RME ADI-2 DAC FS Reviews

Excellent features make this a versatile DAC

I had very specific needs for a DAC. I essentially needed it to be a replacement for a stereo pre-amp. I needed an EQ, with more than just two or three bands. This one has 7 bands, if you count the bass and treble shelfs. It also has 20 EQ preset slots that you can set for yourself, so you can have one preset for music, another for film, another for sports, and 17 others left over for video games, or whatever else you need that many presets for. I also needed a remote control, and this has one. As for inputs, I needed both optical and USB. It also has coax, but I don't use that one. The only thing it's missing is an HDMI input, but that's a little wishful thinking on my part. Those features ticked all my boxes for buying the unit. But when I got the DAC, I was blown away by all the additional customization it offers. It has two DAC chips, one for each L/R channel. This is wonderful because it allows you to adjust the volume SEPARATELY for each channel, and you can also feed part of one channel into the other one (I forget the term they used for this, sorry). This is great for someone with hearing problems. Often, hearing loss isn't equal in both ears, so this DAC gives you the ability to adjust levels to fit your hearing profile. The DAC also allows you to set your preferred DA filter. If you don't like the overall sound of the DAC, no problem, just adjust the DA filter to fit your preference. I chose SD Slow, and it makes a subtle, yet noticeable difference when compared to say, SD Fast, or Fast. It gives the overall audio quality a tighter, less ringing type of sound, yet it doesn't have any aliasing artifacts, at least to my ears. Aside from the features, the overall sound quality is excellent, but I suspect it's not a lot better than other DACs at this price point. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of experience using dedicated DACs, so this unit was always going to sound great to my ears. But even knowing that, I would still heartily recommend this device for the sound quality alone. It has a very tight, clear, and "correct" or "accurate" sound. In their product manual, the engineers love to talk about one of the best assets of this unit, which is their "Steady Clock", which makes jitter practically a non-issue on this unit. I suspect this has a lot to do with how perfect the sound feels, but again, I don't have a lot of experience with DACs. The only thing I'm not loving is the menu layout. It will take you a while to figure out how to navigate the various menu pages, and the buttons you have to press are small and aren't immediately obvious for which buttons you have to press. But this is a minor gripe. Once you get used to it, it's not really that bad. I've had this DAC since 2022, for the past two years, and my love has only grown for this unit. With the excellent overall sound quality, and the plethora of features and engineering design decisions, fantastic job, RME. I would absolutely buy from you again.

A neat way to integrate Qobuz into my old but wonderful hifi using my computer … transformed my enjoyment of music when I replaced a Cambridge Audio netstreamer with it.

Best in the market.

Best in the market, no question asked. Will do it all!

The perfect solution

This is an extremely well made and simple to use DAC, The sound quality is exactly what you are expecting, perfect with no colouration or detraction from the source signal, highly recommended! Despite there being many options it is remarkably simple to use, set and forget, my kind of gear!

Great DAC with strong feature that cannot be seen on other products

The functionality and tunability of ADI-2 DAC is just too tempting. Higher-end DACs may have better sound, but the tunability is just too great to give up.

A Great Centerpiece Of My New Desktop System

I connected this DAC to a pair of A3X monitors and a Sub7 subwoofer from Adam Audio. Just four XLR cables from Cable Matters and it was all done. No RCA interconnects. No speaker cables. No preamp or amps. Money was saved but reinvested in purification of the AC line power. Which allowed me to spend as much as what this DAC cost. Enough to supply each of the devices in the chain with a quieter power. The chain included the DAC, powered speakers, computers, router and modem. The result was excellent. The irritation from persistent noise was gone and came the meditation from deep darkness. When the noise floor was lowered to a certain degree, you subconsciously wanted to go back to continue the immersive experience for either work or rest. And this DAC was at the core in creating the enjoyment.

Great product

It solved my problem very well.

NICE DAC

If you don't have much space,ADI-2 is very suitable.

If you just use the IEM,you don't need to buy another headphone amp.

If you use the on-ear headphone like HD800s ,ADI-2 isn't good enough.

very good quality

robustly made with so many features and high quality sound

Amazing

I use it as a headphone amp and a dac/preamp for my hifi. It is very punchual sound, without any emotion and hifi voodoo - that what i expect. The remote could be more sensitive.

Precision, Simplicity, Perfection

I heard about the RME ADI-2 DAC FS when it first came out, but it's really my last regret that I only got it now.

Like my title, it's precise, simplicity and perfection, and it contains all the factors you should get. Whether it's classical, electric, vocal, or any other instrument, this ADI-2 will make your performance perfect and deep.

The precise intonation gives the sound more ebb and flow, and the immersive detail resolution makes this unit so powerful.

The simple user interface, without the fuss, will make your headphones and system work faster with the ADI-2.

The ADI-2 is not just a stand-alone listening device, but a complete system that is as perfect as you want it to be and more than you can imagine.

Precision, simplicity and perfection all in one RME ADI-2 DAC FS!

Very good sound and EQ in this price range

The build quality is first class, and with all you need. The first choice is this price range

Worth every penny you spent

Very robust machine built in a sleek compact body with neutral tuning. Powerful amp as well. Also comes with a whole bunch of features that could be useful in case if you need them. Very pleased with its clarity and soundstage performance overall.

VERY HAPPY

I use this as headphone amp streaming from my Microsoft Surface and connecting using USB. The driver for Microsoft was installed easily and instantly shows up on the bottom bar. The sound is wonderful and much better than just plugging headphones into the computer. The device is small too so it comfortably sits on my desk. Has a remote too, but i dont use that.

Outstanding kit.

Impressive DAC which I have paired with a THX AAA 789

Excellent 'Swiss army knife' of a DAC

Not much more to be said than all of the other positive feedbacks. I've used this product for a few months now and not a single problem. Excellent DSP functions that are genuinely useful. Simple stuff like being able to keep the headphone plugged in then simply switching between HP and AMP output using the remote are god sends. Sound quality is excellent. All in a compact and well built case. SUPERB!

The perfect desktop dac+ap combo

I use this as a USB DAC from my computer, powering my headphones. It is a great piece of high-quality kit. Initially it is quite daunting to wrestle with the feature-set, but once it is setup you are pretty much set. There are tons of useful features to tweak the sound to your preferences, including: 5-band parametric EQ, bass/treble, Loudness and Dim modes. The RME ADI-2 is so good, that there is nothing on the market quite like it. If RME were to develop a new version I would love to have a 10-band parametric EQ, and a balanced headphone input, but this is nitpicking on my part!

AudioVoodo killer

I’ve been looking for a DAC to my Stereo system and DAC+AMP for my headphones for quite a while. Finally I picked RME ADI-2 ADC FS due to it’s awesome measured performance, decent power output for headphones and advanced DSP.

I owned a few devices (Marantz HD-DAC 1. Matrix Audio Element M, Burson Conductor, Schiit Audio) before and RME is the first one that after two weeks I have nothing to complain about. It is simply an audio-voodoo nonsense killer.

Firstly it has a brilliant noise floor. My sensitive IEMs are dead silent when nothing is playing. Finally! Secondly it can easily drive my HiFiMAN Arya which is a demanding headphone. No hassle at all. While low power mode is not enough for loud listening, high power mode shows it’s true potential. Even when close to max volume (sorry to my ears for that) there was no distortion at all. My HiFiMAN Arya was shaking on my head due to intense drivers’ movement and in a sub-bass heavy song it sounded no worse than a stereo system with a proper subwoofer. While my previous amp (rated at 1W per channel) was just producing one big distortion, sound from RME was perfectly clean and powerful. In terms of sound quality and performance I simply love it.

Second thing that I love is that it cured me from audio-voodoo. Detailed DACs, Warm sounding AMP, silver cables… come on. RME’s parametric EQ offers way more versatility. It really allows you to fit sound to your personal taste. I would love it to have more than 5 bands, though. Nevertheless, it is still a powerful tool. Another great function is crossfeed. Must have for headphones listening. I hate it when one instrument plays to the left ear and another one to the right ear. It is such an unnatural and tiring feeling. Crossfeed fixes it. While instruments stay in their positions, this unpleasant feeling is gone and instruments are more to the center. Something like listening to the stereo system which is always in front of the listener. Another nice thing is that RME saves settings for each output separately. This way I can have separate volume and EQ settings for stereo and headphones. I need to only switch the output and all settings are loaded automatically. It is simply clever and well thought.

There are some other minor cool things worth mentioning as well. Four programmable buttons in the remote are very handy. Auto input select works great. I connected my PC via optical and my network player via coax. Thanks to it, RME normally works as a DAC for PC but when I start playback via network, it automatically switches to coax input. When I stop playback from the network, it automatically goes back to optical. So convenient! Just perfect.

There are only minor things that I dislike about RME ADI-2 DAC FS. Firstly, It’s weight. It is too light and it must be held when pressing encoder knobs. Fingers easily leave greasy marks on it. Secondly, I use it as a DAC for stereo and DAC+AMP for headphones as mentioned before. I set volume for line out to 0dB as I have volume control in my stereo AMP. When I change Mute line setting from Toggle Ph/Line (it allows me to switch between Headphones and line out with the remote) to Off, RME switches output to headphones and uses volume setting from line out. 0dB in my case. This could be an unfortunate death of many headphones and ears due to misclick when done during playback. Lastly, I would appreciate some protection film for display. Mine was unprotected during shipping.

Last big plus for RME for their guide movies on Youtube. Very detailed and helpful. Despite being loaded with an enormous number of functions, I managed to set everything up without opening the manual.

To sum up - my best audio purchase ever. Price is very competitive when compared to hi-end audiophile companies. I am pretty sure I will be RME fanboy for a long time.

Great

The newset edition empolying AK4493 and a remote. Sounds great and easy to use. With high clarity and good soundstage performance.

A well designed compact device for music!

I got my Genelec 8020D first and started order this gem, then the long journey started - God that felt like life-time, but when I got the box and launched it with the new speaker and my favorite Partita No.3 by Milstein, everything worthy I told myself.

The sound through 8020 is clear, stable, balanced and rational.

- I compare both CD &SACD ver of the violin solos and can easily specify the different remasters even they came from same recording on 1973.

- That's the first time I feel such a clear but not sharp treble when listerning to violin solos, everything runs smoothly and stayed where're, the songs of strings are so beautiful I can't stop the playing.

- I don't need a bold bass, for me that's clear, solid and restrained. I like it.

- People may say this pairing is a bit too pure or bland, but that's my cup of tea - there's an EQ so I can blend something later right? :)

- If people want to pair this gem for a sweet sound with devices like Genelec speakers, HD800s, A2000z, DT1990Pro, etc, they may need an separate amp with warmer tuning - uhm but why you choose them if you need a sweet/warm sound?

I paired my IEM with ADI-2, that's a deep deep abyss I felt then.

- The unit is capable to drive IEMs.

- Headphones, the sound is excellent too, but if your device desire massive flooding power or you need more characterized output from the system, yes you may need a separate amp

- If you want the original sound of the records, you should try to plug your spekaer ot headphones direct to the unit.

It's shipped with good build quality and nice looking - Yes I love the white rings Yes!!!

- The unit is easy to install, oh you may need turn the vol to -40 or lower if combined to a powerful active speaker.

- Outstanding functionality and excellent ergonomics, the remote controller, display, and tuner are nice to use.

- You may need some time to study the use of the tuners with the logfic RME set for the massive settings you can adjust for either pro or consumer purpose. That's amazing you can adjust so many settings for various purpose.

I would recomment this unit for people need clear/original sound and various functionality for pro/entertainment uses. The unit is great fine-tuned and well fabricated, definitely worthy the coins.