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Review and Measurements of RME ADI-2 DAC

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amirm

amirm

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What is the headphone amp chip in this? It looks basically perfect imo, assuming thd+n x frequency is flat.
I think it is a discrete solution. From the manual:

upload_2018-4-6_22-47-24.png
 

chungjun

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A wonderful read once again and I think many would be pleased with objective and independent review of the RME-ADI DAC and the Pro (to come). Well done and I'm watching this thread!
 

RayDunzl

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Purité Audio

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Thank you Amir, as always fascinating, mostly Apple here, all the various sample rates are displayed and you jut choose in Audio Midi, although when you initially install its default s 768000!
I have been very pleased with both RME products the Pro and the ADI-DAC, RME arehving difficulty making them quickly enough.
Thanks again,
Keith
 

pos

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Nice review Amirm!
What gain setting have you been using on the output?
According to the manual it can be set to "+19 dBu, +13 dBu, +7 dBu, +1 dBu", and maintain 120dBA of dynamic down to the +7dBu gain setting, and only gives up 1.1dBA with the +1dBu setting !
Residual noise should be really low with lower gain settings.

The DX7s XLR is 14.2dBu, so it seems you used the +19dBu setting on the RME if you had to lower the volume (in the digital domain I presume).
Would be interesting to see distortion and noise measurement with lower output gain settings!
 
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pos

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Residual noise figures calculated based on RME specs:

+1 dBu: 1.5uVrms unweighted / 0.98uVrms A-weighted
+7dBu: 2.4uVrms unweighted / 1.7uVrms A-weighted
+13dBu: 4.9uVrms unweighted / 3.5uVrms A-weighted
+19dBu: 9.7uVrms unweighted / 6.9uVrms A-weighted

DX7s:

+14.2dBu: ?uVrms unweighted / 2.8uVrms A-weighted
 

mindbomb

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@amirm
There are some typos in the headphone amp's thd+n x voltage graphs. yellow should be 100 ohms and cyan should be 300 ohms I think.
 

tubeheat

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Thanks for this informative test, it was very nice to read :)

I have BTW both here in use, ADI-2 Pro and DAC and am also very excited. The Pro is driving now speakers and phones in my recording corner resulting in even better A/D conversion quality ( compared to UFX+, which was already nice) plus the additional features like i.e. dynamic loudness, slow ram-up of volume (when changing channels or when plugging phones).

Shall you be interested to read some additional articles around this device, then feel free to visit some of my blog articles, which I wrote to inspire people how to use this gear or to give a helping hand.
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog...h-End-Conversion-Integration-into-your-Setup/
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog...AC-and-Headphones-Preamp-like-no-other-EN-DE/
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/index.php/Entry/72-RME-ADI-2-Pro-High-End-USB-DAC-Multi-Formatkonverter-und-Kopfhörerverstärker/
EDIT1: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog...ew-Audeze-LCD-2-LCD-X-LCD-3-am-RME-ADI-2-Pro/ (sorry only avail. in german)

I am very new to this forum, I hope that these cross-references to my blog articles is not regarded as unwanted SPAM.
Otherwise please tell, then I will remove them from this article.

Have fun with your ADI and keep up the good work.

Nice weekend :)
 
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amirm

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I am very new to this forum, I hope that these cross-references to my blog articles is not regarded as unwanted SPAM.
Not at all. We are all in this together, trying to spread more information among us.

Welcome to the forum btw! I hope to test the ADC portion of ADI-2 Pro soon and see if it makes a good augment to my analyzer for audio testing.
 
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amirm

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@amirm
There are some typos in the headphone amp's thd+n x voltage graphs. yellow should be 100 ohms and cyan should be 300 ohms I think.
You think correctly. :) Thanks for catching it. I fixed it.
 

tubeheat

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Not at all. We are all in this together, trying to spread more information among us.

Welcome to the forum btw! I hope to test the ADC portion of ADI-2 Pro soon and see if it makes a good augment to my analyzer for audio testing.

Many thanks for the warm welcome :) I added this article to the review section of my blog articles about the ADI-2 *.
 
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amirm

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What gain setting have you been using on the output?
I used the default. Will need to check later to see what it is. Assuming the different output levels are implemented through hardware, then yes, you are right that the noise levels may go down that way. I will be out today but if I get a chance, I will test them and post back.
 

garbulky

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The measurements look impressive. How about a hardware look? Did you get a chance to do any listening?

Sounds like the whole sampling rate thing is a real deal breaker though. This means if you watch movies with it, you are going to have to know what sample rate the blu ray player or streaming box is outputting somehow, which the average user won't know to do. But likely it won't be at 44.1 khz.

So unless you know the sample rate, the box won't be processing things at the native rate. Or worse won't accept the sample rate at all and play nothing.

That's a rather big deal. For me, I use my DACs in a family/work environment. The last thing the people using this would want to do is figure out things like sampling rate - especially because they don't know things like sampling rate even exist. (I use Windows). They made automatic sample rate switching dacs a long time ago. I wonder what the issue is.

I wonder if it affects things other than the USB input. For instance will the RCA SPDIF input change automatically?
 
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meleeli

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Man I don't need all of the features but this is the first and only product I've seen that ticks all of my boxes. Might have to relegate my newly bought D10+Arcam rHead to the office and get one of these..
 

RayDunzl

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