi rose 250 to external dac thru usb, then use the XLR outs from my dac to amp ?
thank you
adrian
|
@agolde1110 - Yes, if you connect the 250 via the USB digital output to a compatible DAC with balanced XLR outputs you can connect those into analog XLR inputs on a preamp or integrated amp. Hope that answers your question.
|
Unless one has a long cable run, I am assuming the difference between the RCA outs of the 250 and the XLR outs of the 150 are minimal
|
@aberyclark - That can be quite subjective and the degree of difference would likely vary with the level of electronics used and in particular if the amplification is fully balanced in design.
|
Nice work from rose engineers recently with the LDAC codec available when you use bluetooth.
Now we can stream our daily discovery playlist lossless from Tidal connect with LDAC and bluetooth.
Daniel
|
