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Loopback measurement of RME ADI-2 PRO FS (Black Edition)

vitalii427

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Hello friends!

I really appreciate Amir's work and want to make my tiny contribution. At last I have some time to do some measurements with my RME ADI-2 PRO FS (Black Edition). And I have access to a fairly large number of Hi-Fi equipment. So I'd like to share some interesting stuff. Of course, my skills and knowledge is far from the level of Amir. And I have no such great tools as APx555. But I will try to do my best so that my measurements can be compared with Amir's. I count on your support and will be glad to answer your questions.

I still choose measurement software. For now it is REW V5.20 Beta 32 and it can measure only one channel at a time.
Measurements was done on Windows 10 with official RME ASIO drivers at 44.1kHz sample rate.
Here is my first measurement as a reference. All information on the image:

2.png
 
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vitalii427

vitalii427

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Noise level was drifting in range from -104 to -111 dB
 

Blumlein 88

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What a lousy result. Noise levels at the 18 bit point, and it couldn't even manage to get THD below -120 db. ;)

Get pkanes Deltawave, and do some music loopbacks. Do the one for Gearslutz and you can enter it into the database.
https://deltaw.org/

Nice bit of gear you have there. Makes me envious just a little bit.
 
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vitalii427

vitalii427

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What a lousy result. Noise levels at the 18 bit point, and it couldn't even manage to get THD below -120 db. ;)

Get pkanes Deltawave, and do some music loopbacks. Do the one for Gearslutz and you can enter it into the database.
https://deltaw.org/

Nice bit of gear you have there. Makes me envious just a little bit.
ADI-2 DAC in Amir’s review had noise about -112dB and 3rd at -122dB. I have -108.5 and -119.2 in loopback. Maybe I’m wrong but to me it seems ok.
 

Feyire

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EssenceSTX.jpg
EssenceSTXI.jpg


Measuring my Asus Essence STX sound card through "Stereo Mix" loopback for comparisons sake.
 

Feyire

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48kHz sample rate
EssenceSTX48.jpg


88.2kHz sample rate
EssenceSTX882.jpg


96kHz sample rate
EssenceSTX96.jpg



192kHz sample rate
EssenceSTX192.jpg

Higher distortions in 44.1kHz and 88.2kHz sample rates.
 

Blumlein 88

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ADI-2 DAC in Amir’s review had noise about -112dB and 3rd at -122dB. I have -108.5 and -119.2 in loopback. Maybe I’m wrong but to me it seems ok.
I was joking. Those are excellent results which is why i was envious.
 

PPP

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ADI-2 DAC in Amir’s review had noise about -112dB and 3rd at -122dB. I have -108.5 and -119.2 in loopback. Maybe I’m wrong but to me it seems ok.
You are not wrong. He was. He was biased so that he didn’t use full volume to perform the test. in a lot of cases (such as SMSL SU-8 v1 or JDS ODAC) he performs the test in full amplitude and criticize their performance. In other cases he turn down the volume (such as ADI-2) to show better results.
 
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PPP

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this is my measurement. Mine is the regular version of ADI-2 Pro FS. Not the black version (more expensive) but I assume they perform the same.

I am using the same REW software as you do. the measurement is performed at -2dbfs at +19dbu. all harmonics are below -120db. thd+n is around -112.4db. noise at -114db. highest harmonics is the fifth at -121.6db.

adi.jpg




Turning up the volume to 0dbfs do make the performance a little bit worse.
 
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vitalii427

vitalii427

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this is my measurement. Mine is the regular version of ADI-2 Pro FS. Not the black version (more expensive) but I assume they perform the same.

I am using the same REW software as you do. the measurement is performed at -2dbfs at +19dbu. all harmonics are below -120db. thd+n is around -112.4db. noise at -114db. highest harmonics is the fifth at -121.6db.

View attachment 45537



Turning up the volume to 0dbfs do make the performance a little bit worse.
You should add 2.1 dBFS to all your numbers. That's why I use dBc on vertical scale.
 

PPP

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You should add 2.1 dBFS to all your numbers. That's why I use dBc on vertical scale.
that's not true at all. the thd+n and harmonics numbers I posted are calculated based on the percentage shown on the top left corner, which are calculated by comparing the spike to the main tone, not 0dbfs. So 2.1dbfs are already taken into consideration. for instance, the 5th harmonics on the graph is around -123.7 db. the number I posted was -121.6db.

also the 9th harmonics on the graph is around -140dbfs if you see with your bare eyes, but the result on the top left is 0.000013%, which equals to -137.7db. So you know you can always trust the number on the top left.
 
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March Audio

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Hello friends!

I really appreciate Amir's work and want to make my tiny contribution. At last I have some time to do some measurements with my RME ADI-2 PRO FS (Black Edition). And I have access to a fairly large number of Hi-Fi equipment. So I'd like to share some interesting stuff. Of course, my skills and knowledge is far from the level of Amir. And I have no such great tools as APx555. But I will try to do my best so that my measurements can be compared with Amir's. I count on your support and will be glad to answer your questions.

I still choose measurement software. For now it is REW V5.20 Beta 32 and it can measure only one channel at a time.
Measurements was done on Windows 10 with official RME ASIO drivers at 44.1kHz sample rate.
Here is my first measurement as a reference. All information on the image:

View attachment 45449
This is very helpful as for a while I have been considering getting an ADI2, but it would probably be a sideways step from my Motu 8A

1578808953006.png


Better off getting the notch filter and ultra low distortion sig gen sorted.
 
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vitalii427

vitalii427

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This is very helpful as for a while I have been considering getting an ADI2, but it would be a sideways step from my Motu 8A

View attachment 45549

Better off getting the notch filter and ultra low distortion sig gen sorted.
Motu was my second choice. Really interesting to see measurements of new M2/M4
 

bennetng

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Rja4000

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Measurements of one of mines are here.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...udio-measurement-gear.113/page-14#post-202572

I have 2 of them, currently. Both black edition
The second one performs a bit better.

If you want to use the RME as a measurement device, you can get higher performance by either using the balanced phone output, either directly summing the XLR outputs by using Y cables in mono mode (I didn't try this later one, but @MC_RME said that's how he's proceeding himself).

You may also parallel the inputs and use them in M/S mode. In that case, the left channel is an average of both ADC channels, further improving the results.

All in all, that improves the results by a few dBs.
You may reach up to 114dB SINAD for the loopback this way (+13dBu output, +19dBu input range).
(My measurements are all at 48kHz, 32k FFT Window size and 5 averages)
2019-09-24 16_25_05-Greenshot_1200 (1).png
 
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Rja4000

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Note that I now use Virtins Multi Instrument 3.8.
This allows me to automate some tests, like IMD vs Level, and to store all results in a database, allowing easier comparisons.
The results are the same than with REW.

MI 3.8 has a bug when using higher window size with very low N+D, though. They promised a fix for release 3.9.
As from Virtins, this may appear when "signal level (S) is roughly 165 dB or more above the 'apparent' noise level. This condition will be satisfied only when FFT size is very large, the noise level of the test is extremely low, and the signal level is close to the maxium"
https://www.virtins.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1382&start=10#p2100

That has no impact on my results, though, since I stay outside of the bug conditions.
To make sure, I always test dashboard once with REW though.
 
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Rja4000

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Just to demonstrate what I can do with Virtins and my .Net code, you may want to read This thread

Still work in progress. I'm looking for a more readable trend graph.

Unfortunately, I have very little time to spend on this right now, but I'll try to finalize it next month or so
 

bennetng

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Do the one for Gearslutz and you can enter it into the database.
This?
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/sho...count=1803&s=c2d97f195d3addd1ef14def93ca7436f

I downloaded almost all files in the "internal loopback" category, one interesting thing I found is files from similar devices usually produce very good null, for example Prism Lyra 2 vs Orpheus and E-MU 1212m vs 1616m. My Creative soundcard uses a TI chip and it has a very good null with Steinberg UR824, even though the UR824 file is clipped and my recording is not. It seems that digital filters in similar DACs made the phase alignment much easier and thus created better nulls. Maybe @pkane can look into it.
 
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