It is great, I just had some home stuff come up.
RME ADI-2 DAC Thread
- Thread starter NickedWicked
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It is great, I just had some home stuff come up.
chungjun
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Have been holding out and finally jumping on board on this one.
Dropped an order online and shipping is en route. Exciting times.
Dropped an order online and shipping is en route. Exciting times.
Tauko
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NickedWicked
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These guys keep impressing me with their expertly and extensive firmware support and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way! 
tekkster
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You ordered and it was en route right away? Jealous, lol. Still waiting for mine, hasn’t even arrived at the reseller yet.
chungjun
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Don't have to be. I'm dealing with international shipping. No immediate access to local dealer and bought from Thomann.de and the team there act fast to arrange to ship. Even so, shipping is expected to have to take 10 to 20 days. Oh well, time to download the manual and have a read while waiting for shipping.
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tekkster
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I just called zenproaudio, and it's not arriving at my home on Friday. It's arriving at their facility on Friday, and shipping out "hopefully" same day. Which means next week arrival if I'm lucky.
Some update is better than no update, but a bummer nevertheless.
oyster
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Had the privilege of listening to the RME ADI DAC. Thanks to an extended loaner from a Forum member.
So this thing is much smaller than it appears in pictures. Same size as that as a set top box. Build is extremely light for a $1k product. The bundled manuals are heavier than the Unit. To make it worse the buttons are not feather touch and the entire unit moves while playing with the software
Speaking of DSP features, It has tonnes of it. Experienced digital filters first time and they shift tonality tiny bit. Much less artificial than using a software eq.
How does it sound:
Amp section - Warmish, easy, goes loud. Qualitywise its similar to the standard solid state portable chinese amps. But amp is just an added bonus so need not be critical about it.
DAC section:
1) Single ended fed by desktop USB - Thin tone and occasionally splashy treble, sub bass is present but doesnt have authority, some uneven emphasis on mid bass, searched for but dynamics and microdynamics are both absent leading to a boring sound that's very clean but devoid of life. USB isn't doing any favours to this dac. Paul Simon sounded like an 18yr old kid.
2) Moved to COAX fed by an ancient Digigram VX222v2 PCI sound card - Not as thin, resolves much more than the USB, bass gains some body, but lack of microdynamics is even more evident now. Mids have more of shout due to lack of any richness, treble is not peaky but still edgy and thin with somewhat synthetic timbre. Fair dynamics (vs USB) but even a mimby would outdo. This thing is just flat, source change did improve it but barely effective.
3) Single ended vs balanced - Balanced is much energetic but loses on nuances. It's loud all over , subtleties are lost that single ended regains somewhat.
This unit excels at being very feature rich but if it's primary purpose is that of a DAC, better can be had for the price. I honestly think most of the asking price is due to the DSP and other bundled features. When I first saw it , that .1 lbs power supply for the unit was already an indicator of the DACs performance.
So this thing is much smaller than it appears in pictures. Same size as that as a set top box. Build is extremely light for a $1k product. The bundled manuals are heavier than the Unit. To make it worse the buttons are not feather touch and the entire unit moves while playing with the software
Speaking of DSP features, It has tonnes of it. Experienced digital filters first time and they shift tonality tiny bit. Much less artificial than using a software eq.
How does it sound:
Amp section - Warmish, easy, goes loud. Qualitywise its similar to the standard solid state portable chinese amps. But amp is just an added bonus so need not be critical about it.
DAC section:
1) Single ended fed by desktop USB - Thin tone and occasionally splashy treble, sub bass is present but doesnt have authority, some uneven emphasis on mid bass, searched for but dynamics and microdynamics are both absent leading to a boring sound that's very clean but devoid of life. USB isn't doing any favours to this dac. Paul Simon sounded like an 18yr old kid.
2) Moved to COAX fed by an ancient Digigram VX222v2 PCI sound card - Not as thin, resolves much more than the USB, bass gains some body, but lack of microdynamics is even more evident now. Mids have more of shout due to lack of any richness, treble is not peaky but still edgy and thin with somewhat synthetic timbre. Fair dynamics (vs USB) but even a mimby would outdo. This thing is just flat, source change did improve it but barely effective.
3) Single ended vs balanced - Balanced is much energetic but loses on nuances. It's loud all over , subtleties are lost that single ended regains somewhat.
This unit excels at being very feature rich but if it's primary purpose is that of a DAC, better can be had for the price. I honestly think most of the asking price is due to the DSP and other bundled features. When I first saw it , that .1 lbs power supply for the unit was already an indicator of the DACs performance.
Prime example for a sighted and biased test. ---> trashcan.
Soundwave76
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^ oh wow. Those who believe power supplies or USB cables influence sound, should stay away from studio grade gear like RME and stick with the stereophile world gear...
With the price the respect increases, for some audiophiles. RME is simply too fair priced.
trybeingarun
100+ Head-Fier
I can relate to pretty much all the points oyster brought up over a few months of use to varying degrees and I finally sold the unit.
oyster
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It can't sound bad, it's made in Germany.
boxerlc
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Hi Oyster, could you list some better product around this price?
oyster
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As a DAC alone Gumby (At a bit higher price though) does a much better job. Way better dynamics and agreeable tone/timbre.
At a much lower price, get a Vintage PCM63 DAC and mod the hell out of it. Parts + unit cost won't exceed $400.
At a much lower price, get a Vintage PCM63 DAC and mod the hell out of it. Parts + unit cost won't exceed $400.
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