RME ADI-2 DAC Thread
Aug 6, 2021 at 4:53 PM Post #4,351 of 6,005
Thanks for the comments, so far. I just received the RME ADI-2 DAC FS recently and don't have ROON. I just wondered if someone had something already setup that worked for them. I will try to work through the information that Bazaar suggested.
 
Aug 6, 2021 at 5:16 PM Post #4,353 of 6,005
If I did a ROON trial, would I be able to keep the settings?
Yes, if you activate the license the settings woll remain.

I had the same situation, wanted to do all in the RME ADI-2 DAC, but it only has 5 EQ bands, not enough to do a good EQ for headphones.

with ROON it is a breeze!!
 
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Aug 7, 2021 at 4:39 AM Post #4,355 of 6,005
You likely wont hear much of a difference at stock, but you can tune it to more of your preference so in that way yes it will probably sound better.

I did get the ADI-2 in the end. This is the latest version. Out of the box with default settings and the latest firmware it does sound noticeably different to the ifi Zen stack and iDSD Micro Signature. I wouldn’t say better, just different. I would say more neutral, less forward and punchy. The signature has more sound stage to my ears.

My use case is Tidal (iMac 27) via USB on Grado Hemp, Fostex TH900mk2 and Beyer T5p gen2. MQA tracks are rendered on Tidal but I’m seeing the higher bit rate on the ADI-2 so all good.

Ill be playing with the filters and Eq in the coming days.
 
Aug 7, 2021 at 6:31 AM Post #4,356 of 6,005
So, are you saying that it will only stay active as long as I have an active ROON account? If I only sign up for a month, would I then lose it? Thanks for your help for my bad questions.
You cannot just do one month and continue for free! It is a one-way-street with ROON. Sign up and pay monthly or yearly (cheaper) or lifetime (expensive). If you don’t continue to pay, ROON stops working...
 
Aug 7, 2021 at 8:52 AM Post #4,357 of 6,005
I did get the ADI-2 in the end. This is the latest version. Out of the box with default settings and the latest firmware it does sound noticeably different to the ifi Zen stack and iDSD Micro Signature. I wouldn’t say better, just different. I would say more neutral, less forward and punchy. The signature has more sound stage to my ears.

My use case is Tidal (iMac 27) via USB on Grado Hemp, Fostex TH900mk2 and Beyer T5p gen2. MQA tracks are rendered on Tidal but I’m seeing the higher bit rate on the ADI-2 so all good.

Ill be playing with the filters and Eq in the coming days.

Make sure you upgrade to the latest firmware, just released. Apparently it fixes some issues with the new Sabre DAC chip they have been forced to switch to in the new units.
 
Aug 7, 2021 at 2:46 PM Post #4,358 of 6,005
Yes, if you activate the license the settings woll remain.

I had the same situation, wanted to do all in the RME ADI-2 DAC, but it only has 5 EQ bands, not enough to do a good EQ for headphones.

with ROON it is a breeze!!
How many PEQ bands do you honestly need? if you were talking about the old GEQ with a fixed Q and F then yeah 5 bands would be awkward, but with a PEQ you can adjust these to your needs.

If you really need more than 5 PEQ bands then something is either very wrong with the source material, headphones, or ability to use EQ
 
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Aug 7, 2021 at 3:17 PM Post #4,360 of 6,005
Aug 8, 2021 at 8:35 AM Post #4,362 of 6,005
Thanks. I think we can only switch between phone, iem and lineout. I have a speaker using XLR and an amp using RCA. I have to power off my speaker when I want to use my amp. It will be great if we can switch between two line outs.

Unfortunately that's not possible (if I recall correctly, RME even addressed this topic when a similar question came up on their own forum website and said that it's technically impossible).
 
Aug 9, 2021 at 8:00 AM Post #4,364 of 6,005
Do you guys think it's worth to upgrade to the Pro version? I want to utilize the optical output so I can transmit LDAC from my FiiO BTA30. I can't find cheaper solutions (that I at least know of).

Unless you need the Pro's additional features and inputs/outputs, I really don't see any reason for that.
 

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