[lowvolume]

I'm not sure what you're referring

I quoted the text: >I see you all discussed the odd way it only advertises one sample rate to Windows< is a wrong statement. No one discussed this here. I am not denying what you wrote as that was not part of his statement at all. Still your statement is not correct as well: it is the WDM driver doing this, not the ASIO driver.

 

[amirm]

It's not very clear what kind of problem you have with USB on Win.

I showed the Roon display just the same so not sure what is not clear about it:

The only one that shows up as being valid is what I set in MADIFace. The same is true of Windows Sound control panel. Under Advanced properties, it only shows one sample rate at a time.

Can you show me the same display on Windows (not Mac) using WASAPI accepting all the sample rates at once like on the Mac?

 

[amirm]

I quoted the text: >I see you all discussed the odd way it only advertises one sample rate to Windows< is a wrong statement. No one discussed this here.

I am going by a post on the first page of the thread:

...then I noticed that 96kHz was the only sample rate shown.

Which is what I am seeing.

Had you read that post and still complained?

 

[lowvolume]

A discussion needs at least two people. Luckbad is one person, he mentioned the driver's behavior in his own review (said post on page 1). 'I see you all discussed' implies that several posters discussed this issue throughout this thread (multiple posts). Which was not the case, unless I missed those posts. Clear now?

 

[bidn]

I just finished my Review and Measurements of ME ADI-2 DAC. It did extremely well! Best I have measured of any DAC. And nice headphone amp to boot.

I see you all discussed the odd way it only advertises one sample rate to Windows. That is the main fault I see with the unit as I am not a fan of installing any drivers.

Hi amirm,

thank you so much for your rigorous, consistent tests and for these excellent news about the RME ADI 2 DAC, especially for me as a relatively early owner of the RME ADI-2 Pro and as I ave been recommending it (als also its little brother when it came out) on head-fi. This coming just a few days after Virta Fortuna announced that the SP1000cu was tested to be the best DAP hje ever tested, even over the SP1000SS, again excellent news for me... ( https://www.head-fi.org/threads/dap-score-chart.874423/#post-14099475 ).

Re. the unusual issue of a single rate being displayed by Windows setting for RME DACs,
this issue used to bother me as well and it took me some time to find the solution in the manual:
to change the rate, look at the devices icons, they are normally on the bottom right of your screen, it often requires clicking on the double arrow pointing to the left,
then click on the icon with the black, red, yellow, and green horizontal stripes (probably representing a spectrogram): this opens the madiface user interface where you can change the rate.
Let me know whether this is helpful,

Have a nice Sunday,
bidn

 

[johnreekie]

Use RME's ASIO driver -

(That the ADI-2 Pro but I believe the ADI-2 DAC will be the same.)

 

[AudioQuality777]

I showed the Roon display just the same so not sure what is not clear about it:
The only one that shows up as being valid is what I set in MADIFace. The same is true of Windows Sound control panel. Under Advanced properties, it only shows one sample rate at a time.
Can you show me the same display on Windows (not Mac) using WASAPI accepting all the sample rates at once like on the Mac?

There is a normal ASIO driver from RME. Why do you need a poor-quality WASAPI built in WIN? In your review, make sure that you do not confuse people.

 

[amirm]

There is a normal ASIO driver from RME. Why do you need a poor-quality WASAPI built in WIN? In your review, make sure that you do not confuse people.

The main way to confuse people is to say WASAPI is "poor-quality." That is completely wrong. I have some 20 to 30 DACs. Most of them instantly plug-and-play and run exceptionally reliable using WASAPI.

In contrast when you install ASIO you are at the mercy of whoever gave you that software. In ASR Forum we have a member who is getting noise with ASIO and DSD but not with WASAPI.

With UAC2 standard now available in all three major desktop platforms: Linux, Mac and Windows, hardware companies need to support this properly to allow automatic plug-and-play support. ASIO is fine if you have a DAW and want to capture. But for just playback, there must not be any requirements to go hunt around for ASIO drivers to install.

You may not know this but I used to be VP of digital media division ast Microsoft. For every release of Windows we would sort through all the crash reports from customers and try to fix them. At the top of the list was third-party drivers. They run as part of the kernel and can do serious damage to stability of the operating system.

Operating systems evolve and with it, they can break compatibility with the past. You don't want to buy a $1,000 DAC and if the company goes out of business, be stuck with a door stop with a new version of the OS where the driver won't install.

And it is not just drivers. Invariably these things install crapware and other processes that start on each reboot. Right now on my machine I have four of them: one from Exasound, one from Meridian, one for Berkeley Alpha USB, and one for RME. I didn't ask or want any of this to be in there, slowing down my machine boot time. Here is what happens when I try to uninstall the Theyscon drivers supplied by Berkeley:

That's right. I can't even install the darn thing because it fails Windows version check!

When I plug in a keyboard or mouse it just works. I don't have to install drivers and certainly don't have to deal with programs getting installed on my machine. DACs must work the same way. The era of forcing driver installs on Windows for basic DAC functionality is over.

After some 40 years in computer industry, I know the issues here and am going to use my influence to make things better for consumers. So please don't tell me things that are not technically true. WASAPI works, is driver free, and bit-exact.

 

[amirm]

Hi amirm,

thank you so much for your rigorous, consistent tests and for these excellent news about the RME ADI 2 DAC, especially for me as a relatively early owner of the RME ADI-2 Pro and as I ave been recommending it (als also its little brother when it came out) on head-fi. This coming just a few days after Virta Fortuna announced that the SP1000cu was tested to be the best DAP hje ever tested, even over the SP1000SS, again excellent news for me... ( https://www.head-fi.org/threads/dap-score-chart.874423/#post-14099475 ).

Re. the unusual issue of a single rate being displayed by Windows setting for RME DACs,
this issue used to bother me as well and it took me some time to find the solution in the manual:
to change the rate, look at the devices icons, they are normally on the bottom right of your screen, it often requires clicking on the double arrow pointing to the left,
then click on the icon with the black, red, yellow, and green horizontal stripes (probably representing a spectrogram): this opens the madiface user interface where you can change the rate.
Let me know whether this is helpful,

Have a nice Sunday,
bidn

Hi Bidn. Thanks for the kind words. As I indicated in my review, I have used Madiface to change sample rates. But that is not practical for me. I have digital downloads at many sample rates and I can't manually intervene and change the rate for every song that plays. There needs to be an "auto" mode in there where switching occurs just like it does in other platforms and for ASIO. It is not like there is an advantage to having this manual switch.

 

[amirm]

Use RME's ASIO driver -



(That the ADI-2 Pro but I believe the ADI-2 DAC will be the same.)

I know and I used and tested the RME ADI-2 DAC that way:

The point is that it should not require ASIO to play USB music at multiple sample rates. THe device is UAC2 compliant so should work like any other DAC by advertising all the sample rates it supports. Right now it says it can only do one sample rate which doesn't match what the device does.

 

[amirm]

A discussion needs at least two people. Luckbad is one person, he mentioned the driver's behavior in his own review (said post on page 1). 'I see you all discussed' implies that several posters discussed this issue throughout this thread (multiple posts). Which was not the case, unless I missed those posts. Clear now?

Clear? Are you joking with me? First you are being so pedantic by arguing about this. But importantly, you yourself engaged in that conversation with him on this topic:

--------------

That is the back and forth that I read and noted that it was discussed. Now you want to argue that more people had to argue about it for me to say that? Isn't here something more constructive you could do with your time and mine than this empty back and forth?

 

[johnreekie]

RME are known in the pro sound industry for the quality of their drivers. Some issue with Thesycon/Berkeley hardly seems relevant.

 

[amirm]

RME are known in the pro sound industry for the quality of their drivers. Some issue with Thesycon/Berkeley hardly seems relevant.

I haven't said something is wrong with their drivers today. I have said that years from now the driver install package may no longer work and they may have no interest in updating it. They could also get acquired by another company and team disbanded. This is not a cheap, throwaway DAC to take such chances with it.

Right now they have a working UAC2 firmware/class-driver support that works reliably just the same. But for some darn reason they only expose one sample rate. Anyone on Mac or Linux can use the thing without installing drivers. But on Windows, not only do you have to install drivers, but you also need to make sure your application supports ASIO. There is no sense in that.

I honestly don't see why you all think we are better off with this limitation. Use ASIO all you want. I like to see driverless support for latests versions of Windows that allows bit perfect playback like $20 DACs do.

 

[hola]

Quick question for ADI-2DAC's owners:

Did your unit arrive in plastic wrap? Mine is, but the plastic bag containing the cable is ripped open, with the cable taken out. Also, the DAC is not in its default setting, suggesting someone played with it and put it back in the box. Add to the fact that the seller have four negative feedback over the past 12 months of selling used unit as new, I suspect that they sold me an open-box unit, but then wrap it in plastic and sold it as new.

Sorry for the off-topic question but I would appreciate feedback! Thanks!

 

[kundica]

I haven't said something is wrong with their drivers today. I have said that years from now the driver install package may no longer work and they may have no interest in updating it. They could also get acquired by another company and team disbanded. This is not a cheap, throwaway DAC to take such chances with it.

Right now they have a working UAC2 firmware/class-driver support that works reliably just the same. But for some darn reason they only expose one sample rate. Anyone on Mac or Linux can use the thing without installing drivers. But on Windows, not only do you have to install drivers, but you also need to make sure your application supports ASIO. There is no sense in that.

I honestly don't see why you all think we are better off with this limitation. Use ASIO all you want. I like to see driverless support for latests versions of Windows that allows bit perfect playback like $20 DACs do.

It might be worth posting in the RME forums regarding this concern. RME is typically quite responsive and might provide their reasoning or even make changes in a future driver update.