Roon Support, or lack thereof


Nucleus Plus went offline a couple weeks ago at less than a year old. Went looking for Roon support but there is no contact info for phone, chat, email etc. Instead, you are supposed to post your issue on the "Roon Labs Community" website where they expect other members of the Roon community to actually do the troubleshooting rather than they themselves getting involved. I found a wonderful guy who helped me troubleshoot and came to the conclusion that the box was dead. I waited another day or so for someone from Roon to notice and when they did not, I went to a different thread, got the contact info for a Roonie who was helping someone else and private messaged him. It took another few days for them to finally issue an RMA. I just found out they had to replace the motherboard under warranty.

I find this approach selfish and not customer-oriented. I paid retail for the unit and continue to pay a not-insignificant subscription fee. Xfinity, Verizon and other subscription services have a much more responsive approach. While I appreciate the efficiencies for them, it was only frustrating for me. If they think this is a good idea, they need to do a better job of surveying their forum and identifying those who need help. I didn’t realize I needed to beg.

 

 

tcutter

I’m a Roon Nucleus + owner as well, having just purchased earlier this year.  This experience is troublesome to me.  I agree and would expect them to have better customer service.  Good luck getting your new unit.  When it works, it’s fantastic.

Same deal with their subscription service.  On the surface, it seems like sort of a cop-out but the two times I needed help it was pretty effective.

I do agree there should be another option for people who purchase hardware directly from them, and also active monitoring of the forum.

Just received it back.  It works. I didn’t have the original packaging but did a nice job with foam, bubble wrap, etc. They returned it in my same packaging, which I found “cheap”.  I suppose they thought I would just throw their packaging away again, but after this experience, I don’t know why they would think that.

I think part of my disappointment with the experience is that I’ve been spoiled by the likes of Apple and other manufacturers of expensive and assumingly premium hardware.  Nice packaging, responsive customer service and a sense that they have a high performance product they are proud to stand behind. Instead, Roon strikes me as a bunch of penny-pinchers with questionable quality control operating out of a basement and they would rather have someone else deal with their products’ software and hardware problems.  
 

Again, I appreciate the efficiencies they employ, but classy it ain’t. More self-centered than customer oriented.

Roon is a software company which sells some hardware. I decided to instead get a Sonictransporter Roon server from Small Green Computer https://www.smallgreencomputer.com instead of a Nucleus because SGC does direct customer support. I like the looks of the Nucleus, but the SGC box is a better value imo. So far, Andrew of SGC has been excellent at providing support when (rarely) needed. I also like that if I ever want to quit Roon (which I don’t anticipate), I can use the Sonictransporter with other apps for streaming, like Squeezebox (iirc).

I will probably build a NUC for a backup someday.