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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I have both the Rose rs150B and rs250 which I love. The only thing is that the 250 does the same as the 150B (as far as I can tell} and is half the price as well as half the size. Every morning I stream internet radio which sounds great through the 150B. I also use the Marantz NA7004 to play music elsewhere with great sound but annoying because it takes 4 minutes to load up.

It was the blue VU meters that made me want it.... you have to love them... the rs250 also has them.

I don’t understand why you need a touchscreen display or any for that matter on a music / video server? I use my iPhone or iPad to control all of the functions on my Innuos Zenith from the couch & never have to get up unless I want to rip a CD  which is fast & easy. It has no controls or displays at all other than a power on LED.  which you can turn off. I couldn’t see any display from my listening distance anyway.  It sounds consistently excellent & never malfunctions. Seems like a decent amount of $ would go into fancy displays & controls & not where it would really benefit the final sound quality. 

I currently have the Rose 150-b with an out board dac ,I’m going to keep it , my Innuos Statement has finally sold I’m liking my current dac and server as much for a lot less .

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 

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.