Topic: Can you remote control the ADI-2 Pro + how to use it for mastering?

Do any of the RME remotes work with the ADI-2 Pro? We’re thinking of rack mounting one on the floor but would like quick access to the volume.

Also does the unit not use TotalMix? How are mastering engineers on this forum using it with outboard compression and EQ? Less keen on combining it with another RME interface if possible...

Eastwood Records
www.eastwoodrecords.co.uk

2

Re: Can you remote control the ADI-2 Pro + how to use it for mastering?

There is no remote and no TotalMix. This is not the usual RME audio interface but a high end AD/DA converter with high-end phones outputs that also excel as unbalanced line outputs.

You can use the independent 2 stereo analog outputs to insert analog equipment, but only one pair of these is balanced (rear XLR). So either monitoring or insert loop will have an unbalanced feed.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

3 (edited by ramses 2018-03-18 15:27:14)

Re: Can you remote control the ADI-2 Pro + how to use it for mastering?

You could combine ADI-2 Pro, RayDAT and ARC USB like described here in my blog:

https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … ort-DE-EN/

RayDAT is very well suited for that as it has fully separated AES and SPDIF, thus makes it perfect to control via ARC USB / TotalMix FX snapshots whether you want to listen only via Monitors or Phones.

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

Re: Can you remote control the ADI-2 Pro + how to use it for mastering?

Does the ADI-2 Pro feature any headroom to allow for intersample CD peaks?  I've just been reading about a similar feature in the Benchmark DAC2.

More generally how do people find the ADI-2 Pro compares to more expensive headphone amps by Grace, Lynx and Benchmark?

And thanks ramses, I'll look into your RayDAT workaround.

Eastwood Records
www.eastwoodrecords.co.uk

5 (edited by ramses 2018-03-21 13:04:10)

Re: Can you remote control the ADI-2 Pro + how to use it for mastering?

@MC: do I have it right in my mind, that ADI-2 * also support the 1st 2 channels of an ADAT stream ?
Is this also true for 88.2/96 ?

Then IMHO a RayDAT could even drive up to
- 4 x ADI-2 Pro @44.1/48 and
- 2x ADI-2 Pro @88.1/96.

If you need i.e. to drive even more speakers.

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

6

Re: Can you remote control the ADI-2 Pro + how to use it for mastering?

The ADI-2 Pro has 24 dB digital headroom because it uses EQ. An overload of the output is clearly shown on the level meters (other than with most DACs out there), so reducing the 'Volume' in such a case will be done by the user automatically and intuitively, so that there is no overload at all.

The DACs used in RME units plus their analog output stage typically have 2.5 dB headroom with low out-of-band distortion, so even if you set volume to zero with EQ disabled and apply such intersample peaks what you saw in the Benchmark docs is no issue here.

The only stage in the Pro where such intersample peaks can cause increased distortion is the Sample Rate Converter. But that is easily avoided by not exceeding -3 dBFS peak level into the ADI's digital inputs when using the SRC. And DIGICheck will tell you if that is necessary or not, as its 4 Bar Level Meter has an Option 'Oversampling' which activates the display of levels higher than 0 dBFS, directly read from the AES, SPDIF and even analog input.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

7

Re: Can you remote control the ADI-2 Pro + how to use it for mastering?

ramses wrote:

@MC: do I have it right in my mind, that ADI-2 * also support the 1st 2 channels of an ADAT stream ?
Is this also true for 88.2/96 ?.

And 192 kHz. Where there are only two channels anyway.

ramses wrote:

Then IMHO a RayDAT could even drive up to
- 4 x ADI-2 Pro @44.1/48 and
- 2x ADI-2 Pro @88.1/96.

If you need i.e. to drive even more speakers.

RayDAT has 4 ADAT ports = 4 x 2 channels of 192 kHz. Using the ADI-2s it will be the same at 96 kHz, 4 Ports = 4 separate units can be fed with different signals from the RayDAT.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME