The HiFi Rose RS520 streaming amp, is the HiFi the geek in you has always wanted.. It hits well on the numbers with a punchy 250Wpc output, has a large touch-screen display (pretty much the whole of the front panel), and sounds pretty good too.
This has clearly been designed by engineers for engineers, and features a number of amusing front panel displays:
- Want a 1980s style VU meter display – sorted – what style do you want?
- Want it to look like a retro radio tuner when listening to internet radio – sorted!
- Want a clock display on the front panel – plenty of styles to choose from including a nixie tube look-alike!
- Want to read what’s playing from the other side of the room – no problem with a 12″ wide screen.
- Drive it from the front panel? – sorted! it’s a touch-screen.
- Display Video streaming too – you got it; either on the front screen or connected to your TV via HDMI from NAS based videos or RoseTube (Rose’s version of YouTube).
- Play a CD? – Yup! Just connect a USB optical disc drive.
Once you get your head around the fact that the front panel is effectively its own control device where you download “Apps” for your favourite services, it all starts to make sense. The Rose mobile App on the other hand, wants you to be firmly embedded into the Rose universe… When coming at it from more mainstream products (think Linn, Naim, BluOS, Sonos etc.) it is at first rather confusing, and took us quite a while to work out how to play from our streaming servers.. If you are living with it, it’s one of those things where you get used to it.
In terms of connectivity, you get 1 each of Analogue Line-In, Co-ax digital, Optical, USB DAC, HDMI EARC, which is probably enough for most simple applications. In terms of outputs, there is Analogue Pre-out, Co-ax out, optical out and HDMI out, plus of course binding posts for a single pair of speakers.
Network connectivity is via WiFi or Ethernet, and BluTooth V4.2 input is there too.
So, performance-wise, it ticks a lot of boxes with playback of up to 32bit 768Khz pcm and DSD512… When comparing it to similarly priced alternatives, it holds its head up and does not disappoint. It’s able to easily fill your room with high resolution playback, and when connected to some capable speakers packs a punch.