Topic: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

I intend to get one for home use, but I want to know a few things:

1.) Since, from what I've looked up, it has two line in's, which of the interfaces do I get that can take a mic that also has 48v of phantom power? If not, do I just get a dedicated mic preamp?
2.) If ever I do hookup anything to those, will I be able to get zero latency monitoring?

2 (edited by ramses 2018-05-22 06:22:39)

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

1- it has no mic preamps, so you need a dedicated Mic preamp
2- it doesn't support TotalMix FX which is required to get i.e. a near zero latency headphone mix.

A combination of RME recording interface including mic preamps / TotalMix FX and ADI-2 Pro or ADI-2 Pro FS would be the best solution.

I wrote a blog article about that: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … tup-EN-DE/

There you can see, how easy it is to enhance a recording interface with the ADI-2 Pro. The remap key feature is brilliant in such a setup, as you can change i.e. between phones and speakers on the ADI-2 Pro and the slow rampup of volume is also nice when switching between the channels.

If you should need something for i.e. best standalone operation, then a combination of RME UFX II (or UFX+), ARC USB and ADI-2 Pro FS would be ideal, because the newer devices allow the ARC USB to be connected directly to the UFX II (or UFX+) and by this you would also have the very useful Durec feature in your setup. Other big advantage of UFX II / UFX+ is, that all analog outputs are muted when powering-on the device.

This would be the "ideal" setup. You could also combine the ADI-2 Pro with another RME recording interface with TM FX and preamps like i.e.: BBF Pro, UC, UCX or 802. You only need to connect the ADI-2 Pro via ADAT and connect Speakers and Phones to it. Swichting between those like described in my blog article, see link above. Very easy and straight forward.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

ramses wrote:

1- it has no mic preamps, so you need a dedicated Mic preamp
2- it doesn't support TotalMix FX which is required to get i.e. a near zero latency headphone mix.

A combination of RME recording interface including mic preamps / TotalMix FX and ADI-2 Pro or ADI-2 Pro FS would be the best solution.

I wrote a blog article about that: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … tup-EN-DE/

There you can see, how easy it is to enhance a recording interface with the ADI-2 Pro. The remap key feature is brilliant in such a setup, as you can change i.e. between phones and speakers on the ADI-2 Pro and the slow rampup of volume is also nice when switching between the channels.

If you should need something for i.e. best standalone operation, then a combination of RME UFX II (or UFX+), ARC USB and ADI-2 Pro FS would be ideal, because the newer devices allow the ARC USB to be connected directly to the UFX II (or UFX+) and by this you would also have the very useful Durec feature in your setup. Other big advantage of UFX II / UFX+ is, that all analog outputs are muted when powering-on the device.

This would be the "ideal" setup. You can take also another combination of RME recording interface including TM FX and ADI-2 Pro.

But it could also be an BBF Pro, UC, UCX or 802. You only need to connect the ADI-2 Pro via ADAT.

So, just to see if I get this right, if I go the Babyface Pro route, I just need that and plug it to ADI-2 Pro, right? Or will I need the ARC USB as well? Also, on behalf of a friend who wants to ask out of curiosity, can this also be done along with the ADI-2 DAC?

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

The ADI-2 DAC has no analog inputs, so in this case you need definitively the additional RME recording interface with preamps and Totalmix FX.

With the DAC version you can reduce the efforts ($$$) but you should think about what your main use case for the device is, recording or HiFi. For a recording studio I would definitively choose the Pro / Pro FS because it offers to you more flexibility / use cases:
- additional Digital Outputs,
- additional analog Inputs
Very nice for high quality analog recordings or format conversion.
- 2 phones outputs in high quality .. for 2 guys making music or to compare studio phones on the same preamp or to cross check mix / master with 2 different set of phones which all can be tweaked by using the PEQ

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

5 (edited by centsear 2018-05-22 06:44:04)

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

ramses wrote:

The ADI-2 DAC has no analog inputs, so in this case you need definitively the additional RME recording interface with preamps and Totalmix FX.

With the DAC version you can reduce the efforts ($$$) but you should think about what your main use case for the device is, recording or HiFi. For a recording studio I would definitively choose the Pro / Pro FS because it offers to you more flexibility / use cases:
- additional Digital Outputs,
- additional analog Inputs
Very nice for high quality analog recordings or format conversion.
- 2 phones outputs in high quality .. for 2 guys making music or to compare studio phones on the same preamp or to cross check mix / master with 2 different set of phones which all can be tweaked by using the PEQ

Well, I'm just one guy who's going to be recording my own performance, so, by the looks of it, i might just end up with the DAC as well. Over the last two years, I've rarely been able to work with another person in the same studio.

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

What near field speakers / phones do you use ?

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

ramses wrote:

What near field speakers / phones do you use ?

Speakers: LSR305s
Headphones: Sennheiser HD600, Sony CD900ST, and Etymotic ER4SR

8 (edited by ramses 2018-05-22 08:13:07)

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

EDITED: please re-read

If you use in-ear phones then the ADI-2 DAC should have advantages for you because of its high quality IEM output.

In terms of your near field speakers and phones: its difficult to predict, but with near field monitors of ~€100 (per monitor) and phones in the range of €200-250 you might not get all sound benefits / details out of the ADI-2 Pro's D/A converters. The question is, whether your HW is able to deliver all these fine details. Eventually your IEM of ~€400 delivers more details.

On the other hand:

- you will benefit from all the other ADI-2 Pro / DAC advantages (IEM for your in-ear phones, slow ramp-up of volume, conversion quality in general, PEQ, key-remapping feature), click- and noise-free on/off operation, etc .. (see handbook for a full list of features: https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/adi2dac_d.pdf)

- a combination of RME recording device with TotalMix FX and the ADI-2 Pro is a very good investment in terms of stability of your recording solution and an excellent basement for further enhancements of monitors and phones

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

9 (edited by centsear 2018-05-22 10:55:46)

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

ramses wrote:

EDITED: please re-read

If you use in-ear phones then the ADI-2 DAC should have advantages for you because of its high quality IEM output.

In terms of your near field speakers and phones: its difficult to predict, but with near field monitors of ~€100 (per monitor) and phones in the range of €200-250 you might not get all sound benefits / details out of the ADI-2 Pro's D/A converters. The question is, whether your HW is able to deliver all these fine details. Eventually your IEM of ~€400 delivers more details.

On the other hand:

- you will benefit from all the other ADI-2 Pro / DAC advantages (IEM for your in-ear phones, slow ramp-up of volume, conversion quality in general, PEQ, key-remapping feature), click- and noise-free on/off operation, etc .. (see handbook for a full list of features: https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/adi2dac_d.pdf)

- a combination of RME recording device with TotalMix FX and the ADI-2 Pro is a very good investment in terms of stability of your recording solution and an excellent basement for further enhancements of monitors and phones

I guess I'll personally go for the ADI-2 Pro, then. Thank you very much. I do intend to upgrade the rest of my gear, I just wanted to go for the interface first and then build up from there.

And also, just so I can give my friend some peace of mind, he technically can use the ADI-2 DAC as what you said in the 4th post, and still have low latency right? Since he mostly intends to use an RME interface with the DAC for voice acting, singing, and for personal audio use as he's looking for an "All-in-one" for his use case.

10 (edited by ramses 2018-05-22 11:33:14)

Re: Regarding the ADI 2 Pro as an interface

centsear wrote:

And also, just so I can give my friend some peace of mind, he technically can use the ADI-2 DAC as what you said in the 4th post, and still have low latency right? Since he mostly intends to use an RME interface with the DAC for voice acting, singing, and for personal audio use as he's looking for an "All-in-one" for his use case.

If he is a vocalist, then he records based on a backing track.
Your phones and your Micro are both connected to the recording interface.
You listen then in your phones
- to the backing track and
- to your vocals (as you sing-in in parallel to listening to the backing track)
This should happen at "zero latency". This works best at lowest latencies
within the "routing matrix" on the recording interface or via digital connections
between RME devices like UCX and ADI-2 Pro.

If you need to take the way to the DAW and back then you have definitively more latency involved
which changes depending on the selected ASIO buffersize.

So in situations like this its advized to use a real recording interface with TotalMix FX.
And of course he needs a mic pre-amp, so with the ADI-2 * alone he can't make any recording alone.

ADI-2 Pro / Pro FS / AE / DAC do not have TotalMix FX included, the devices are not been desiged for this purpose and the FPGA do not have any resources left for TotalMix FX.

So also for him I would recommend to choose a combination of ADI-2 Pro FS and RME recording interface
- with TotalMix FX
- with a digital input / output (ADAT, AES)

The ADI-2 Pro also would have the advantage for him to be able to connect the ADI-2 Pro FS to recording interface digitally IN and OUT. So also for high quality analog recordings (A/D).

As I said, for HiFi take the DAC, for studio bettter the ADI-2 Pro / Pro FS / Pro AE.

If you buy newly, then get the ADI-2 Pro FS. No tonal differencies .. but it got a circuit upgrade to also
support the Femto Second clock. Like this device here: https://www.thomann.de/gb/rme_adi_2_pro … ImVuIn0%3D

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13