[Sproketz]

@Sproketz Congrats on getting the RME. Glad you appreciate the multi-functionality and all the engineering that goes into this nice desktop unit. I'll admit I was a bit overwhelmed with all the menus but the guide book is good. Even 5 years later I'm still learning more about the options. Also I appreciate RME tweaking and improving on the firmware on a regular basis. Most retailers are dropping the price by $300 so for those considering it could be a good time to try it out.

Thanks! I like to tinker and tweak stuff, so I'm in gadget heaven. What is most impressive is how high quality each feature is. One would be forgiven for thinking that with so many features they must have had to cut corners somewhere. This is not the case. It's a piece of pro equipment with each feature executed in a high quality manner. It's a steal for the price.

I did grab the latest firmware, and noticed they removed the 6dB limit on bass and treble knobs and added more colors to the visualizer. I'm sure there were a lot more tweaks but those jumped out at me without reading any patch notes.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Yeah, although this is not their most expensive product, it is a flagship and Matthias does a huge amount of work on it.

 

[sahyle3]

Got this a few days ago. Got to learn nearly every feature in it. My god this is a magical device.

I'm convinced that people who say this "sounds thin" or "is too analytical" simply didn't take the time to get to know the device and dial it in. It literally can sound however you like. After dialing everything to perfection for my ears, it sounds full, robust, musical, and grin inducing.

• EQ: Not warm enough? Warm it. Too bright? Dim it. Not punchy enough? Punch it. Coming from Peace/APO's variable band EQ, I was wary of a 5 band EQ. Well I just uninstalled Peace/APO. I have plenty of customization here. In actuality it's just easier to tune in the sound I want with less bands. I even get split EQ so I can fix the slight treble hearing deficiency I have in my right ear.
  
  
• Loudness: This feature is underrated. I get to control the gain, frequency and Q of my B/T loudness corners? I can set when loudness should melt away into nothing? This feature works exactly as I want it to and it just makes everything sound right at whatever volume I'm listening. Taking the time to use it properly is worth every moment. If you don't like the loudness feature because it's "too aggressive" then you didn't configure it to your liking. It's as subtle or aggressive as you make it.
  
  
• B/T knobs: Again, brilliant. Their corner frequency Q get used for loudness, so you can do spot changes easily after setting your preferred EQ and loudness levels.
  
  
• Source specific settings for everything with auto-switching? Now I just feel spoiled.
  
  
• Crossfeed for listening to those 60s tracks when hard pans were a thing. My ears thank you RME.
  
  
• Slow filter to take the brightness down just a hair. I'm digging it.
  
  
• The paint on the metal casing is NOT a fingerprint magnet. It's so rare these days that a company actually thinks about fingerprints on a device that is meant to be touched.

What are the cons? Nitpicking mostly.

• Would be nice to have a balanced 2.5, 4.4 or XLR headphone out. I don't really need it right now, but maybe I will want it one day?
  
  
• More visualizer colors because green, cyan, amber, monochrome, red and orange aren't enough? Could we get full spectrum support? I jest, but actually that would be cool.
  
  
• Put some lead in it to make it a bit more heavy so it doesn't move around when you press buttons. I guess I can get some stick on lead strips for the underside and do that myself.
  
  
• More wattage to future proof it? Sure why not.
  
  
• A PC app that gives you full control of the device with an easier to use UI would be cool. In all honesty I figured out 80% of the UI without opening the manual. It's not that hard to use aside from the EQ taking some getting used to.

@gimmeheadroom props to you for giving me advice on this unit. I'm pretty smitten with it.

Can the RME adequately drive the Aryas? It seems like some people on this site are suggesting that even though the RME can generate enough volume, an external amp is needed to be able to drive the Aryas to full potential. How are the D9200s compared to the Aryas coming out of the RME?

 

[dougq]

Can the RME adequately drive the Aryas? It seems like some people on this site are suggesting that even though the RME can generate enough volume, an external amp is needed to be able to drive the Aryas to full potential. How are the D9200s compared to the Aryas coming out of the RME?

Yes. There may be some very minor differences but you are getting everything out of they aryas with the rme. You can use the peq to make it warmer or brighter.

I have not heard the d9200 but I do listen to the dcs stealth and they drove them equally as well as any 1000 dollar dedicated amp I heard. They are very good at driving planars that need a lot of current.

 

[Sproketz]

Can the RME adequately drive the Aryas? It seems like some people on this site are suggesting that even though the RME can generate enough volume, an external amp is needed to be able to drive the Aryas to full potential. How are the D9200s compared to the Aryas coming out of the RME?

I'm going to go with yes, until someone can objectively or scientifically explain why the ADI-2 is unable to drive the Arya. It sounds fully driven to me, with no distortion.

I have had people tell me that I needed a 7 watt amp to drive the D9200 to "control the bass" better. To put that in perspective, you can drive the D9200 with no amp at all from just about any phone, and even a PlayStation controller. It seems that some people believe that unless you have 6-7 watts on tap with 95% headroom, somehow you aren't driving your headphones with enough power. I'm inclined to think some kind of muscle car minded psychoacoustics are at play, driven by industry marketing that is desperate to make you feel insecure about spending anything short of ALL of your money.

Matthais Carstens from RME works directly on it and states there is enough power to drive 300ohm loads beyond necessity. He knows more about audio than I ever will. I've also seen plenty of posts with people who have the ADI-2 and other powerful amps to hook to such as the Jot2, Monoprice THX amps, etc. and they can't hear a difference, with Arya and harder to drive headphones.

I think this thread speaks well to what is going on here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/

If I'm wrong, I really, really want someone to show me the science of why I'm wrong, with something more than just "the bass sounds tighter to my ear." Some ABX testing, or scientific analysis of frequency output. I'll take anything that isn't snake oil. Until then, I'll be plugging my Arya and D9200 into my ADI-2 and happily listening in bliss.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I don't agree that the RME drives 300 Sennheisers beyond necessity. I would say they don't drive them even up to necessity. The HD 600 and 800 scale well beyond what the RME is capable of.

I don't know anything about the Aryas but I do know the D9200 doesn't need 7 watts. That whole family of Foster-cans are among the easiest cans to drive well.

The RME is pure killer with TH900mk2, LCD-2C etc.

 

[Sproketz]

For context the Arya Stealth is a 32ohm load with 94dB sensitivity.

 

[dougq]

Regarding 300ohm headphones like the HD800 series it will absolutely drive them the full range. Some people "prefer" them out of higher impedance amps for a slightly different sounding frequency response. One way is not correct versus the others. The RME will drive them to the absolute fullest of their capabilities. Someone might just prefer the signature out of a higher impedance amp on those type of headphones. People think one is correct versus the other, both are just preferences.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

On paper I don't see a problem. And, I have noticed that unlike high impedance dynamics, which present a complex load and can sound very different with enough good power vs. not enough power, it seems planars mostly don't change sound quality based on not enough good power. They usually just don't get loud enough. If you're happy with how they sound, then done.

 

[Dogmatrix]

I'm going to go with yes, until someone can objectively or scientifically explain why the ADI-2 is unable to drive the Arya. It sounds fully driven to me, with no distortion.

I have had people tell me that I needed a 7 watt amp to drive the D9200 to "control the bass" better. To put that in perspective, you can drive the D9200 with no amp at all from just about any phone, and even a PlayStation controller. It seems that some people believe that unless you have 6-7 watts on tap with 95% headroom, somehow you aren't driving your headphones with enough power. I'm inclined to think some kind of muscle car minded psychoacoustics are at play, driven by industry marketing that is desperate to make you feel insecure about spending anything short of ALL of your money.

Matthais Carstens from RME works directly on it and states there is enough power to drive 300ohm loads beyond necessity. He knows more about audio than I ever will. I've also seen plenty of posts with people who have the ADI-2 and other powerful amps to hook to such as the Jot2, Monoprice THX amps, etc. and they can't hear a difference, with Arya and harder to drive headphones.

I think this thread speaks well to what is going on here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/

If I'm wrong, I really, really want someone to show me the science of why I'm wrong, with something more than just "the bass sounds tighter to my ear." Some ABX testing, or scientific analysis of frequency output. I'll take anything that isn't snake oil. Until then, I'll be plugging my Arya and D9200 into my ADI-2 and happily listening in bliss.

I would say your muscle car assertion is on the money
Exploring the technical parameters of op-amp vs discrete transistor reveals a discrete design to match the RME unit would require sixty transistors for equivalent gain and yield higher noise and distortion levels its only benefit would be heat dissipation .
A sad indictment to the lack of technical understanding in the community

 

[ChildOfDust]

Just got the ADI-2 yesterday and I'm absolutely loving it!

I mentioned this in another thread but thought I'd post here to see if anyone had a similar experience.
I updated the firmware from the rme site and after doing so part of the frequency range was absent. Like in one song the background male vocals I can normally hear were completely absent. I tried with my iem's and it was fine, it only seemed to affect the 1/4 headphone jack.
I did a factory reset and all is good again. Looking in the menu on the unit under SW version it says 51 06/2022 now.
I got the original version with the AKM chip and I wondered if the update might only be for the new ESS chip models, but I thought it said for the AKM chip as well.

Also I was wondering if there is a way to change the visualizer or equalizer from the black bg to white. I see pictures in the manual of them in white, but I don't see any option in the settings or manual to change this. I tried changing the dark mode to light but that only seems to affect the menu backgrounds.

 

[phiemon]

Is there anyone who uses the RME also for gaming and can tell me what the audio latency is like? Are there any audio delays compared to the onboard sound for example?

 

[jamca]

AKM versus ESS versions measurements compared below.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...us-ess-measurements-dac-preamp-headamp.35377/

It is a nice comparison, but there should be another one with the two types of ESS version, the one with the cable patch and one without it (with the fixed pcb). Unfortunately in the early models of ESS version RME did a patch with a soldered cable in order to keep up with the production of adi2 and after many units where produced they managed to have ready the correct pcb board without the patch. So there are two models of ESS version... There has been a discusion at asr forum and the official RME forum with MC but both topics where mysteriously CLOSED... so the conclusions are yours...Adi 2 fs is a great product, but RME should be more transparent with this issue and give some official replies and not close the threads they want to hide....

 

[ok computer]

Is there anyone who uses the RME also for gaming and can tell me what the audio latency is like? Are there any audio delays compared to the onboard sound for example?

Rme is known in the pro audio community for having the best, most stable, lowest latency drivers around. You can not find a lower latency dac/amp. Minimum you can set the buffer to is 32 samples.

 

[Sproketz]

Is there anyone who uses the RME also for gaming and can tell me what the audio latency is like? Are there any audio delays compared to the onboard sound for example?

I do. There's no latency.