SGC vs Roon Nucleus

CLARIFICATION:

I have run a SGC Sonictransporter (with MicroRendu) for months and it's worked flawlessly. Very happy with it, but recently it's been dropping off the network. I am working with SGC owner Andrew Gillis to sort this out, and will send it in to him. He's been very responsive to my email and has used TeamViewer to log into my computer and try and see what's going on.

>> Hence I REMOVED MY PREVIOUS COMMENT stating some frustration with SGC. The comment *wasn't unfair or inaccurate* but also wasn't meant to hurt SGC's business and reputation unfairly. I'm in sales and know how a bad review can hurt. I originally chose SGC not only because it was quite a bit less $$ than the Roon Nucleus (with an i5 chip instead of an i3), but also because I like to support independent entrepreneurs and was confident that if I had a problem I would be dealing with a person, and not just submitting help tickets.

Andrew of SGC properly points out that with a NUC I would be my own tech support, and with Roon I would be submitting help tickets and using the knowledgebase. There is a learning curve to this networked audio streaming and it's not for everyone or the faint of heart. I appreciate being able to deal with a real human, and Andrew is responsive.

PD

sbank, re:

Having familiarity with the sonicorbiter browser interface

Regarding this, it’s been an issue for me accessing the apps/manage page by clicking the "MANAGE" button when I go to sonicorbiter.com.

On the main page, the sonictransporter and/or the microrendu SOMETIMES show up (one or both) with the IP addresses etc, and sometimes they don’t show up at all. Totally inconsistent, and sometimes a refresh doesn’t fix it.

Then, when they do show up, often when I click the "manage" button for the sonictransporter, >50% of the time I can’t get to the app page (to burn CD’s, check status, do resets etc). Nothing happens, or it tells me that page can’t load. It would seem to be an issue with SGC’s website, and I have asked Andrew and gotten no answer.

Have any SGC folks here had this issue?

I rarely if ever had to go to the SGC management page to manage apps as I just had Roon. Set it up and let it run. It has been working fine for over a year.

Recently I did just enable the UpNP app and had to deal with the web interface. In order to get it to work i had to reload/manually update version 1.8 of the sonic orbiter software. After that everything worked. The UpNP app has a few glitches but i have only been using it for 24 hours.

Overall I am pleased with SGC. I was/am evaluating a nucleus plus (pre-owned) on ebay and a second SGC sonic transporter for a vacation home. The cost is about the same but I will stick with SGC.

Note: Nucleus Plus does not have apps such as the UpNP Bridge. One more benefit to SGC

I would also second Andrew Gillis excellent support

@patrickdowns, 
When I've seen seen any issue like you describe, it has to do with the local network, not sonicorbiter.com. For example, I use Eero mesh routers and look at my eero app to confirm that the rendu and sonicorbiter are visible and active on the network. Eero software updates have auto-installed requiring restarts of connected devices. If I don't know that happened, I might think the devices are giving me trouble.
With my opticalRendu, I have on occasion found that unplugging and re-plugging fixes things that a software restart doesn't. No idea why. 
Cheers,
Spencer