RME ADI-2 Pro Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Headphone Amplifiers and Combo (DAC/Amp) Units' started by k.e., Nov 5, 2016.

  1. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Ooh... new toy arrived today...
     
  2. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Well first note, this thing sounds terrible when (physically) cold.

    Second note after a couple hours warmup, much better.

    I'm doing some optical daisy chaining from the Prism Lyra into RME into Prism Callia so I've got all three going at once (the first two have optical pass throughs outputs). It's not perfect but is the simplest way for me to operate all from sorta the same source simultaneously.

    Compared vs the Callia with single ended outputs only, I'm giving a nod to the Callia so far. The RME is clearly running out of steam with my HE-6 (but of course this not a reasonable test as the HE-6 is low impedance and super low sensitivity and easily eats up more wattage than what the RME can put out) and it gets pushed into clipping which is ugly. I'll have to whip up a balanced cable to try though.
    edit: ok I've done more listening with other cans like the HD650 and the RME has more than enough juice and pushes easily louder than the Callia
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  3. Rockin_Zombie

    Rockin_Zombie Facebook Friend

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    Interesting, my benchmark DAC 3 kinda sounds harsh when cold as well. I just leave it on all the time now. Yeah the HE6 is not a fair load for the built in amp i suppose.


    Where did you get it from? If you are interested in a two week swap with by DAC 3 at some point let me know, since we are both in Canuck land. Curious to know how these two compare.
     
  4. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    The RME is a review unit, so I don't think I'm at luxury to share... but I could potentially loan out my Prism Lyra since that one is mine. Shoot me a pm.
     
  5. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I've got the balanced headphones hooked up... it's a bit better but not a world of difference to be honest, and still topping out on the HE-6. I'll try some different (ie: more reasonable) headphones in another day or so.

    edit: I tried cranking it up on "hi power" mode (which is mostly a gain setting to my knowledge) and pushed it well past clipping with my HE-6 and actually caused the amp protection circuitry to kick in (the amp shuts down and the screen displays an overload warning). I guess that's a good thing before you damage your headphones or the amp. You have to reset the amp by unplugging and replugging in your headphones; instructions will pop up on screen when it happens
    edit2: no overload with the Sennheiser HD650 pushing volume to max, and this is so loud it hurts

    So far there's no clear winner between the Prism or RME. The Callia seems to have a slightly higher power capacity in single ended mode with low impedance cans, but the RME has more gain on tap which would be useful for high impedance headphones which don't need as much current.
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  6. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Had the same thing here. Luckily it does warm up pretty fast!

    There's no such thing as true optical passthrough, it'll still be a human centipede of repeaters with the bottom getting the most jitter. If you want to plug the ADI-2 Pro at the bottom, make sure you're using internal clock for best jitter rejection. I ran my from Macbook optical and external clock always sounded worse than internal.

    I wouldn't expect any built in headamp to not lose composure with the HE-6. With balanced you're still getting 3W at 60 or so ohms, so it might not be optimum. We're still talking regular opamps here, for HE-6 I'd build a balanced Dynahi.
     
  7. Azteca

    Azteca Friend

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    Thanks for the impressions, Arm. I would love to hear your impressions with HD6x0 and a more direct connection. I have yet to take my pair into work to use on the Grace m903. Need to give that a shot!
     
  8. Armaegis

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    Cold solid state has always sounded awful to me. Granted, this is coming in from a delivery truck out in the Canadian winter. Room temperature sounds more or less the same as warmed up.

    I'm pretty sure both the Lyra and ADI-2Pro are doing their own special sauce reclocking inside.

    Hmm I still have my iFi Pro iCAN on loan that I haven't shipped out yet... maybe I should unpack it and try comparing through that before I send it back.


    It's a nutty week and my Senn is all packed away, but hopefully by Friday or the weekend I'll pull things out.

    I did get some brief note scribbling in comparing the dacs running through my Bryston amp which I'll post up later.
     
  9. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    ADI-2 Pro won't do reclocking unless you explicitly tell it to by switching clock source to internal. On default it will be slaved to whatever's upstream.
     
  10. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Ah you're right. The Lyra does it automatically (I think), so I had assumed erroneously. It took some digging to find the right setting on the RME (soooo many settings on this thing!)
     
  11. Armaegis

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    More streams of thought... (still with HE-6; yeah yeah I know, I'll get to the HD650 eventually)
    comparing:
    1) RME ADI-2 Pro headphone out (balanced)
    2) Prism Callia headphone out (single ended)
    3) iFi iCAN Pro balanced out (fed single ended from RME and Prism for consistency since it only has one XLR input)

    Night time listening, overall volumes low.

    dac thoughts feeding both dacs into iCAN (chain is still usb to Lyra -> optical to RME -> optical to Callia)
    - Prism deeper
    - Prism centre more natural while RME more spread out
    - Prism impact well defined and seems "fuller"
    - Prism staging closer in
    - RME impact has a sharper leading edge, like a timpani with being played with a felt vs yarn mallet
    - both are clinical, yet Prism feels "softer"
    - RME edge changes with filters (slow filters diminishes this somewhat; the NOS filter seems too soft?)
    - RME feels louder
    - RME staging seems further/wider out and slightly behind, greater separation overall

    amp thoughts (Prism and RME fed from their own internal dacs obviously):
    - power: iCan > Prism >= RME (rme potentially higher gain, but power capacities are similar)
    - fuzzy wuzzy quality ranking that mean jack all: Prism >= iCAN > RME
    - iCAN hits harder than Callia, but Callia is more well defined
    - RME feels hollow compared to iCAN
    - RME has more air and softer transients than Prism which feels sharper (it seems this is opposite from the dac impression)
    - both RME and Prism have excellent texture and ear tickling on rumbly bits, but don't really growl
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  12. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Are you Mr Slowly's Canadian brother?
     
  13. Armaegis

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    Grr, so it doesn't totally invalidate my notes from yesterday, but things weren't perfectly volume matched. Even though both dacs were supposedly set at -10dBu, I was just going by music yesterday and didn't consciously notice any volume discrepency. Today I decided to run some boring sine waves and apparently I need to set the RME at -10.5 for my ears to not pick up the difference from the Callia. Either that or one of them is doing something different. *shrug*

    edit: measured voltages, they are the same (according to my cheap dmm), so it's something in the converters that's causing a subjective volume difference to my ears; but without an oscilloscope it's not something I am capable of checking easily
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  14. Armaegis

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    Man, yesterday I was leaning heavily to favouring the Prism Callia over the RME for dac duties only, but this was feeding into the iFi Pro iCAN which apparently was just not a good match with the RME. My notes were leaning the RME to being on the digital side of things, but then looking over my notes for the iCAN it seems I felt the iCAN was a bit pushy and edgy too. So those two combined was not ideal.

    I've been playing out of my Bryston (which is a warmer sound) the last few hours and I'm leaning ever so slightly to the RME now... depending on the recording. The pairing brings a bit more life and detailing to the sound.
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  15. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Why not measure the output voltage? I you're comparing headphone outputs of each of the devices, do remember that Callia has 4-5Ohm Zout which will form a voltage divider depending on load impedance.

    So it's the amp or DAC? Also you can always switch through the digital filtering option of ADI-2 Pro to see if some of the flavours tickle your fancy.
     
  16. Armaegis

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    Oh I'll break out the dmm eventually. I'm just scribbling thoughts down as they come. It's possible the levels are the same but there's something going on that's throwing me off by a half decibel. At first I thought it might have been the input stage of the iCAN, but I switched to the Bryston and it was the same.


    I find the RME dac slightly on the edgy side, but the amp+dac on the soft side. Again only with the HE-6 which is a stupid test. I'll get to my other headphones eventually.
     
  17. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    So how's the infamous AK4490 "VELTVET SOUND" ? @Armaegis
    It sounds like you are getting some of that V shape with overly wide staging, heavy bloom into the lower mids, but good treble timbre for a delta-sigma dac chip.

    The Prism CS4398 based stuff I tried was not nearly as colored, having only phat bass which I guess something pro shouldn't really have but compared to ESS Sabre or AK4490, yeah it's nothing.
     
  18. Armaegis

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    @Psalmanazar I had actually completely forgotten that the RME used an AKM dac until you mentioned it. I'm not even sure what this "velvet sound" is supposed to be like.

    Initial transients seem harder, and on some things it almost feels like the timing is slightly different. I didn't even think of it in terms of a V-shape, but yeah I guess it does seem that way. The RME feels more "digital" to me, while the Prism feels more organic (granted I've also spent more time with the Prism so I've adjusted more to its sound). Futzing around with the filters changes this a lot though, when we're talking in the realm of dac differences, and I find I prefer different filters depending which mode I'm in or if I'm using the headphone output vs dac output, etc.

    The features on the RME are great, but on dac performance alone my preferences are leaning slightly towards the Prism. Actually on amp performance I'm currently also leaning in favour of the Callia (with the two headphones I've tried so far; more will follow). That all said, the Callia has zero other features and sits at an uncomfortably higher price point (the Lyra 1 is in the same ballpark, but again doesn't have nearly the same features)
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  19. sorrodje

    sorrodje Carla Bruni's other lover - Friend

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    @Armaegis : you're still using your HE-6 ?

    Did you play with equalizers , crossfeed ?

    Sorry if someone already mentionned those points but :

    - Does the volume can be adjusted separately for each headphone outputs ?
    - Same questions for crossfeed and EQ ?
    - How is the crossfeed compared to Jan Meier's one for those who heard it ?
    - can the crossfeed be applied on balanced and SE outputs ?
    - Any of you used the RME with Linux or at least with a mac ?

    I'm super interested in that soundcard and I'd like to see how it works with my HD800 so I'm considering to order one at thomann.de. 30days return policy would allow me to do all tests i want but it's still a lot of money so I much prefer to read more impressions before to pull the trigger. "Better thant Chord Hugo" means almost nothing for me. I hated the Hugo when I tried it.
     
  20. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    -YES
    -YES
    -Dunno, simple crossfeed doesn't do the trick for me. Waves NX is the best I've heard.
    -YES
    -Mac is driverless. Dunno about Linux, ADI-2 Pro is a class compliant device and acts as a 2/2 or 8/6 channel sound card.
     

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