RME ADI-2 Pro Discussion Thread

This thing is anti hi-end. Small, powerful, PSU agnostic, but sounds crazy good. Did anyone mention that RME crazies used a 10 layer PCB to make this happen?

 

10 layer? I don't think I've ever seen an amp with a board that thick. I wish this was a bit cheaper. It looks like it will go for about $1800 when it hits the US market.

 

That's wild.

I use a Grace m903 at work and it has served me really well. This seems like a very strong contender for replacement!

 

Despite owning a very nice Prism Lyra, I have to admit the ADI-2pro has tweaked my interest... curse this infernal hobby of ours

From random readings that I've done with older RME gear comparing to Prism, the general sentiment seems to be that Prism wins for converter and mic pre quality, but RME wins for latency and functionality.

 

For more techy minded folks the AD stage in this thing might be interesting. Supposedly RME designed this so they can measure stuff more easily. Oh, and it can do DSD recording, so if you have good vinyl rig, you might be able to become a major underground DSD label.

 

RS-232 port. Don't see that everyday

 

It's for a digital connector pigtail. AES/SPDIF inputs and outputs.

 

Spent the last two days exploring the AD-2 Pro... Is there something this thing can't do? I've been running headphones together with speakers and it will automatically mute speaker outputs when there's a headphone plugged in. You can select two different volume settings for your cans and speakers which will be automatically selected. Same goes for EQ, 2 channel 5 band parametric plus bass/treble tone controls (configurable frequencies) can be set for headphones/speakers and will be switched automatically. Heck, you can even do different DAC filters (sharp, slow, NOS...) for headphones/speakers or two different headphones, when dual-phone mode is on.

 

Nice to see I'm not the only fan anymore!
Which DA filters are your preference? Do you just leave it at SD Sharp or did you have time to experiment a bit?

 

To be honest, I caught a nasty cold on Friday, so I'm no shape to comment on filter sound. I had some listens with my pre-cold ears and the filters for sure are slightly different, but I never could tell if any one of them is "better". SD Sharp is good enough for everything, NOS is nice for an easier listen due to subdued highs which tilt my system into a BK like target curve.

 

These are the sort of convenience features that really make life easy! Now if Sonarworks was built into the box and could switch compensation profiles between speakers and headphones...(I am in the midst of another trial and with the HD600 and Grace m903 I have been able to nail some really important and tricky projects. Love it but switching outputs and the manliness of pedalboard, needing to turn it off when switching back to speakers is a sticky wicket)

 

My buddy performed some RMAA.

Spoiler

Frequency response: +0.02, -0.05 dB
Dynamic range @0 dBu: 110.2 dBA
THD: 0.0003%
IMD+N: 0.0009%
Stereo crosstalk: -103.1 dB

This device is killer.

 

This looks like an extremely feature rich unit. I went for the benchmark DAC 3 but if I saw this before might have swung for this instead, salivating over the features and the IPS display. The benchmark is of course no slouch.

Any Canuck interested in this, studio economik at Quebec sell these. I got the benchmark DAC 3 from them for a decent discount, very nice people to deal with.

 

At $2700 CAD...
http://www.economik.com/rme/adi-2-pro/

 

I'd like to hear more impressions of the DAC. Analog inputs are ADC'ed so you'd better be happy with the velvet sound implementation here (for the money).

 

Thats just listed price, shoot them an email and they will most likely bring it down a few hundred bucks.

 

Extra impressions - this thing is dead silent. Shure SE215 has zero noise. I was able to learn that headphone outputs are being handled by 3 OPA1688 chips per channel. When you switch to balanced output you get 12 chips controlling your cans.

 

any comparison with say gungnir multibit?

 

Sorry, I'm too pleb. Schiit multibits are pretty scarce on this side of the pond and aren't the bargain they are stateside. I was considering Gungnir Multibit as an alternative to ADI-2 Pro, because they're comparable price wise. I'm just not too hot on keeping a full size rack unit on my office desk and Gungnir Multibit doesn't have the plethora of features I (as it turns out) need.

I know that Gearslutz guys have compared this to Prism Lyra 2 and other top end studio dacs and it feels comfortable amongst them.

 

I know what u mean... being on the same side of the atlantic as you...
but I jumped on a deal for the Gungnir Multibit last year!

thanks for your inputs!