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Fix your RME ADI 2 - FS DAC sound.

DonDish

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Another way to see this. Some ppl would prefere this graph to go up on a shelf instead of flat or down a 0.6 slope. Bassheads :D
 

Udi

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Jan 15, 2023
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Hi all, thank you for this great community.

Sorry for the bump.

A new owner of the FS, I admire the FS for what it adds to my system, however it has taken away all sense of presence.

I stumbled upon this thread in my search, and would appreciate your help in finding this option in the menu.

Manual mentions this feature, not how to disable it AFAICT.

Many thanks in advance,

Udi

PS - system is N130 to FS via USB, FS to CXA81 via RCA, then to a pair of Tannoy XT6F, in a treated room.
 

MC_RME

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Tip: download the online pdf version (newer than the printed one anyway), then do a simple CTRL-F (aka search) within the pdf.
 

Udi

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Tip: download the online pdf version (newer than the printed one anyway), then do a simple CTRL-F (aka search) within the pdf.
Thank you, will do.

What else is known to improve presence (holographic imaging, depth etc) with the FS? Any particular EQ settings?

Again thank you and HAGWE
 

Udi

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Tip: download the online pdf version (newer than the printed one anyway), then do a simple CTRL-F (aka search) within the pdf.
I see it in the manual V3. 1.

Not in the device menu though, will post after a FW update.
 
Last edited:

Udi

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Toed the speakers in +10 degrees, heaven.

The FS changes the frequencies generated by my system, so I thought repositioning the speakers would be necessary, and I was right.

Presence issue solved, thank you everyone.
 
Last edited:

zajogungster

Active Member
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Jun 1, 2020
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EDIT:

I feel like a should buy some flowers to fellow members of audiosciene forum. Based on their response, whole problem was with Digital DC Protection which was on (filter) by DEFAULT! I dont know why RME though that its good idea to turn on such function to mess with your audio by default. I feel like this should turn on someone who knows what he is doing. I actually was thinking before if that setting dont mess with audio, but I could not find such information at online manual by RME. Propably my mistake, I should read ton of text around it. Just proposition to how to explain it to normal people at manual with just few words :)

Digital DC Protection: OFF - your system will burn at hell
ON - your system will propably burn at hell
Filter - emotions and dynamict at your music will burn at hell

I turned that garbage off and problem is fixed. Whole sound is now present in my room and dynamics returned back. What a difference! Sound is not distant and empty anymore.

Maybe it needs better implementation a few hz lower. I dont know.

By default you have basicly equalizer on which is touching frequencies 60hz and below. So even in audible range.

That being said, I would love to know if that fancy SINAD measurements were with this cheating function active. Just to compare apples with apples.

Also that would be a beutiful world if someone (Amir ;) ) will find a way to measure changes at sound. I dont understand why despite dacmagic and RME having the same frequency response (and phase); differences at bass reproduction are so huge. Dacmagic is gravitational heavy, RME is just airy, empty. If someone find a way how to measure even frequency reproduction itself... it would be a gamechanging I think :)

Anyway if you have RME ADI-2 FS DAC, I strongly recomend to turn that rubish High Shelf filter at Digital DC Protection OFF by switching it to state: ON.

Thanks forum members, you saved my RME; its staying.

End of inserted text.
Original post follows.




I decided to register just to be able to clarify some myths about this DAC.

First of all, I wanna do some aliby for myself. I am going to present my personal findings followed by some basic measurements.
If you got your RME and you are happy about a sound, stop reading here. I dont want to spoil good times with this DAC for anyone.
But if you got it, and you still have a feeling like there is something whats not right with a sound; keep reading, this post is for you.

First some subjective story.
I have Dacmagic plus and I was quite satisfied with sound. Time had come and I decied to buy something more advanced. I red all the good stuf from anyone about RME. Since vast majority of ,,science" people say, that good DACs sound about the same I pulled a triger. I got a ESS version burned about 100 hours. There was time to start listening and enjoying. But few seconds on my favourite songs passed and I was shocked by two things. First, how CLEAN everything sounds... I was like holly sh*t. But few moment later I felt like... ok, really nice but where is bottom end? Why drums sounds like child farts? Where is any low dynamics? Where is ,,reallnes" ? I told myself ok, screw that. The sound is clean, propably so acurate and professional that it should sound like that. But time passed and I started to hate that sound. I couldnt believe that device at that price sounds so hollow, empty. After I switched to my dacmagic; whole sound sudenly came back to life. More dirty but emotions came back, drums started to hit and presurise like they should, whole ,,presence" of audio came back. Right away I recalled about comparison with chord qutest 2 like it has ,,more intimate sound". What it is? Anyway I think this is not audiofools forum so its time to go on.....

Objective part

So I remembered about my focusrite and started to make some frequency measurements. If I am not crazy, REW will tell me. I wish I didnt; cause it made me feel like I threw my money through a window by purchasing this.

View attachment 226227
View attachment 226228
What you see on measurements? At first sight, everything is quite right.
But here we go first unpleasant surprise. At recent time I red here comparison ESS and AKM versions. But what author didnt mentions is falling frequency response slope below 40 hz. By strange accident even in his table he stated frequencies from 45-20 000hz. I wish I red that so carefully earlier cause it could be quite suspicious for me. At 20 HZ; which is still perfectly audible frequency you have drop 0,2 db. Folloved by rise at highs your whole sound energy goes forward high frequencies. But this could not be it. Differences are not that tragic so there must be something else going on. Look at cambridge; do you know where we are going to?

The big problem starts below 20 hz. It needs to be researched properly.


Humans can hear somewhere down to 18hz thats objective truth. But range 10-20 HZ is perfectly audible if those frequencies are mixed with the rest of frequencies. Even below 10hz is being discused and researched until this day. If you drop those frequencies you will loose wast majority of pressure from sound. Drums will change to child farts, vocals become less present etc. I think I sence some cheating here. If you recess this kind of frequencies you ll also get rid of a lot of ,,sound trash". Everything will sound much more clearer and cleaner... but empty and hollow.

Do you ask me how I know? Of course I did A/B comparison with dacmagic but:

If you have a RME ADI -2 FS DAC with ESS (maybe it ll work for AKM too), lets engage that fancy equalizer. On my pc setting are as follows:
I did my best but RME fancy eq wont allow you to fix whole range. Anyway I finished somewhere halfway with this settings:

Using RCA output:
windows audio slider: 100%
Filter: slow
ref level +7dbu
volume -6.5db
Bass knob +0.5
EQ:
B1 shelf mode G+1 F 20 Q 0.6
B2 G-0.5 F25 Q 0.6
B3 G-0.5 F 60 Q 2.5

and if you like a small fix for highs at eq too: shelf mode B5 F 20 000 G-0.5 Q2.5

I still had my doubts till I started playing music. But unfortunatelly It worked. Differences at EQ ON/OFF were enormous. Emotions went live, drums started to sound more like a drums and whole sound became less ,,thin". I was unable to bring back everything, but It sounds much; much better.

And this is it. I red claims like this soundcard sound like nothing and that it can sound like anything. I absolutelly dont agree with this claim. At least my RME sounds like RME and whatever I ll do, it will alway sound like a RME. With huge hole at the bottom of frequencies. I would like to believe that engineers will do some firmware upgrade and let us choose for example with function to bring lost frequencies back. But I realise that that are just my wet dreams. I expect to happen something like a ,,new magical RME range of DACs with more solid sound" in a future with this difference. Again for new money. Or some theory about DC polution at empty frequencies. I wish I was wrong. And I bet that If you measure that chord qutest, it ll have those frequencies on... maybe a bit exaterated, but I am just quesing.

I know how mixing proces goes, and I know about cuts being made at 20 hz. But those cuts are not that sharp as you think. And somethimes a bit ,,actually listening" can be a good thing at audio hobby and this is difference nigh/day.

At the moment I feel a huge letdown. Nobody here mentioned this data. If you want to be scientific, you should relly on data and not to opinions I believe. At this point by memory this soundcard sounds to me like a SU-6 which cost 170 euro. I wish I didnt return it; I would like to measure it and compare.

Thats it, my mighty perfect RME goes away if nobody will fix this and I ll buy something which wont seem to me like a cheating in audio creation process. I believe that whole reason for art like music is to produce emotions.


I hope that at least this will help to those people which are a bit confused by sound coming out of this device.

All the best
I haven't read so much nonsense in one post in a long time. 10Hz ... that's what I want to hear :D
 

AJG

Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2022
Messages
23
Likes
7
EDIT:

I feel like a should buy some flowers to fellow members of audiosciene forum. Based on their response, whole problem was with Digital DC Protection which was on (filter) by DEFAULT! I dont know why RME though that its good idea to turn on such function to mess with your audio by default. I feel like this should turn on someone who knows what he is doing. I actually was thinking before if that setting dont mess with audio, but I could not find such information at online manual by RME. Propably my mistake, I should read ton of text around it. Just proposition to how to explain it to normal people at manual with just few words :)

Digital DC Protection: OFF - your system will burn at hell
ON - your system will propably burn at hell
Filter - emotions and dynamict at your music will burn at hell

I turned that garbage off and problem is fixed. Whole sound is now present in my room and dynamics returned back. What a difference! Sound is not distant and empty anymore.

Maybe it needs better implementation a few hz lower. I dont know.

By default you have basicly equalizer on which is touching frequencies 60hz and below. So even in audible range.

That being said, I would love to know if that fancy SINAD measurements were with this cheating function active. Just to compare apples with apples.

Also that would be a beutiful world if someone (Amir ;) ) will find a way to measure changes at sound. I dont understand why despite dacmagic and RME having the same frequency response (and phase); differences at bass reproduction are so huge. Dacmagic is gravitational heavy, RME is just airy, empty. If someone find a way how to measure even frequency reproduction itself... it would be a gamechanging I think :)

Anyway if you have RME ADI-2 FS DAC, I strongly recomend to turn that rubish High Shelf filter at Digital DC Protection OFF by switching it to state: ON.

Thanks forum members, you saved my RME; its staying.

End of inserted text.
Original post follows.




I decided to register just to be able to clarify some myths about this DAC.

First of all, I wanna do some aliby for myself. I am going to present my personal findings followed by some basic measurements.
If you got your RME and you are happy about a sound, stop reading here. I dont want to spoil good times with this DAC for anyone.
But if you got it, and you still have a feeling like there is something whats not right with a sound; keep reading, this post is for you.

First some subjective story.
I have Dacmagic plus and I was quite satisfied with sound. Time had come and I decied to buy something more advanced. I red all the good stuf from anyone about RME. Since vast majority of ,,science" people say, that good DACs sound about the same I pulled a triger. I got a ESS version burned about 100 hours. There was time to start listening and enjoying. But few seconds on my favourite songs passed and I was shocked by two things. First, how CLEAN everything sounds... I was like holly sh*t. But few moment later I felt like... ok, really nice but where is bottom end? Why drums sounds like child farts? Where is any low dynamics? Where is ,,reallnes" ? I told myself ok, screw that. The sound is clean, propably so acurate and professional that it should sound like that. But time passed and I started to hate that sound. I couldnt believe that device at that price sounds so hollow, empty. After I switched to my dacmagic; whole sound sudenly came back to life. More dirty but emotions came back, drums started to hit and presurise like they should, whole ,,presence" of audio came back. Right away I recalled about comparison with chord qutest 2 like it has ,,more intimate sound". What it is? Anyway I think this is not audiofools forum so its time to go on.....

Objective part

So I remembered about my focusrite and started to make some frequency measurements. If I am not crazy, REW will tell me. I wish I didnt; cause it made me feel like I threw my money through a window by purchasing this.

View attachment 226227
View attachment 226228
What you see on measurements? At first sight, everything is quite right.
But here we go first unpleasant surprise. At recent time I red here comparison ESS and AKM versions. But what author didnt mentions is falling frequency response slope below 40 hz. By strange accident even in his table he stated frequencies from 45-20 000hz. I wish I red that so carefully earlier cause it could be quite suspicious for me. At 20 HZ; which is still perfectly audible frequency you have drop 0,2 db. Folloved by rise at highs your whole sound energy goes forward high frequencies. But this could not be it. Differences are not that tragic so there must be something else going on. Look at cambridge; do you know where we are going to?

The big problem starts below 20 hz. It needs to be researched properly.


Humans can hear somewhere down to 18hz thats objective truth. But range 10-20 HZ is perfectly audible if those frequencies are mixed with the rest of frequencies. Even below 10hz is being discused and researched until this day. If you drop those frequencies you will loose wast majority of pressure from sound. Drums will change to child farts, vocals become less present etc. I think I sence some cheating here. If you recess this kind of frequencies you ll also get rid of a lot of ,,sound trash". Everything will sound much more clearer and cleaner... but empty and hollow.

Do you ask me how I know? Of course I did A/B comparison with dacmagic but:

If you have a RME ADI -2 FS DAC with ESS (maybe it ll work for AKM too), lets engage that fancy equalizer. On my pc setting are as follows:
I did my best but RME fancy eq wont allow you to fix whole range. Anyway I finished somewhere halfway with this settings:

Using RCA output:
windows audio slider: 100%
Filter: slow
ref level +7dbu
volume -6.5db
Bass knob +0.5
EQ:
B1 shelf mode G+1 F 20 Q 0.6
B2 G-0.5 F25 Q 0.6
B3 G-0.5 F 60 Q 2.5

and if you like a small fix for highs at eq too: shelf mode B5 F 20 000 G-0.5 Q2.5

I still had my doubts till I started playing music. But unfortunatelly It worked. Differences at EQ ON/OFF were enormous. Emotions went live, drums started to sound more like a drums and whole sound became less ,,thin". I was unable to bring back everything, but It sounds much; much better.

And this is it. I red claims like this soundcard sound like nothing and that it can sound like anything. I absolutelly dont agree with this claim. At least my RME sounds like RME and whatever I ll do, it will alway sound like a RME. With huge hole at the bottom of frequencies. I would like to believe that engineers will do some firmware upgrade and let us choose for example with function to bring lost frequencies back. But I realise that that are just my wet dreams. I expect to happen something like a ,,new magical RME range of DACs with more solid sound" in a future with this difference. Again for new money. Or some theory about DC polution at empty frequencies. I wish I was wrong. And I bet that If you measure that chord qutest, it ll have those frequencies on... maybe a bit exaterated, but I am just quesing.

I know how mixing proces goes, and I know about cuts being made at 20 hz. But those cuts are not that sharp as you think. And somethimes a bit ,,actually listening" can be a good thing at audio hobby and this is difference nigh/day.

At the moment I feel a huge letdown. Nobody here mentioned this data. If you want to be scientific, you should relly on data and not to opinions I believe. At this point by memory this soundcard sounds to me like a SU-6 which cost 170 euro. I wish I didnt return it; I would like to measure it and compare.

Thats it, my mighty perfect RME goes away if nobody will fix this and I ll buy something which wont seem to me like a cheating in audio creation process. I believe that whole reason for art like music is to produce emotions.


I hope that at least this will help to those people which are a bit confused by sound coming out of this device.

All the best
I’m trying to get my BluOS Node to play thru my RME ADI-2 DAC but no luck, keep getting this screen, tried resetting my BluOS but no luck. Then took my digital cable out of BluOS & put into my Oppo & the RME worked fine…sooo frustrating…
 

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csup

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Yeah you are science hero.

I dont know. I came here to explain why I was not satisfied with sound. I described what I heard, I gave you measures black and white to suport that. Problem wasnt the device but stupid manufacturer decision. There is objective truth you got turned on EQ on this device by default without obvious knowing; if you dont read whole manual completely. There is objective truth I measured it, you can or cannot believe me if I heard it. I dont care. You got eq at sound by default on and you dont care... what a scientific.


And thats it. I ll report BDWoody to change order at my post to be more acurate.

And I am done. I recomend keep this thread so if some new customers have feeling like their RMA doesnt sound good so they can find fix easier. Or delete it, I have better things than defending myself over and over against RME fanboys.

p.s. DonDish you are right, whole time I have opened older manual; but as I said, it doesnt change anything on my point.

Take care and all good to you
I don't know why everyone is bagging on you, I suspect it's (rather unfairly) because of your poor English. You've described a pretty simple complaint -- the manufacturer's default setting on the ADI-2 DAC is to enable the "Filter" for the "Digital DC Protection" -- which unexpectedly results in an audible (to you!) and objectionable (to you!) slope applied to ~20hz and below bass. The owner's manual doesn't describe or imply this would result from the "Filter" being enabled...by default.

That's this guy's lived experience, folks, and it seems pretty reasonable to me. Thanks for sharing this insight and I'm glad to have learned this, since the RME DAC is on my shortlist for purchasing (and remains so).
 

unpluggged

Senior Member
Joined
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Messages
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694
The owner's manual doesn't describe or imply this would result from the "Filter" being enabled
It does, and in great depth.

ADI-2 DAC FS manual: chapter 31.15;
ADI-2 Pro FS R manual: chapter 34.23;
ADI-2/4 Pro SE manual: chapter 34.26.
 

VintageFlanker

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Paris
The owner's manual doesn't describe or imply this would result from the "Filter" being enabled...by default.
Absolutely wrong.
What @unpluggged said...

Also, this, chapter 31.15:
DCP offers three settings. ON activates the digital sensing, mutes the respective output in case
of found DC, and shows a warning screen. If the DC component in the signal disappears, the
output is enabled again after a few seconds. OFF deactivates mute, with the phones outputs still
protected by the hardware DC circuit. Sensing is still active and shows a smaller warning screen.
The option Filter removes DC and infrasound, enabling a playback of even problematic audio
signals in a safe way.
Infrasound
While there are movie soundtracks that are professionally cut off at the deep end (around 10 Hz),
to not stress your subs for nothing, there are also completely unlimited productions that cause
amps to shut-off and cones to swing like they want to leave the enclosure. What might look funny
or even impressive is of zero use – there is no sound that low, nor are these subs able to turn
those low frequencies into physical, perceptible motion (that happens above 10 Hz). But those
low frequency swings cause additional distortion and consume valuable power!
Therefore we recommend to always use the setting DCP Filter. Switching between DCP Filter
and OFF is a quick and easy way to confirm that nothing is lost with the then added high pass,
and while the speaker cones no longer move like crazy the sound itself should not have changed.
Note: For technical reasons the DCP infrasound filter is placed behind level meters and loopback.
Its impact is therefore not visible on the level meters, nor digitally measurable via the loopback
function. It can only be verified at the analog outputs.
 

tuga

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I highly doubt you could hear 0.2dB difference at 20Hz.

But if you're interested by the reason of this high pass filter, you should read the chapter "Digital DC Protection" in the manual.
You'll learn that it's done to protect your system.

You'll also learn that you can disable the HPF if you whish in the "settings" menu (change "Digital DC Protection" from default "filter" to "on")
and you'll most probably discover then that this has no audible impact.

Are the RCA outputs also filtered or just the phone outs?
 
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