Any experience of the RME ADI-2 DAC ?

[Macca]

Everything you are saying sounds familiar to me. Glad it has worked out for you.

[Stranraer]

Everything you are saying sounds familiar to me. Glad it has worked out for you.

Cheers Macca,

I had a bit of a wobble re running the DAC into the Croft pre but you set me straight on that.
I was running the pre at a fixed 7 O'Clock using the Oppo's variable volume but the sound improves when reduced to 5 O'Clock with the Soncoz. Maybe the running in will change that again.

Have you played much with the filters ? I'm struggling to differentiate between any of them but wouldn't complain if I could dial back the bass just a little.

Was gonna have an evening watching Marvelous Marvin Hagler fights but I just can't switch off the music.

[Macca]

I can't hear any difference between the filters, I think you would have to be very young with very acute hearing to be able to.

The bass is pretty powerful on these modern dacs, doesn't hold anything back does it? You could try bringing the speakers further out from the wall, or using a higher gauge of speaker wire. Or both.

[BultyBoy]

Just for interest are you just testing the water with streaming as that's quite an inexpensive dac for a system with those speakers? I'm just pondering an external doc but it seems the jury is out on here...

[Stranraer]

You could try bringing the speakers further out from the wall, or using a higher gauge of speaker wire. Or both.[/QUOTE]

Speaker position is pretty unnegotiable unfortunately. I'm in a two up / two down and with the stair situation I have one speaker 20ish inches out from the back wall and a cavernous 5 foot behind the other.
Any further out and I could rest my beer on the speaker, pretty much.
Wire guage is a foreign language, I'm afraid. I have Chord Epic, if that means anything to you ?

[Stranraer]

[QUOTE=BultyBoy;1261010]Just for interest are you just testing the water with streaming

Hi. I'm pretty unsophisticated here. Big CD collection, so sticking with them but now I've got the Soncoz DAC I've been exploring streaming via Amazon and pretty impressed by the unlimited access and decent sound quality.

I got plenty of recommendations for the Audiolab/SGD1 combo on here after asking the question about upgrading my CD and it's performing admirably. The speakers have never sounded so good and previously I had a Mark Levinson 390 CD which was beautifully made and oozed quality but soundwise there's no comparison. To be fair the 390 must've been 15 to 20 years old and I loved it, but it would be irrational to say it was on par with this far cheaper combo to my ears.

[BultyBoy]

Thanks, I'm.amazed how good my pimped node 2i is, things move on from what we thought was great at the time...

[Filterlab]

Turns out it needs more revolutions than an oil tanker steering wheel to adjust the noise which in hindsight is quite a benefit as, unlike the quite insensitive remote control, fine tuning the volume via the knob is easily do-able.

The RME ADI-2 is the same. Volume runs from something like -112dB up to +6dB. On my system I don't hear anything at all until around -45dB. That's a lot of dB of nothing.

But it is ultra-fine in its adjustability, subtle as a gnat brushing a baby with a feather.

In fact my girlfriend said the other day "I think I've broken the system". I just turned it up a long way.

[Stranraer]

The RME ADI-2 is the same. Volume runs from something like -112dB up to +6dB. On my system I don't hear anything at all until around -45dB. That's a lot of dB of nothing.

But it is ultra-fine in its adjustability, subtle as a gnat brushing a baby with a feather.

In fact my girlfriend said the other day "I think I've broken the system". I just turned it up a long way.

Your girlfriend would tell you if she thought she'd broken the system ? The same scenario in this house would definitely be my fault, regardless of circumstance.

[Macca]

Letting any non-enthusiast use your system is a mistake unless you have given them a one hour training course followed by practical and written examinations with a 90% score required to pass

I had a lodger's brother staying one time, I got home from work and stuck a record on 'This don't sound right.'

Went to investigate, deck was set on '45', the tracking weight was way off, the anti-skate way off. Turned out the bloke had tried to play a record but didn't realise that to make the platter turn you had to lift the arm. So he'd twiddled every single knob and adjustment possible, got no result and then just left it without saying a word to anyone.