Does NAD/Bluesound care about Roon certification? Obviously, they have their own streaming platform and want to promote and support that first and foremost. But as a mid- to high-end manufacturer, it would seem that the Roon Ready designation might be important to their business model. I know that Roon probably can’t answer my leading question specifically, but whose is the next step? If we know that Roon has done its part, as much as it is capable, then we can direct our attention and inquiries in other directions. It would appear, from all I have read, that NAD/Bluesound places a very low priority on addressing Roon incompatibility issues or just doesn’t have the facilities to handle them. Is that the impression they want to give some of us potential buyers/future customers? - - Because that may prevent serious future buyers that are Roon users from settling on some their products.
I was really considering the M33, but from my impressions as of now, NAD doesn’t seem to have any sense of importance or urgency about obtaining Roon certification. In my opinion, if Bluesound/NAD wants to evolve beyond their current market (which I think would be a good thing for any AV company, especially in today’s diminishing market) they need to demonstrate increased interest and efforts in establishing Roon compatibility. Just my meanderings.
EDITED 2020/01/29 because on re-read, I think I came across as being just a tad bitter and overly-aggressive, and I am not even a NAD owner (as of yet) - just hope the M33 to be fully Roon compatible when it is released and would love to see the same thing with Bluesound streaming products.
How interested they are is hard to guess. I had massive problems getting my Vault 2 and Node 2’s to work with Roon over WiFi. Granted they did work at first for several months, then two firmware upgrades came along, and nothing worked after that, circa April 2019. I wasn’t able to determine why it wouldn’t work, so I can’t unequivocally blame the upgrades. BlueSound Tech Support told me it was my WiFi signal level, but that didn’t explain why it worked at first nor did it explain why the Vault 2 was invisible to Roon. Fast forward to last month, I gave up and bought a Roon Nucleus+ and what a different that made! Both Nodes started working and even non geek non audiophiles can play music on my system now. Looks like I might be selling my Vault 2 since that didn’t work with Roon even though it was a hard wire LAN connection. My opinion is if you are serious about Roon, look elsewhere than Bluesound. Some folks have had good luck with the combo but I did not and was not able to resolve it, even though I was in touch with both BlueSound and Roon tech support. Note that a Roon Nucleus (the non + version) is only a bit more than a Vault 2. Food for thought…
I guess they do and 2nd gen products are there on the list, last year they went with Airplay2, Amazon HD dirac and the new colour touchscreens that are coming out in the M10, M33 and T774 and I assume each refresh of other amps. They seem on each refresh to be including the last gens MDC board as standard and adding dirac.
I have an M32, DD390 and 2x pluse mini2i’s and all work flawlessly in roon.
All I can really say is home demo the amp and see if it works for you, I bought my first NAD amp 40 years ago and have never looked back.
and give your bluesound hardware static IP-addresses.
Use WiFi only for control on iPad and smartphones:
I use Bluesound app for hardware settings, Roon app with Tidal for music play.
Both apps can control your hardware in parallel
Under bluesound control I trained an old distance control for volume, mute, prev and next, so no need to unlock my iPad every time.
I Put Roon/Rock and a copy of my vault 2 library on Nuc, (I do the copying just with a windows machine with network views on the music dirs on the nuc and the vault)
I use(d) several bluesound hardware as endpoints:
powernode, powernode2, vault 2, and now Nad m10… and after tuning all work fine, never a problem, only the MQA /DSP speaker position issue on the m10: I do not use that but Dirac on Nad M10 instead, speaker position problem solved
my only complaint is that ripping cd under Roon/Rock does not copy the info from a disc when Roon has no info (Track 1 , track2, is very disappointing: vault 2 does a better job)
That’s odd. I have a Node 2 with the latest firmware as well as the latest version of Roon streaming Tidal and my NAS, all connected via wifi with zero issues. It plays non-stop 24/7 and never skips a beat.
The NAS is connected via CAT6 to the router. Then again, I have a rather top end wireless router and it’s in the spare room, about 20 feet away.
I stream DSD, MQA, up sample in Roon, and it all works flawlessly.
I’ve got ole’ faithful, Node 2. It’s about 3 years old and has always performed.
Before I bought this, I had an Oppo 105D which was riddled with stability issues, The stupid thing would randomly lock up, sometimes it would boot up and immediately lock up. Not to mention that a $1500 unit that it was would not play gapless, yet the inexpensive Marantz NA6005 that I had prior for less than half the money did play gapless and had no issues at all. Go figure.
And before that, I had an Auralic Aries. That thing was utter garbage from the get-go. Whether it be connected via CAT5 or wifi, the thing never wanted to connect to the network half of the time. It would just randomly stop playing in the middle of tracks though the screen showed that it was playing. It would randomly drop the network connection for no reason right in the middle of a track. It would also stutter from time to time.
Sorry for the somewhat off topic little rant there.
Just move on. There are plenty of other manufacturers out there with less troublesome Roon certification. I had to return a NAD/Bluesound amp over 2 years ago due to the issues with it. I think the amp had been out over a year, so still buggy after all that time. Never again.
Yes, it seems both NAD’s and Bluesound’s integration with Roon is still very “iffy”. If you have all the right components that match just right, works great; you’re a happy camper and believer. If not, it’s truly “on and off” and very frustrating over time. Would that they could just “Git 'er done” and be cool with Roon. Still, the potential features of the NAD M33 appear quite seductive . . . Just sayin’
“As for Roon certification, due to decisions made by Roon the C658 will not be listed as a Roon Certified device. With that being said, the C658 will continue to work as a Roon endpoint moving forward”
It is my guess that DIRAC is the issue for Roon: I say this because my Powernode 2i is Roon Certified, works fine and has no DIRAC
I don’t bother too much, because my C658 works just fine with Roon (despite some little bugs that I can live with, as I don’t think they are Roon related)
It’s not according to the Roon Partner site, it is according to the Partner Devices Matrix. It might be helpful if Roon Labs could provide consistent information.