RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE

[Alou]

Video is more clear ,just watched it!
Thanks

 

[MC_RME]

Inside spotted in this video:

Multo multo bene!

 

[Rja4000]

Better like this ?

 

[Sonic-Wall]

Molto bene

 

[luisma]

Does anyone knows the native DSD rates supported (not DoP), windows and Linux? Can't find it anywhere

 

[MC_RME]

Might be because your question is unclear.

 

[staticV3]

Does anyone knows the native DSD rates supported (not DoP), windows and Linux? Can't find it anywhere

The ADI-2/4 supports DSD Playback natively up to DSD256. From the manual:

 

[luisma]

The ADI-2/4 supports DSD Playback natively up to DSD256. From the manual:
View attachment 259235

Thank you @staticV3 that's what I was looking for, I looked into the published specs but not the manuals

 

[04gto]

It is truly amazing what can be found by simply reading the manual.

 

[McCluskey]

man i thought the prior versions had balanced XLR.... like ADI-2 Pro and Black Edition... guess not!

They did do balanced but through dual TRS in front. Actually works great.

 

[McCluskey]

tl;dr - That's a tricky question to answer, because the answer is both. Loudness preferences are subjective, strictly speaking, because my loudness preferences may not match the preferences of someone else. Nonetheless, these preferences are objectively quantifiable (and the unit of measurement is watts).

Long answer - plugging my Aeons directly into the RME, with a little bit of EQ to correct the tonality (bump up the bass and tame the upper mids), I sometimes find myself maxing out the volume knob on some songs. One example would be Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" from the 1985 album Brothers In Arms - the version in my lossless library is a rip from the original 1985 CD, where the mastering is punchy and not compressed like later remasters. Especially during that intro with Sting's uncredited vocals, I even find myself craving more power.

The SMSL comes in and saves the day. This thing has so much power that I can make myself cringe without even pushing it to its limit, whereas the RME doesn't get that blisteringly loud. Now, my Aeons are pretty inefficient at 93 dB/mW, but there are headphones that are much less sensitive - take the DCA Stealth, for example. Those have a sensitivity rating of 86 dB/mW, and if my RME is struggling to give me as much power as I want sometimes with my Aeons, the Stealth will absolutely present more such circumstances. I bring it up because it's a headphone I'm considering.

Yes, I can disable EQ and the song becomes loud enough, but then I lose tonality. Still other songs which are compressed to oblivion (like the example I posted in this thread) play loudly enough that the RME provides more than enough power for enjoyment, so I can plug directly into the RME. But why bother being so hands-on all the time? The point of the hobby is to just set up and forget about it, and to enjoy the music with a simple interface - one plug, one volume knob. To that effect, even if the RME works 95% of the time, because the SMSL works 100% of the time, I have incentive to keep it. Plus my desk looks neat and clean, without a ridiculous 2xTRS -> 4-pin XLR adapter sticking out of my DAC, lol - aesthetics matter too.

Edit - Was just looking at the manual and it seems that an adapter won't make a difference for the Aeons; the RME simply can't push more current than about 250 mA:View attachment 212643

I run my Adi-2 Pro into my Stealth and Expanse without any limitations. Of course I’m running balanced out of the dual front headphone outs. Right now I’m listening to a new set of Ether C Flows which aren’t easy to drive and I’m still on low power mode.

 

[McCluskey]

Why the pro and not the regular? The intersting thing about the 2/4 is the more customizable EQ but the Pro and the regular have the same capabilities.

You want the balanced out that the Pro gives you.

 

[McCluskey]

Hopefully it doesn't get warmer than the "old" version.

I get that the RME engineers are proud of their baby, but some headphones really do need ungodly amounts of power.

Before I had the SMSL, I drove a different headphone amp into really bizzare distortion that I posted in this thread.

The folks at Geshelli all but admitted that their amp was malfunctioning, and gave me a more powerful one that didn't malfunction. I ended up giving it to my boyfriend since his headphones are way more efficient than mine.

I know my headphones aren't defective because they sound absolutely fantastic, and I also baby my hearing - so I'm not playing dangerously loud either. I guess I just have one of those "mythical headphones." ‍

If RME's headphone amp worked more like a pure voltage source before running out of current at 250 mA, it would handle these worst-case low-impedance & low-sensitivity edge cases without any problems.

Again, I'll give them credit where it is due - even with my headphones, their amp gets "loud enough" and then some 95% of the time.

There are just some handful of situations where having more current, maybe 500 mA, would help.

There is one headphone I know of whose impedance is even lower than mine at 8 ohms, with similar quoted sensitivity numbers. I wonder how well the RME would handle that, since the manual shows headphones with less than 16 ohms impedance brings current to its knee.

 

[McCluskey]

Are you running the ADI-2 DAC instead of the PRO? Power isn’t a problem balanced out on the PRO. Are you limiting output from your computer or streamer? Ie lowering digital output. I run Dan Clark headphones to really loud levels with my ADI-2 PRO FSR easily.

 

[Deemic]

As "clunky" as it may be, once you setup the ADI-2 PRO (fs B) TRS front HP outs for balanced output, it makes a considerable difference. I could drive my Sony Z1R cans pretty hard single ended, and they sounded good. But not "I have over $3K invested in this" good.
But balanced, not only did it open up and tighten up the sound immensely, but I can't get out of low power mode unless I'm putting these bass-cannons and my ears under serious stress testing. I now know what my Z1R's can do with appropriate power, and I'm satisfied.
Going balanced kept me from ditching it for the ADI-2/4 which I was about to do before finding the adapter and giving it a try. Almost gave up my UFX+ along with it and was going to downgrade to a UCX II just to get the newer ADI model and start trying different cans.
Glad I did not. An adapter should've come with the unit. Many folks won't understand what they're missing. It was an oversight corrected on the new ADI-2/4 PRO. But still.... It never should've come down to an aftermarket adapter or needing to make your own (RME, you couldn't offer one up for sale even?) to deliver the real potential of the product.

 

[MC_RME]

We do offer this adapter (2 xTRS to XLR 4 pole) for about a year now, because other known sources stopped to supply it.. Contact Synthax US or whoever your distributor is.

 

[KiyPhi]

As "clunky" as it may be, once you setup the ADI-2 PRO (fs B) TRS front HP outs for balanced output, it makes a considerable difference. I could drive my Sony Z1R cans pretty hard single ended, and they sounded good. But not "I have over $3K invested in this" good.
But balanced, not only did it open up and tighten up the sound immensely, but I can't get out of low power mode unless I'm putting these bass-cannons and my ears under serious stress testing. I now know what my Z1R's can do with appropriate power, and I'm satisfied.
Going balanced kept me from ditching it for the ADI-2/4 which I was about to do before finding the adapter and giving it a try. Almost gave up my UFX+ along with it and was going to downgrade to a UCX II just to get the newer ADI model and start trying different cans.
Glad I did not. An adapter should've come with the unit. Many folks won't understand what they're missing. It was an oversight corrected on the new ADI-2/4 PRO. But still.... It never should've come down to an aftermarket adapter or needing to make your own (RME, you couldn't offer one up for sale even?) to deliver the real potential of the product.

How loud do you listen? According to Tyll's measurements, it only takes 0.106V to reach 90dB. That means 1V is 109.5dB. The RME Pro FS BE has an output of the headphone amp of 1.5W @ 32ohms which is ~7V. 7V into your headphone is 126dB. I don't see why you would need the balanced mode or the 2/4 Pro. For me, the benefit of the RME Pro and 2/4 isn't the bridged mode but that you can power two headphones with different EQs at different volume levels. The extra power on the 2/4 is nice but not necessary for pretty much 99% of headphones.

 

[azhu]

B&H shows the unit is in stock!

RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE

 

[DancingShaman]

Hello friends, may be it's the wrong title to post this, I hope not.. I've been reading about this piece of wonderful gear, doing my own research but I'm still not altogether sure whether it's the right piece of her for my use case or is a total overkill?!

Here is an idea about my current flow and I would appreciate all the inputs that you could provide as I need to make a purchase rather sooner than later to drive my headphones, or else my wife could divorce me.. Essentially, I'm in need of a DAC/AMP combo to act as the brain of my setup.

1. 80% listening via Roon (Mac) through Genelecs 8341 & 20% music production with Ableton (Mac mini) mostly with a relatively hungry headphones (DT1990 - 300ohm)
2. If possible I'd like to use digital outputs as most people seem to favour digital over analog when it comes to Genelecs to avoid double conversion (AD/DA), however I think I would be OK with analog inputs, too.
3. I'd really like to be able to easily switch between speakers, headphones, control the volume via either the remote or the know on the unit itself. I suppose digital output on RME would allow that?
4. I really like the loudness feature on the RME, because I tend to listen music at a low volume at night, and I'd really appreciate the details that feature would provide at low volumes. Not a must-to-have.
5. I also like the idea of EQ, albeit not a must-to-have.

Given these use cases, is there any other gear that come across your mind? I could stretch myself, however as a newbie, I wanted to consult with more pros to understand a bit better whether this is the right piece of gear for me.

All the inputs would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.

 

[Trell]

Hello friends, may be it's the wrong title to post this, I hope not.. I've been reading about this piece of wonderful gear, doing my own research but I'm still not altogether sure whether it's the right piece of her for my use case or is a total overkill?!

Here is an idea about my current flow and I would appreciate all the inputs that you could provide as I need to make a purchase rather sooner than later to drive my headphones, or else my wife could divorce me.. Essentially, I'm in need of a DAC/AMP combo to act as the brain of my setup.

1. 80% listening via Roon (Mac) through Genelecs 8341 & 20% music production with Ableton (Mac mini) mostly with a relatively hungry headphones (DT1990 - 300ohm)
2. If possible I'd like to use digital outputs as most people seem to favour digital over analog when it comes to Genelecs to avoid double conversion (AD/DA), however I think I would be OK with analog inputs, too.
3. I'd really like to be able to easily switch between speakers, headphones, control the volume via either the remote or the know on the unit itself. I suppose digital output on RME would allow that?
4. I really like the loudness feature on the RME, because I tend to listen music at a low volume at night, and I'd really appreciate the details that feature would provide at low volumes. Not a must-to-have.
5. I also like the idea of EQ, albeit not a must-to-have.

Given these use cases, is there any other gear that come across your mind? I could stretch myself, however as a newbie, I wanted to consult with more pros to understand a bit better whether this is the right piece of gear for me.

All the inputs would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.

For me using analogue input my two Genelec SAM 2.1 desktop setups works very well with great sound, and using AES would probably not improve the sound at all.

For one 2.1 setup I’m using the RME ADI-2 DAC FS and it works great and much cheaper than the Pro models that have AES output. My DT1990 can be driven to very loud volume using it.

For the monitors I’m using GLM for room EQ, but for the DT1990 I’ve reduced the peak around 8.1 kHz.

The ADI-2 Pro and bigger brother has analogue input, which you’re not using, that contributes to the high price.