Стримеры — HiFi Rose RS250

The RS250 is a compact network streamer from HiFi Rose of South Korea that also works as a DAC, a line-level preamplifier and a headphone amplifier, and plays 4K video files. It was priced at USD 2,495 in the United States and GBP 1,950 in the UK, and HiFi Rose later replaced it with the RS250A. Operation is through an 8.8-inch IPS touchscreen, a supplied Bluetooth remote or the RoseConnect app for iOS and Android.

Key specs that matter

An ESS SABRE ES9038Q2M chip performs the conversion, taking PCM up to 32 bit and 768 kHz and native DSD512. The unbalanced RCA preamp output delivers up to 2.3 Vrms from 100 ohm. At that level HiFi Rose quotes THD of 0.0002% and THD+N of 0.0003% at 1 kHz, IMD of -102 dB, 116 dB signal-to-noise with A-weighting, dynamic range up to 126 dB with a CCITT filter and crosstalk better than -133 dB across 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Frequency response is 20 Hz to 20 kHz within 0.5 dB. Inputs comprise RCA line, optical, coaxial and USB audio, and outputs add optical, coaxial, USB audio and HDMI 2.0 for 3840 x 2160 video at 60 Hz. The case measures 278 x 202 x 76 mm and weighs 3.2 kg.

Engineering and use context

A low-jitter femto clock runs alongside the DAC chip. The operating system is a customised Android 7.1 on a hexa-core processor that pairs two Cortex-A72 cores at up to 1.8 GHz with four Cortex-A53 cores at up to 1.4 GHz, supported by a Mali-T864 GPU and 4 GB of LPDDR3 memory. Inside there is a SATA 3.0 bay for an SSD of up to 4 TB, and two USB 3.0 ports read external drives formatted in NTFS or FAT32 up to 10 TB. A CD drive connected by USB allows disc playback. A menu setting makes the line output either fixed or variable, so the RS250 either feeds an amplifier with its own volume control or runs one directly. The 3.5 mm headphone socket gives 1 Vrms into 32 ohm and 2 Vrms into 300 ohm, and its output impedance is selectable in four steps. The top and front are anodised aluminium, and the unit runs on 100 to 120 V or 220 to 240 V mains depending on region.

Pairing

Set to variable, the RS250 takes over volume duties, and its RCA output connects directly to a power amp or to powered monitors. The RCA line input lets an analogue source share the same system. Streaming covers Qobuz, TIDAL with MQA, Spotify Connect, AirPlay, DLNA and Roon Ready playback, and networking is by gigabit Ethernet, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi or Bluetooth A2DP.

Alternatives

The HiFi Rose RS250A is the updated version of this streamer, built around an ES9028PRO converter with a fully linear power supply.