[tomwoo]

I haven't seen any thread here that is dedicated to the discussion of HiFi Rose streamers. So I decided to start one if you guys don't mind.

========================================

Brief Introduction to HiFi Rose RS250:​

HIFI ROSE RS250 NETWORK STREAMER​

A Roon Ready, MQA-certified streaming DAC based on a Sabre chip with a linear power supply, and an 8.8" Ultra HD 4K touchscreen​

Elevate both your listening room aesthetics and the sound of your system with this network streaming DAC with high-end audio performance and linear power supply, and many ways to directly and remotely control the unit. Connect the RS250 to your network via Ethernet or WiFi, and connect it directly to a power amp, or to a pre/power combo, or to your favorite DAC.

The RS250 offers one analog stereo RCA input, so can function as a preamp as well. There is a headphone output on the front panel. It offers a high-quality anodized aluminum body with excellent thermal and isolation properties.

THE CONTROLS​

HiFi Rose is rightly praised for its beautiful Ultra HD 4K touchscreen with a wide viewing angle and rich colors. It offers an intuitive and convenient interface, and also displays high-definition album information and plays back video at 60 FPS. Control is augmented with a front volume knob.

The RS250 comes with a physical Bluetooth remote control, and can also be controlled via the ROSE Connect app for iOs or Android.

THE DAC​

The RS250 uses the ES9038 Q2M Sabre chip with proprietary processing that offers a low-noise, low-distortion, ultra-high-resolution sound with rich analog density. Sampling rates go up to PCM 32bit/768KHz and native DSD512 (22.5792Mhz).

MANY WAYS TO PLAY​

Apart from all the expected online services, you can connect an optical drive via USB and play or rip CDs. There's Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, internet radio, and much more, and the RS250 is Roon Ready. It is also fully MQA certified.

The RS250 allows onboard storage, and can recognize up to a 4 TB internal SSD and 10 TB external HDD. It will also find and play music on your NAS and other music servers.

Watch high-res videos on the front screen from TIDAL Video, Bugs Video, and RoseTube.

Specifications​

Display: 8.8" wide-angle, multitouch panel

DAC Chip: ES9038 Q2M

Output Impedance: 100 Ω

Network: Ethernet 10/100/1000 BASE-T, WiFi (802.11 b/g/n/a/ac) 2.4Ghz/5Ghz Dual Band

Bluetooth: A2DP Sink, AVRCP v1.3

Audio Inputs: 1 x stereo RCA line, 1 x optical, 1 x coax S/PDIF, 1 x USB Audio

Audio Outputs: 1 x stereo RCA pre, 1 x optical, 1 x coax S/PDIF, 1 x USB Audio, 1 x headphone

Video Output: 1 x HDMI 2.0 (up to 3840 x 2160 / 60 Hz)

Media Connection: 2 x USB 3.0 (NTFS/FAT32, up to 10 TB), 1 x SATA 3.0 SSD (NTFS, up to 4 TB)

Dimensions: 11" x 8" x 3" (278 x 202 x 76 mm)

Weight: 7 lb

==================

First Impression:​

I’m lucky enough to get my hands on a HiFi Rose RS250. Very impressed so far. Sounds much cleaner and has more resolution than my PC as a streamer. I have not really compared the internal DAC of RS250 to the internal DAC of my SPL Phonitor xe, but I will be surprised to hear any big differences.

The first thing will catch your eye is the big screen on the front panel. It’s mesmerizing to watch the music playback screen (most beautiful playback screen I have ever seen) and listen to music. Screen quality and resolution is top notch, I would say it is pretty close to the one on your Phone from normal viewing distance. The VU meters look good too, very realistic and could pass as real mechanical meters at first glance.

Software side HiFi Rose is not as good as Roon (no surprise here), and it has glitches such as not showing album covers in its stock app. But the good thing is HiFi Rose provides constant OTA updates and hopefully it will be fixed in the next firmware. Other than that it is fully functional and integrates streaming services well. Also it is very convenient to change all the settings in the mobile app, you could even turn the unit off and on without touching the unit itself. The included Bluetooth remote is nice to have but not really necessary.

When using RS250 as an Roon endpoint it works flawlessly as expected. It was immediately recognized by Roon and streaming music in no time. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that HiFi Rose stock app showed what was playing in Roon and I could even use the supplied remote control to operate (next song, previous song, play/pause, etc.)

Now let’s see for how many years I can resist upgrading to their flagship RS150.

 

[tomwoo]

One thing I want to point out is playing files from RS250's internal SSD or using integrated Qobuz streaming SOUNDS BETTER than Roon.
I'm not sure about the science behind it but local files sounded the best, I guess it has something to do with the blacker background.

 

[TonyLondon21]

Hi Tom, I just joined this forum specifically to read your review of the RS250 (no pressure haha).

It looks like a great device. I'm looking for a streamer/preamp for my active speakers, ideally with a built-in headphone amp. The RS250 fits the bill. As this is a headphone-focused forum it would be great if you could give some detailed thoughts on the headphone performance. I've read a number of good reviews of this device but nobody mentions the headphone output quality. To me it's important - at least 50% of my listening is using headphones as I live in an apartment.

If I were to criticise the spec I'd say it falls down on the lack of inputs if this is going to be used as a preamp. At this price level I would expect to see an HDMI ARC input, especially as the unit is clearly also aimed at TV viewers with its HDMI output.

I'd love to go for the RS150 as it does have an HDMI input but I can't justify the price, nor the fact that it doesn't have a headphone output. Ridiculous.

 

[tomwoo]

Hi Tom, I just joined this forum specifically to read your review of the RS250 (no pressure haha).

It looks like a great device. I'm looking for a streamer/preamp for my active speakers, ideally with a built-in headphone amp. The RS250 fits the bill. As this is a headphone-focused forum it would be great if you could give some detailed thoughts on the headphone performance. I've read a number of good reviews of this device but nobody mentions the headphone output quality. To me it's important - at least 50% of my listening is using headphones as I live in an apartment.

If I were to criticise the spec I'd say it falls down on the lack of inputs if this is going to be used as a preamp. At this price level I would expect to see an HDMI ARC input, especially as the unit is clearly also aimed at TV viewers with its HDMI output.

I'd love to go for the RS150 as it does have an HDMI input but I can't justify the price, nor the fact that it doesn't have a headphone output. Ridiculous.

Hi Tony,
Welcome to the community!
I'm so glad you enjoyed the stuff I wrote about RS250. I wouldn't call it a "review" since it is too short to qualify.
I only brief listened to the headphone output just to see if it works. It's pretty decent for casual listening but I don't think it would be powerful enough for hard-to-drive cans. The fact that RS250 comes with 3.5mm port suggests it wasn't designed for serious headphone listening.
As for HDMI ARC, I can't comment on that because I never used it before, but I certainly wouldn't pay twice the price just to get that function.
I highly recommend RS250 as a streaming DAC. It meets my needs perfectly because all I needed was a digital transport. But if you are looking for an all-in-one headphone solution, you may want to check out Naim Uniti Atom HE. I heard a lot of good things about that unit.
Hope this helps.
Tom

 

[TonyLondon21]

Thanks Tom, yes the Naim Atom HE is certainly on my list.

It's good that you're happy with the RS250 as a streamer DAC. Another option for me would be to use one of its digital outputs to drive an external DAC/headphone amp if I didn't like the on board headphone quality. There's some very innovative stuff coming out of South Korea, with HiFi Rose and Nova Fidelity leading the way.

 

[tomwoo]

Thanks Tom, yes the Naim Atom HE is certainly on my list.

It's good that you're happy with the RS250 as a streamer DAC. Another option for me would be to use one of its digital outputs to drive an external DAC/headphone amp if I didn't like the on board headphone quality. There's some very innovative stuff coming out of South Korea, with HiFi Rose and Nova Fidelity leading the way.

Hi Tony,
It's a good idea to start with the build in headphone amp of RS250 and upgrade to better amps if you found it lacking. All-in-ones are convinient but you will certainly get more flexibility and performance from separate components.

 

[tomwoo]

A new review by John Atkinson of Stereophile:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/hifi-rose-rs250-audio-video-streaming-da-preamplifier
Enjoy!

 

[TonyLondon21]

Tom, many thanks for posting this. A very useful and positive review, especially as it addressed my query on the headphone sound quality. It seems to be perfectly acceptable except for low sensitivity headphones, which is to be expected. I like the fact that the reviewer is an audio engineer/producer, and used the RS250 to review some of his own recordings.

 

[tomwoo]

Tom, many thanks for posting this. A very useful and positive review, especially as it addressed my query on the headphone sound quality. It seems to be perfectly acceptable except for low sensitivity headphones, which is to be expected. I like the fact that the reviewer is an audio engineer/producer, and used the RS250 to review some of his own recordings.

Hi Tony,
Glad to help!
Have you decided on which headphone amp to buy?

 

[TonyLondon21]

If I were to buy the RS250 I'd use the built-in amp for a while and see if I was happy with it. My current headphones are the Sony XM4, which are only 40 ohm, so they'd probably be fine with the RS250. They're decent headphones but their main use case is for high quality LDAC Bluetooth listening.

I'd like to treat myself to some higher spec 'proper hifi' cans fairly soon, so that's when I would buy an external amp to get the best out of them. I've been looking at ChiFi from the likes of Topping, SMSL, Shanling and Aune, and you can get excellent amps for $400 - $800, so that's the route I would take. They're not widely distributed here in the UK, but using Shenzen Audio to import such devices is pretty straightforward.

What headphones do you have? Also (to keep this thread on topic!) does the RS250 have regular firmware and software updates, and have you found it to be buggy?

Edit: I've just seen your equipment list in your sig, so you can ignore my question about the headphones.

 

[tomwoo]

If I were to buy the RS250 I'd use the built-in amp for a while and see if I was happy with it. My current headphones are the Sony XM4, which are only 40 ohm, so they'd probably be fine with the RS250. They're decent headphones but their main use case is for high quality LDAC Bluetooth listening.

I'd like to treat myself to some higher spec 'proper hifi' cans fairly soon, so that's when I would buy an external amp to get the best out of them. I've been looking at ChiFi from the likes of Topping, SMSL, Shanling and Aune, and you can get excellent amps for $400 - $800, so that's the route I would take. They're not widely distributed here in the UK, but using Shenzen Audio to import such devices is pretty straightforward.

What headphones do you have? Also (to keep this thread on topic!) does the RS250 have regular firmware and software updates, and have you found it to be buggy?

Edit: I've just seen your equipment list in your sig, so you can ignore my question about the headphones.

The software of RS250 is mostly OK, the biggest bug I found so far was not showing album covers of local music in the mobile app, but HiFi Rose promised that will be fixed in the upcoming "big" firmware update.

 

[tomwoo]

Another review of RS250:
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/spending-time-with-the-hifi-rose-rs250-r1067/

While I agree with most of the stuff the reviewer had to say, he seemed to be quite annoyed by issues found in the "extra" features, like FM radio, weather, recommend playlists, etc. I don't really care about those things because I don't use them, as opposed to the reviewer as he was obligated to test them for the sake of writing a review.
At the end of the day, it's the sound quality matters for a dedicated streamer, and I'm quite satisfied with RS250 in that regard.

 

[TonyLondon21]

Interesting review as it focused mainly on the interface. Has the big update happened yet?

 

[tomwoo]

Interesting review as it focused mainly on the interface. Has the big update happened yet?

Yes it did. The new update has quite some tweaks in UI, which I don't always like...
I was hoping the new firmware would fix my album cover display problem but it turned out to be unrelated to software bugs. It was because I turned off the DLNA service required by the streamer to send images over to mobile app.
I have been playing around with the Rose Connect app these days and it worked pretty well. Another thing I noticed is that the native app sounds better than Roon, which is quite surprising and annoying at the same time

 

[paolosnz]

hi is it possible to use external usb or coaxial dacs? use naa connection for hqplayer?
tnkx