description
Hifi Rose applies what they call a "Harmonized Design" throughout their most premium audiophile-grade products. RS201E features an upper-class aluminum frame with a volume knob, power button, and a very generous 8.8-inch wide-view touch screen.
Inside, there is a built-in reference-class 32bit High-Performance ESS (ES9018 K2M) DAC that provides a maximum resolution of up to 384kHz. Pair this amp with a pair of your favorite speakers for clean sound with all of your streaming sources plus easy touchscreen control.
Easy control
I grew up playing vinyl, and then CDs. Streaming was a hard sell, but at this point I see it as an amazing — sometimes overwhelming — and necessary asset. App control across the different platforms isn't always intuitive — it's still the main reason my wife rarely opts for streaming music when she's picking out something to play.
The RS201E feels different. It connects to your internet via Ethernet or built-in Wi-Fi. The interface is user-friendly whether you're using its front-panel touchscreen apps and volume/mute toggle, or the free RoseConnect Premium app for Apple® and Android devices. It organizes your different sources — from streaming services including TIDAL, Qobuz, and Spotify, to music files stored in one of its onboard options or your NAS server — in a way that feels almost Roonlike. (By the way, this player is also a Roon endpoint.)
You can also use Apple AirPlay® to control the streamer, or the included Bluetooth remote. Free automatic updates make sure it keeps pace with evolving tech and its expanding capabilities.
High-res down to the femtosecond
What I really love about the RS201E is that it stays out of your way. It's true of the interface, and also true in how it treats audio signals, which it delivers in articulate detail with a quiet noise floor and low distortion.
It runs on a snappy six-core CPU with a high-performance ESS SABRE DAC capable of 32-bit/384kHz resolution. Also key to its impressive sound is its digital clock, which drastically reduces the distorted edges inherent in digital music transmission by aligning the spaces between the data. The RS201E's femto clock measures time down to the femtosecond — one quadrillionth of a second — for exceptionally smooth, precise audio.
4K video rabbit hole
Endless video digressions await you, thanks to the RS201E's 4K video decoding via its HDMI 2.0 output. The RoseTube app lets you peruse and play YouTube videos that you can watch on the unit's full color screen or — even better — on your TV. And its digital audio inputs let you get beautiful soundtrack audio from whatever you might be watching.
Flexible connections and local storage options
On the back panel you have ample digital connections, unbalanced analog preamp output for connection to an outboard amplifier, and an RCA stereo analog input. You could connect a USB drive, HiFI Rose RSA780E CD drive, or another CD player — even a turntable with a phono preamp.
The RS201E has USB connections and a microSD card slot for local access to external digital music files. And all HiFi Rose models include an internal bay on the bottom panel for adding optional SSD storage. The '201E will recognize drives up to 4TB, which is much more than you'll probably ever use.
