HiFi Rose RS201E: A modest and compact streamer

HiFi Rose RS201E is positioned by the manufacturer as a professional streamer, flaunting an incredible number of capabilities and operating with an Ultra High Pixel Stream, which radically improves the quality of digital playback. Indeed, listing...

HiFi Rose RS201E
HiFi Rose RS201E

HiFi Rose RS201E is positioned by the manufacturer as a professional streamer, flaunting an incredible number of capabilities and operating with an Ultra High Pixel Stream, which radically improves the quality of digital playback. Indeed, listing what the device can do can make your head spin – we have before us a real “Swiss Army knife” for sound (and even video).

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The chopped edges of the aluminum body, the huge, eye-catching 8.8” touchscreen display on the front panel – yes, this is exactly what 21st century technology should look like (the Reddot award, Pin Up design awards and iF design award are quite justified). The declared characteristics of the model are very impressive – say, the signal-to-noise ratio reaches 122 dB, and the dynamic range is 132 dB, the frequency response ranges from 16 to 80,000 Hz, and the THD does not exceed 0.006%.

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The heart of the HiFi Rose RS201E is a digital-to-analog converter based on the SABER ES9018K2M chip; the latter can work with streams up to PCM 32/384 and DSD256, natively supports MQA and can work with a huge list of file formats (MQA, WAV, FLAC, WMA, MP3, APE, DFF, DSF, AAC, CDA, AMR, APE, EC3 , E-EC3, MID, MPL, MP2, MPC, MPGA, M4A, ASF). The device also supports video streams (AVI, MKV, MP4, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 H.263, H.264, H.265, VC-1, VP9, ​​VP8, MVC), can display them on your display via the HDMI interface with support for 4K 60 Hz, has a built-in podcast module, Internet radio.

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One of the most interesting features of the HiFi Rose RS201E is the built-in pre-amplifier and power amplifier. Of course, digital technology was used (D-class, otherwise the weight of the device would have increased several times from the current 2.3 kg), which made it possible to fit a very respectable power reserve of 2 x 50 W into a compact case, and even with support for speaker systems with nominal resistance 4 ohms.

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You can transfer digital content to the HiFi Rose RS201E via a wired Ethernet network or over the air – the media player has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (though 4.0). Not enough again? Then let’s remember about USB ports (up to 512 GB), micro SD slot (up to 4 TB) and the option to connect drives via SATA 3.0 (up to 4 TB, NTFS/exFAT/FAT32 file systems).

The icing on the cake is the Tidal and Qobuz apps, plus full support for Roon and Spotify Connect. In general, when used as a “combine”, the HiFi Rose RS201E replaces several devices at once – which, however, does not in the least prevent it from being used only in the streamer and DAC version (which is what we will focus on later in testing). Of particular note is the already mentioned Ultra High Pixel Stream topology – the company has seriously worked on the separation of power circuits, the player’s “clock” and jitter reduction systems.

Characteristics of Rose RS201E

Type – network media player with built-in integrated amplifier
OS – Android 7.0 (Nougat)
Front display – 8.8” touchscreen
Output power, W – 2 x 50 (4 – 16 Ohm)
Interfaces – Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g /n/a/ac), Bluetooth 4.0 (AD2DP SINK, AVRCP), Gigabit (GbE) Ethernet, optical, USB, micro SD, SATA 3.0
Outputs – 3.5 mm mini-jack for headphones, line out from preamp, HMDI
Support – Airplay / DLNA
Formats – MQA, WAV, FLAC, WMA, MP3, APE, DFF, DSF, AAC, CDA, AMR, APE, EC3, E-EC3, MID, MPL, MP2, MPC, MPGA, M4A, ASF, AVI , MKV, MP4, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 H.263, H.264, H.265, VC-1, VP9, ​​VP8, MVC; PCM 32/384, DSD 256
Dimensions, cm – 27.8 x 7.6 x 20.2
Weight, kg – 2.6