RME ADI-2 Pro Discussion Thread

Not for too much longer: https://goodhertz.co/faq#maconly
You can register for when they do betas.

RME has been really responsive in their updates so if @Hrodulf or any of you other cats have requests, I suggest you contact them more directly.

 

pulled the trigger on one of these, it's replacing an aging emu 1616m that is dying and in dire need of replacement

i don't know why there aren't more products out there like this

i've always wanted something that was basically just a stripped down audio interface with only a single stereo pair of ad and da without t he stupid mic pres and crap audio interfaces typically have, and all the dac/amp units out there typically don't have an adc

i've got a bunch of white labels and other records to rip that don't seem to be on the internet anywhere

 

It's because the audiophile DAC thing has largely destroyed the market for the stuff that you describe. It does not help that marketing men and audiophiles, between them, have convinced most buyers that inside the box is a no-go area (and that audiophiles, for all their talk of electrical noise, mostly prefer laptops anyway)

Add that the new generation of turntable owners are tending towards wanting pure vinyl experience, rather than tools for ripping.

I really am cynical about the birth of the stand-alone hifi DAC. I think it very possible that the idea was to sell us half the functionality at the same price or more. I think it quite likely too that that remained the base price for DACs thereafter.

This is not to knock DACs. It is also not to knock the essentially-excellent principle of not paying for unwanted functionality. And also, I guess there were separate-box DAC and ADC units in professional use before the standalone DAC hit hifi. In fact, I'm fairly sure there were.

 

There were. Symetrix 620 was a decent, cost effective ADC in 1998. I still have one in a mobile rack case somewhere. Many pro-audio standalone ADC and DAC exist from the beginning through today. Lavry Blue allowed customizable build of a 4 module system and create the mix of ADC and DAC one wished.

 

This is not to say however that the pro guys aren't guilty of also pushing the audiophile mindset. It's not quite as egregious as the hifi world, but it's there, and there are "tiers" that exist just like in home hifi.

RME is one of those that exists solidly in the pro tier (as opposed to the consumer and prosumer levels below), and sound quality aside are known primarily for their drivers and being rock solid/dependable which is absolutely crucial when you're working live.

 

Fireface UC impressed me many years ago with one of the most reliable windows drivers and their TotalMix control panel. Patch bays with gain and attenuation; brilliant!! Multiple presets so returning to same venues were much easier setups on subsequent live recordings or acoustic measurements. The driver performance was verified with USB Trace Analyzers on the OS side. Various drivers exhibit markedly different behaviors, especially in packet timings. RME figures prominently in my lab designs.

 

On the other hand I do wish that I could drop jRiver completely and "just" run Sonarworks Systemwide and have the rest of @atomicbob IVS (SSBB + soundstage tweak (NX) + Phase flip) done within the ADI-2. That would allow me to finally go back to using Roon, which in my book is the one single solution that's has brought digital (as in computer based) playback to what it should be; great metadata, fantastic library management and finally the last piece of the puzzle, the ability to scroll through artwork/boooklets from a variety of formats on the fly within the software.

So far the crossfeed and angle setting in the ADI-2 has not impressed me. I've yet to try and combine Sonarworks systemwide with the ADI-2 angle setting - I guess it requires a license transfer of some sort...

My mini review of the ADI-2 is still in the making, but in summary:

[With HD800] this is an analytical, transparent and borderline cold/sterile DAC/AMP combo which is as feature packed as anyone could possibly wish for. It's powerful enough to allow for sufficient headroom when setting out to "solve" the HD800's shortcomings plus the shortcomings of headphone listening in general (see separate system synergy thread about @atomicbob IVS) using a string of plugins, set aside mechanical modifications.

In addition the ADI-2 has the ability to run unique settings for headphone outputs and the pre-outs on the back. Excellent for when running a set of powered monitors in addition to headphones, without having to change settings in between.

How does it sound? That's for the review. More to come.

 

I've been sitting on my hands trying to write up this Prism vs RME vs Forssell vs Schiit review for a while now. Ugh. I should have done it as a diary; right now I've got 14 pages of typed point form notes...

As I mentioned earlier though, the RME drivers have been solid for me, whereas I had problems with the Prism a couple times across two computers (some of which caused BSOD). Granted, the Prism issues were first and I spent some time debugging the computer so perhaps I had the kinks worked out by the time I got to the RME. It's impossible to know for certain there.

I think I'm perhaps not a huge fan of crossfeed overall, except in instances where the recording is hard panned and just unlistenable on headphones. RME's implementation is nice, but I've mentioned before I find myself wishing there were a 0.5 setting. The JRiver crossfeed is too damp sounding. I like TB Isone, but it too causes some fuzziness and distortion in the bass. I used to have some old Meier amps with crossfeed which I thought were nice, but that was ages ago so my memory on that is unreliable (and I believe the RME crossfeed is based on some modules that incorporate Meier's work). I'd like to try out SPL's hardware crossfeed one of these days if the opportunity ever comes up.

 

Waves NX is the onlly crossfeed system that has worked for my ears. I've heard most of them (except Out Of Your Head and Can Opener). Smyth Realizer, SPL Phonitor and others didn't do much for me.

 

I was looking at the ADI-2 Pro I/O and realized that I could drive monitors off of one DAC and headphones (SE) off the other through output 3/4 simultaneously, with different inputs. Pretty cool stuff. Then I realized that must mean the rear XLR balanced outs are only ever operating off of one DAC, and the only way to rope both DACs into balanced output operation is to use the Balanced Phones mode with the dual TRS outs in front.

I guess I hadn't really thought it through completely, is this correct or am I missing something?

 

Using the Genelec 8020D + 7040 sub with ADI-2 Pro is a nice experience.
One question came to mind.

I can adjust the rear XLR output reference level of the ADI-2 to 4dBu, 13dBu, 19dBu and 24dBu.
On the Genelecs I can adjust the input sensitivity -6dB/+6dB.

I assume I can simply adjust to allow enough 'play' and control on the volume control per step (0.5dB/step) - but I was wondering if there's any recommendations of what to adjust first (ADI-2 or Genelecs) and recommended levels?

 

Makes me wonder, why you would want to? Of course I'm aware of the different levels of pro/domestic equipment, but what is the need of this 4-step wide range of adjustment?

I'm confident that RME would not provide it without good reason. They are about as far from audiophoolery is it gets. So it must be my understanding that is missing here.

 

Quoting the ADI-2 manual:

 

...after reading up a but more in the ADI-2 manual, which is a 96 pages work of art in itself, I decided to just set the 'Main Output 1/2' Auto Ref Level = ON and the Genelecs sensitivity to -6dBu (which is also the factory default).
Playing music and adjusting volume shows that ADI-2 chooses +4dBu in my setup.

But I wonder if I would be better off turning the sensitivity of the speaker up (from -6dBu) and allowing/forcing the ADI-2 output level to (auto or force) increase as well.

Quoting Ilkka Rissanen of Genelec:

 

Which I have to confess that I did once download to drool over.

Anyway, thanks for taking the trouble to quote the relevant information. There's more to levels, or at least more of them, than I thought.

 

Unfortunately, page 26 of the ADI-2 Pro User's manual contains the following about Balanced Phones mode:

"When active, the rear analog outputs are muted automatically."

So unless I'm misreading it, RME giveth and RME taketh away. There's a second balanced output available from the front jacks, but if you use it then the balanced output on the back is muted. I haven't found a way (in the manual) to disable the automatic muting. And I wish they had put duplicates of those front TRS jacks on the back, instead of the TS jacks duplicating the XLR output.

 

You push and hold the main volume knob to toggle between front or back outputs.

The TS outputs are single ended and can be used with an RCA adapter/cable.

 

Yes, the point is you can't use both the front and back balanced outputs simultaneously. And I find the back TS outputs to be useless as a duplicate of the XLR outputs. Why not make them duplicates of the front TRS outputs instead?

For example, when mastering, it would have been nice to have two simultaneous balanced outputs, one to feed an analog processing chain, and one for monitoring.