Well, no matter whether Roon or the other audio companies are to blame for the slow certification progresses… I have learned from this never to believe in “soon with firmware update” again.
@Greg_Guillot well, the I am struggling with the preamp a little. For people who really want to drive their speakers wirelessly the hub will provide no benefit whatsoever (in the spec sheet). Maybe it will run more smoothly and more stable. But in the end… if you want the speakers to be wireless it is just a lot of money for Buchardt actually just delivering what they had promised with the plain hub already. I mean for somebody who does not have a ton of analog sources and who does not want to go XLR when they purchased a wireless speaker in the first place… what is the benefit of the upcoming Buchardt hub then=
No, I am referring to Buchardt’s own upcoming preamp/hub… This also only makes sense if you you need extra analog inputs or want XLR. If not, it’s only spending extra money for features that should have already been there in the first place.
I doubt there will be any sonic improvement with either of the new hubs. An upgrade of the A2D might be nice, though; it’s kinda crappy on the platin hub.
The best thing about the platin is that I can just hide it and forget about it.
Are we getting close to the A500 and Platin hub being Roon Ready?
Keen to get a pair of A500’s but not without the hub being approved first as have been burnt before.
You are right to act like that. I bought the A500 also because they were promised to work with Roon “soon”. That was August 2020. The status right now is “really soon”
Well, don’t get me wrong, still a great sounding speaker with chromecast or UPnP. But you just want the company to deliver on their promise and that is the right way to go!
I agree… Maybe sound will actually get worse if you use XLR with one of the new hubs. Since the master tunings “live” in the speakers there are lot of DA- and AD-conversion in the signal path then.
I’ve played with several xlr solutions and find no improvement. Not sure I really believe all the revelations people seem to be having after ditching the hub, though I can relate to some of the frustration with the hub. The only real improvement I have had was using a quality ADC to run the TT Pre, and it was not insignificant.
The Platin Support FB page states: “Roon is still in certification at Roon side - we are waiting for their reply. We have been waiting for quite some time now…”
It could be that Roon has Platin WAY down on their project list. Or it could be they are waiting for Platin to deliver a stable system before going through the testing. It would be nice to know Roon’s response to this.
Don’t know as I use a BluOS Node connected to the hub. If it isn’t stable then that is an issue with Platin’s implementation rather than something natively problematic with Chromecast.
I was using a DigiOne Signature that was superb but seems to have been fried in a power surge. I’ve been using Chromecast for the last few months and have had zero problems. The people having problems are very much in the minority.
I have a pair of A500s and I just use them as Chromecast endpoints. Never had a problem.
I bought them mostly for cosmetic reasons as they are small, wireless, no boxes, no wires. I wanted to use them out of the way close to a rear wall in a long but relatively small room. I didn’t want a sweet spot, I have headphones for that. It is true they are really directionless and you can sit anywhere.
But a word of warning. I don’t know who the speakers are voiced for but I found that out of the box they sound terrible in my use case. I know Darko likes them with his Techno but I found them absolute bass monsters you cannot use against a wall. I basically had to switch off the rear firing driver, use the least bass heavy master tuning, use Buchardt’s own roon correction and then use roons’ parametric equalization on top of that to make them listenable. I usually have no interest in SQ but even for me they were pretty bad. Almost sent them back. I actually live in Denmark so I don’t think it had much to do with the room being a bad fit. I eventually got them to work ok but it is also possible my brain burnt them in and I just got used to the Buchardt sound. Not for everyone.
