TOPIC:

On 20-10-2020 this was in the newsletter: - "Roon Ready Certification: The final touches are ongoing but with a slight delay as can happen for complex implementations. Customers of SHD/SHD Studio/SHD Power platforms will soon receive a free upgrade in coming weeks. Thanks again for your patience!"

Please @devteam provide us with an update!

@devteam doesn't give a crap about this forum or our problems. They have posted 4 times total in the past month, and one of those was to tell us happy holidays and another to tell us the website would be down for a couple hours.

I sent them an email a 3 or so weeks ago asking if they're actively working it - sounds like they are and they're pretty close. They didn't want to promise a date though because part of the process involves the Roon folks.

eisenb11 wrote:

I sent them an email a 3 or so weeks ago asking if they're actively working it - sounds like they are and they're pretty close. They didn't want to promise a date though because part of the process involves the Roon folks.

Here is a reply received yesterday from Roon concerning the SHD:

... I'd check in with MiniDSP on the status of their certification, I'm sure they'll have good news for you soon so you can enjoy a properly certified SHD.

- Rich

yes, they are working on it but
a) succes depends on external party so hard to predict the timing
b) the miniDSP habit of not communicating on developments until ready for release
results in the silence... patience is what we need

Juoigâ wrote:

yes, they are working on it but
a) succes depends on external party so hard to predict the timing
b) the miniDSP habit of not communicating on developments until ready for release
results in the silence... patience is what we need

Here is the response from MiniDSP again

... I'd check in with MiniDSP on the status of their certification, I'm sure they'll have good news for you soon so you can enjoy a properly certified SHD.

This suggests that MiniDSP is completing the certification process not Roon.
If correct, success is not a matter of waiting for Roon but Roon waiting for MiniDSP to report their certification results.
Roon does not charge for certification which also suggests the person power () is on the vendor not Roon.

Roon also has a category of "Roon Tested" that sounds like it comes with an invoice.

- Rich

RichB wrote:

This suggests that MiniDSP is completing the certification process not Roon.
If correct, success is not a matter of waiting for Roon but Roon waiting for MiniDSP to report their certification results.

This is just a guess but my take on the message from Roon was that they had recently completed the approval process but were now waiting for miniDSP to announce this. I have no interest in Roon myself but I really hope this does get resolved soon.

Ultrasonic wrote:

RichB wrote:

This suggests that MiniDSP is completing the certification process not Roon.
If correct, success is not a matter of waiting for Roon but Roon waiting for MiniDSP to report their certification results.

This is just a guess but my take on the message from Roon's message was that they had recently completed the approval process but were now waiting for miniDSP to announce this. I have no interest in Roon myself but I really hope this does get resolved soon.

The way I read your Roon response was that the cert could potentially be done and it’s now up to MiniDSP to announce it once they’re ready.

Perhaps, they’re finalizing QA testing of the firmware update or waiting to wrap up other changes and fixes that may also be part of the update (Roon might not be the only thing in there).

Either way, sounds like we’re close.

I really don't get it. Why is everything about Roon and certification so uncertain and secretive? At least that is how it appears to me. What is it exactly that keeps miniDSP from sharing more with us. What part of the process is taking so long? Why not just tell everyone all the gooey details and keep us updated instead of in suspense?

I have to agree with @notman about the @devteam ... I love Tony and his products... owned their products for years, but prompt and detailed customer service is simply not a strong suit of miniDSP. It's okay, but it could definitely be better. If they would take an approach from a company like SVSound, they would be an incredible company. They've got great products... just lack that "superb" quality service. I don't know if they are just that overwhelmed with business or can't find appropriate help, or what has hindered them.

That’s the thing for me too. Why not give back to the community a little with some basic communication? Why not keep a conversation going with their customers? They won’t be able to tell us everything and give up-to-the-second updates, but it’s a way of showing appreciation, community, and competency... all things which are good for business!

It’s crazy inefficient for them too. Instead of communicating once with us here, they’ve got dozens of people all over the world opening tickets to ask them the same basic questions, which they appear to selectively answer or ignore one by one, and then some of those people come on here and share the contents of the reply and then we’re all left to decode what it means for us.

I like the performance of my SHD very much. It’s a unique, powerful device that I’m glad I found, but I would never recommend it. This lack of communication and hardware support is inexcusable in this competitive market.

...and on this topic, since I gather not many people visit the “suggestion box” area, I wrote them something of an open letter about how they are letting this place wither and die as all the information dead-ends are piling up.

www.minidsp.com/forum/suggestion-box/184...n-an-ounce-of-effort

What happened the good old say "No news is good news?"

We stated this few times already but happy to repeat: We can't provide timeline I'm afraid. If we were to tell you a date, we'd get flamed. If we don't, we get flamed... There is REALLY no win win situation here as we'll never be able to make everybody happy..

Unfortunately something called a Covid19 pandemic put a giant spanner into our engineering schedule making working with some of our partners in charge of some element of dev a lot more difficult, something called the largest audio fab house in the world (akm) going on fire and wiping out all stocks worldwide also put a spanner into our schedule by requiring us to put a lot of effort to make sure everybody gets product, something called supply chain constrain where almost all manufacturers in electronic are struggling to keep up with .....

So YES, we've been busier than before and in the process made the choice to focus on answering all our customers tech support ticket, YES, we indeed didn't update on a weekly basis on Roon but that doesn't mean we don't care, that doesn't mean we ignore you all... We do answer all support tickets when you have questions... I do think that keeping this community healthy matters. We don't need to be toxic to each others... We're just people, we can hear/listen/talk...

As for the question that most of you care about: Roon dev is indeed progressing. To get it working well, we wanted to include few new updates to the latest Volumio build together with new Kernel. That's best for the long term instead of a quick fix.

As some of you might have learned, we had to move SHD series to a new streamer (prior one end of line). It's similar specs but it did require a complete new build 1.073. Like anything in engineering world, nothing is easy and that took a bit more time than expected to add few more features. That means Roon was a bit delayed but we're back on track finalizing as we speak.. Patience will prevail and we appreciate your support!

Hoping that clarifies

DevTeam

Thank you for the explanation.

I don’t think anyone expects weekly updates at all. However, it’s fair to point out it’s been over four months and several pages since you appeared on this thread.

We don’t have to have this discussion here, but I think it’s illustrative that when this and many threads go unanswered for a long time, then the pressure to make a big, time-consuming update builds. I’m no expert but I’d have to think maintaining a bit more regular, small communication is better for everyone than doing it in big chunks after people have gotten frustrated.

That’s all on that. Moving on.

I personally don't feel like "no news" is healthy for the community. You may not make everyone happy, but you'll make some happy, which is better than none.

I will add that I don't think anyone is necessarily asking for a timeline or a specific date, but at least tell us where you are at in the stage and what's going on that is causing the delays (like what you just posted). That will at least give your users an idea of what is happening. Weekly is not necessary, but perhaps monthly or quarterly is not asking too much. Going months on end without any updates to threads is going to be toxic. Your user don't cause that, but your lack of response will. It is what it is.

While COVID has cause some delays for a lot of industries ... nearly everyone I know in the AV industry (which is considerable given I'm in the industry) has experienced exponential sales and growth. Even with the delays it has been good. Many have hired more people to help handle the increase.

I for one am happy for the continuing development. Keep up the good work!