Anyone have experience/opinions on rme dac's?

Specifically, the adi-2 dac, but any rme opinions welcome.

 

I've had mine for about 9 months. Very happy w/the unit. Has a variety of fine tuning options to dial in your audio preference. I use the short delay slow filter and worked w/ the parametric EQ to fine tune the treble. My local dealer sells the RME so I was able to A/B it w/a Chord Qutest. I thought the RME was a better sounding DAC and had more options. Plus I saved about $800. RME has been around for about 20 years and have an excellent reputation in the pro audio field. This is their first step into home audio. All their gear is designed and produced in Germany.

 

Those are big draws to me. Thanks for your input.

 

I have used RME equipment extensively in a professional capacity for many years. It is all very good sounding equipment. Very neutral mind you, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. They are reliable, well built, feature full, and sound excellent.

 

If you go to RME ADI2 DAC Menu Walkthrough you will see 5 in depth videos explaining how to operate the DAC. Much easier than going through the 68 page book.

 

I've had an RME-ADI2 for ~9 months now. I'm very pleased with it. I agree with the above that the Adi-2 is neutral in sound overall, and HIGHLY customizable. There are more settings than I'll ever use! The nested menu layout is a bit of a learning curve, but once you learn it, no prob. The display is top notch and vibrantly clear. I also appreciate the small form factor. I've run out of room on my rack, so it's sitting on top of my Oppo UDP-203 on top a cheapie isolation pad. Soundwise, compared to the DAC in my former Halo int, the Adi-2 is less "dry" sounding with more resolved upper mid range and treble, if that makes any sense. I don't see myself getting another DAC for a long time. I'm feeding the ADI-2 w/ USB in from my computer and coax from the Oppo. Next I'm going to try the balanced out into my preamp once my new cables arrive, to see if there's any positive difference vs the RCA out now.

 

As others have said, RME are popular in the field of pro audio because of their rock-solid drivers; the company's level of support (Fireface 400/800 are supported today, 10+ years after they were launched); and of course: the uncolored, detailed sound of their converters, both DA and AD.

I've been using a RME Babyface Pro for a couple of years now, before that a RME ADI-2 (the old one). Both sound excellent.

Btw. you can find user reviews on ADI-2 Pro DAC here:
https://www.thomann.de/intl/rme_adi_2_dac.htm#bewertung

 

Thank you all for your responses. I like what I'm hearing - I prefer neutral, for sure. If I can swing it I think the adi-2 is the way I will go.

 

I just received an ADI-2 FS DAC yesterday and love it! It sounds considerably better than the one in my McIntosh MA9000 integrated amp--more spacious, detailed, and dynamic. I particularly like the DSD Direct feature--no converting to PCM. (I play DSD and FLAC files with JRiver MC26 on an HP Laptop.)

 

Tim: Have been using the ADI-2 DAC since it came out and can second the fine information above. My system is based on JRiver and CDs are ripped into JRiver, upsampled to 384k with the SoX engine included then sent to the RME. The sound is superb and there are some minor advantages to selecting the 384 level. I found that adjusting the filter options for my listening tastes made the greatest change.
As the gentleman above noted, have also used RME products in the studio world and they are rock solid and supported for many years. You can't go wrong.

 

I hear great things about it and it measures really well at AudioScienceReview.com. But if you are not going to use all the different settings and the headphone amp you can save some money and get a DAC that tests just as well or better with the Topping D90. TOPPING D90 DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter)

 

Do those people give one fig about what a device sounds like? That doesn't seem to be the case.

 

The RME is considered to be a very neutral device with highly accurate and non audible distortion. I.e. does not add to the sound. Based on the assumption that the OP was interested in that unit, I simply suggest another that is similarly measured with neutral sound quality for a lower price if the RME features mentioned were not needed. No comment on the general position of the users on that forum that once a DAC gets to a certain level of low distortion that they all sound the same.

 

I'm selling my ADI-2 DAC because I prefer the sound from my A-GD NFB-28.38 . After a lot of comparison. Owned both for a long time.

 

Selling on this site? Am looking for a second.

 

I own the RME ADI-2 DAC. It is made in Germany, with a very high level of experience in design and precision in craftsmanship.

As soon as you unbox it and start to use it, you are struck by the accuracy which has been devoted to any detail of the hardware and the software. Finish is impeccable, holding it in your hands you immediately realise the build quality and class. It also comes with a very good USB cable, a unique lock-in connector for the power supply, a useful and handy user-configurable remote and a real manual you won't often see the like with today's products.



The software running on the unit allows for any possible use you can imagine, you can set, store and recall global configurations, including (but not limited to) digital routing from/to the computer, stereo/mono/left/right , width, polarity, crossfeed, 6 different digital filters, de-emphasis, balance, tone controls, dynamic loudness, 20 different parametric EQ programmable settings (different for left/right if needed). Everything with an intuitive and friendly user interface through an hi-definition colour screen which also displays meters, a spectral analyser and state overviews.

You are also supplied with auxiliary software that can be effortlessly installed on any operating system running on your computer (connected through USB) which lets you monitor the DAC behaviour with (again) meters, spectral analyser and (very useful) bit statistics and noise, so you can always check if your source is or not bit-pefect and how many real bits are arriving to the DAC, including information on noise bits or padded-with-zero ones.

All of this is, of course, optional. Should you need nothing more than a normal DAC you set the unit in default mode, fixed level, and it behaves like any other dumb DAC around.

If you register to the RME site you can post in the ADI-2 forum about anything related to the use of the unit, very useful and competent guys there and a real RME expert engineer answers to ANY technical question you might ask within hours.

Then you connect it to the stereo, and the magic begins. The sound is huge and powerful, you can hear any single hidden detail, I mean will you know how many coins the drummer has in the pocket of his jacket. This does NOT means it sounds cold and analytical, on the contrary! The sound scene is wide and deep and so natural you get confused if you close your eyes: oh my god, I am here or I am there?

I rarely use cans, but the built in headphone amp is surely very detailed and powerful enough to allow for the usage of the most hard to drive ones.

Based on my own experience I can strongly recommend this unit.

 

I don't think it would be cost effective given my location. I'm selling locally unfortunately.

 

Great write up which I can only confirm!

I got the RME ADI-2 FS dac 2 weeks ago, it's the last version with AKM chip before they switched to ESS recently.
I have been using a Denafrips Ares2 for 2 years now so completely different design but I'm open to anything (unlike some)!

Love the functionality of the RME, the dynamic loudness is ace! I have to listen at very low levels sometimes when my wife works from home and this dynamic loudness has te be the best implemented EVER. You can fully customize it (choosing how many treble/bass gain comes in gradually and at whatever volume setting you want it to happen and at what volume setting it has to maximize)...just this is a game changer if you listen at low levels regularly!
Then there is the parametric EQ. AWESOME! I tried out the different dac filters and preferred NOS except for the high freq roll off (I hate that with NOS), so PEQ to the rescue (no other dac afaik will let you do that)...this will perfectly even out the freq response without changing the perfect impulse control of NOS.



Compared to the Denafrips Ares2 (in OS fast/sharp mode obviously because freq roll off is very noteable with other 2 filters), soundstage width and depth is very likewise. Imaging of instruments within the soundstage is slightly different, RME positions every instrument in a slightly larger balloon than Ares2, with more air surroundig it and sounding more 'natural', whereas with Ares2 they sound slightly 'smaller', resulting in a sound that is a little more lean overall (midrange).

I started searching for another DAC as I found the sound of Ares2 very good with well recorded easy stuff, but not so with harder rocking (or metal or electronic) stuff. The RME seems to do well with every genre. Having a detailed but at the same time very smooth and natural sound. The NOS filter with adapted PEQ so far seems to combine the best of both worlds (soundstage, flesh, tonality of a NOS setting + a nice flat freq response provided by the parametric EQ of the RME).

Buying a proper mic, measuring my room response so that I can exploit the PEQ functions of the RME even further to optimise it might be a next step...

One thing I'd like is an extra input. With Tv going into opt. and my streamer/server into coax I don't have any more inputs to connect my cd player/transport. So I have to plug this into an extra coax input in my streamer/server (but obviously would prefer the direct route into DAC).

Oh and did I mention the built in headphone amp?! I am not a headphone listener really and don't have much experience with headphone amps but when I compared the built in headphone amp in my Parasound P5 preamp to the one in the RME there was just no contest!

 

Update: I ended up returning the DAC--I kept getting a lot of dropouts. I bought a Chord Qutest, which I prefer. It's richer and more musical to my ears. I lost some functionality, but I didn't use most of the options anyway. My amp has a headphone output, so I'm good.

 

Get something like REW + UMIK mic and the RME’s 5 band PEQ is really a great function to have. The sound is good. But as with DACs, they do sound different. Something like the Chord Qutest will have more detail, airy top end. The RME is kinda, relatively, neutral sounding.

 

I've had mine for about a year and a half, it sounds great. I just got a new preamp and this DAC showed me what I was missing with the old pre.... awesome value. I think you would have to spend $$$ to considerably better it .

I play everything through it, Blu-ray player, Vault , TV, basically any digital source I have goes through the RME

 

How do you connect all those sources while having only 2 inputs on the RME?

 

In the end I will install REW and borrow a mic from a friend.
So the Chord Qutest has a tipped up treble if you consider the RME neutral .

 

If you prefer a 'richer' sound....that's what the PEQ in the RME can be used for, but if you didn't use that option....basically the RME can sound like any DAC you want if you use the PEQ imho.

 

How do you get the RME to have the spatial 3D precise imaging that Chord can do? PEQ and REW measurements can't fix that.