RamiellDeAnn
Member
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2022
- Messages
- 11
- Likes
- 16
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.
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 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.
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.
Classifying the Audio Spectrum Frequencies
soundsightheadphones.com
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
Last edited by a moderator: