RME ADI-2 DAC vs. D90+A90 vs. Burson Conductor 3

[Wazzupi]

I don't know I have both and it definitely sounds better out of the A90 and I'm running XLR and output SE atm from my a90 until I get a balanced cable. But what do I expect oh I just said it.

You'll definitely get sound. If you add headphones. Never was very good at algebra though,

Trust me it isn't the only thing you're not good at.

 

[Jimbob54]

I don't know I have both and it definitely sounds better out of the A90 and I'm running XLR and output SE atm from my a90 until I get a balanced cable. But what do I expect oh I just said it.

Trust me it isn't the only thing you're not good at.

Maybe if you learn to frame a post / question, you wont get lame answers.

 

[LTig]

rme + a90 ?

Doesn't really makes much sense. Search here at ASR for a posting by @MC_RME where he explains why. AFAIR someone wanted to add an Atom headphone amp to the RME ADI-2 DAC.

 

[Racheski]

rme + a90 ?

I knew I remembered someone posting a pic of that combo! @EchoChamber has this stack.

 

[ReaderZ]

Doesn't really makes much sense. Search here at ASR for a posting by @MC_RME where he explains why. AFAIR someone wanted to add an Atom headphone amp to the RME ADI-2 DAC.

I remeber reading it too, he actually believed add a 789 or 887 make sense for balanced out, same would apply for A90 but it wasn't out at the time.

 

[Jimbob54]

I knew I remembered someone posting a pic of that combo! @EchoChamber has this stack.
View attachment 69905

The one with the A90, sat there all unnecessary and unloved?

 

[Racheski]

at least the power is on...

 

[EchoChamber]

I knew I remembered someone posting a pic of that combo! @EchoChamber has this stack.
View attachment 69905

I ended up returning the adi-2... As a DAC, my subjective listening impression favored the D90 and Modius. With the A90 and headphone there was very little sonic difference though. But with speakers differences were more obvious.

 

[Rja4000]

As a DAC, my subjective listening impression favored the D90 and Modius. With the A90 and headphone there was very little sonic difference though. But with speakers differences were more obvious

Given the measurements we've seen here for those 2 devices, either that's placebo effect (that happened to everyone. Including Amir himself, from his own words), either there was something wrong (or just different) with the gain chain.
It's very complex to scientifically assess such 'difference'.

 

[Racheski]

I ended up returning the adi-2... As a DAC, my subjective listening impression favored the D90 and Modius. With the A90 and headphone there was very little sonic difference though. But with speakers differences were more obvious.

You bought it just for the likes from the pics...I see right through you

 

[EchoChamber]

Given the measurements we've seen here for those 2 devices, either that's placebo effect (that happened to everyone. Including Amir himself, from his own words), either there was something wrong (or just different) with the gain chain.
It's very complex to scientifically assess such 'difference'.

All I can say is that I perceived them differently. I find it almost impossible to pin point small differences in A/B testing, so instead I just live with the different units for a while and see how I react to its sonic presentation. I swap them randomly after a good amount of hours through days. Compared to the D90, I found the adi-2 v2 to sound a hair more detailed, but “thin”, lacking body. And, that’s the main kicker, I’d get listening fatigue in both my speaker systems very quick. So I loved all the features the adi-2 has, the ease of use, and it was perfect for my needs except for the listening experience.

I intend to send a (constructive) feedback letter to RMI describing my experience.

FWIW, I also find the Modius to sound different than both D90 and adi-2, I prefer the D90 MQA and I’m keeping it in my main speaker system. But I’m lusting the Okto dac8... ;-)

 

[EchoChamber]

You bought it just for the likes from the pics...I see right through you

lol, I’m a big nerd and I love to collect likes. :-D

 

[Rja4000]

All I can say is that I perceived them differently. I find it almost impossible to pin point small differences in A/B testing, so instead I just live with the different units for a while and see how I react to its sonic presentation. I swap them randomly after a good amount of hours through days. Compared to the D90, I found the adi-2 v2 to sound a hair more detailed, but “thin”, lacking body. And, that’s the main kicker, I’d get listening fatigue in both my speaker systems very quick. So I loved all the features the adi-2 has, the ease of use, and it was perfect for my needs except for the listening experience.

I intend to send a (constructive) feedback letter to RMI describing my experience.

FWIW, I also find the Modius to sound different than both D90 and adi-2, I prefer the D90 MQA and I’m keeping it in my main speaker system. But I’m lusting the Okto dac8... ;-)

We've all been through that kind of experience one day. The only thing wrong with your method is that you swapped equipment yourself, so you know when something was changed, therefore you tried to find something different.
If somebody else did the change and you didn't even know when something was changed, there is a good chance you'd never hear a signigicative difference, in one way or another. Or, rather, this difference would have been completely random.

It's not just you. All of us are subject to that kind of experience.
It's just that, as the brain can't hear everything, it chooses to focus on some details at will (and sometimes without us being aware of the choice). And that different focus leads us to think we hear something different. While we just look at a different detail of the picture.

I was chatting with some pro sound engineer a few weeks ago.
A typical experience we all had, during mixing a recording, is to decide to tune the balance of a track by adding bass or so. Then we hear the change.
Seconds or minutes later, we find that it's still lacking. We come back to the same track and change it again. To realize that either we were changing another track, or the EQ was bypassed. And still, we heard the change !
This happened to all of us.

 

[EchoChamber]

We've all been through that kind of experience one day. The only thing wrong with your method is that you swapped equipment yourself, so you know when something was changed, therefore you tried to find something different.
If somebody else did the change and you didn't even know when something was changed, there is a good chance you'd never hear a signigicative difference, in one way or another. Or, rather, this difference would have been completely random.

It's not just you. All of us are subject to that kind of experience.
It's just that, as the brain can't hear everything, it chooses to focus on some details at will (and sometimes without us being aware of the choice). And that different focus leads us to think we hear something different. While we just look at a different detail of the picture.

I was chatting with some pro sound engineer a few weeks ago.
A typical experience we all had, during mixing a recording, is to decide to tune the balance of a track by adding bass or so. Then we hear the change.
Seconds or minutes later, we find that it's still lacking. We come back to the same track and change it again. To realize that either we were changing another track, or the EQ was bypassed. And still, we heard the change !
This happened to all of us.

I don’t know what it is, if it really happens to all of us or not, or if the brain really controls the hearing perception or not. The brain is not well understood by science today, there’s so much to learn... How our hearing has been calibrated through millions of years of evolution on earth, etc... I’m not in that field so my opinion is only formed by sonic perception, and the experience of obsessing about music reproduction for decades. I like to call it the goose bump factor - if a well recorded cello piece gives me goose bumps and I can hear the resonance of it’s wood body, its a good sign of a component I’m likely to keep.

One thing I can control is to keep a component in my system or not depending on how it sounds to me. BTW, my wife complained about the sound of the main system sounding “small”, like it’s coming out of a “tin can” when I had the adi-2 in. So without the intention of creating a subjective vs objective debate. Because I am an objective audiophile, I went ahead and bought 4 DACs in Amir’s blue list. 3 out of 4 sounded amazing and I’m keeping them, IMO better than my previous Yggdrasil (now sold). One somehow didn’t sound amazing despite my efforts to make it work by tweaking setting, cables, associated components, etc.. I’m not keeping the adi-2 just because it tested well. It could be me, the rest of the system, I don’t know... I’m also not trying to be right or to judge anyone, I’m just sharing my experience.

PS: I found this YouTube video comparing the Brooklyn (never heard it in my system) with the adi-2. Can anyone hear the difference?

 

[Jimbob54]

I don’t know what it is, if it really happens to all of us or not, or if the brain really controls the hearing perception or not. The brain is not well understood by science today, there’s so much to learn... How our hearing has been calibrated through millions of years of evolution on earth, etc... I’m not in that field so my opinion is only formed by sonic perception, and the experience of obsessing about music reproduction for decades. I like to call it the goose bump factor - if a well recorded cello piece gives me goose bumps and I can hear the resonance of it’s wood body, it’s a good sign of a component I’m likely to keep.

One thing I can control is to keep a component in my system or not depending on how it sounds to me. BTW, my wife complained about the sound of the main system sounding “small”, like it’s coming out of a “tin can” when I had the adi-2 in. So without the intention of creating a subjective vs objective debate. Because I am an objective audiophile, I went ahead and bought 4 DACs in Amir’s blue list. 3 out of 4 sounded amazing and I’m keeping them, IMO better than my previous Yggdrasil (now sold). One somehow didn’t sound amazing despite my efforts to make it work by tweaking setting, cables, associated components, etc.. I’m not keeping the adi-2 just because it tested well. It could be me, the rest of the system, I don’t know... I’m also not trying to be right or to judge anyone, I’m just sharing my experience.

PS: I found this YouTube video comparing the Brooklyn (never herd it in my system) with the adi-2. Can anyone hear the difference?

The brain really does control the hearing perception.

An objective, rational person would either send the RME back as faulty or figure out what they had got set up wrong, or both. Not buy 4 more devices that all should perform pretty much equally.

You even brought in the good lady. Are you on a wind up?

 

[EchoChamber]

Alright, I’m throwing the towel...

But do go listen to that video if you’re so inclined and if you can hear the sound of the adi-2 it approaches my perception of it in my system.

 

[Jimbob54]

Alright, I’m throwing the towel...

But do go listen to that video if you’re so inclined and if you can hear the sound of the adi-2 it approaches my perception of it in my system.

I'm not going to compare (near) identical sounding electrical equipment on a youtube video.

 

[jtwrace]

I wonder how the Soncaz SGD1 would compare subjectively to the D90 and RME.

 

[Jimbob54]

I wonder how the Soncaz SGD1 would compare subjectively to the D90 and RME.

Well, that depends entirely on the person doing the comparison. Objectively I'd guess they stack up the same on sound , differently on build, appearance, features etc

 

[jtwrace]

Well, that depends entirely on the person doing the comparison. Objectively I'd guess they stack up the same on sound , differently on build, appearance, features etc

That's just it...you look at the measurements and wonder! I'm tempted to try the Soncaz after looking at all the measurements.