This has to get more attention - a consumer DAC from RME

[Miska]

Sounds like the problem you have is more to do with the applications and less with the drivers. On Windows, just stick to ASIO...

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, Abtr said:

It may be a Windows problem. But other DACs have proprietary WASAPI drivers that support exclusive mode. The ADI-2 DAC only has an ASIO driver that outputs a single selected sample rate and doen't use the actual sample rate of the file being played. The new Windows10 audio driver should support WASAPI exclusive mode for all sound devices and use the file sample rate, but it doesn't.. 

 

ASIO driver certainly allows setting any of the supported sample rates, at least with my player. I just tested and I can play out at any of the supported PCM rates from 44.1k to 768k and also DSD from 2.8 MHz to 12.2 MHz.

 

Only WASAPI has the limitation that you need to manually change the rate if you want.

 

[Miska]

25 minutes ago, Abtr said:

It's the other way around. ASIO has the limitation that it plays out only a single sample rate, the one you select by hand in the settings app that comes with the RME driver software. WASAPI (exclusive mode) normally has the advantage that it automatically plays out the sample rate of the input audio file. But it apparently does not do this with the Windows10 USB audio 2.0 driver.

 

No, ASIO plays out at any supported rate, at least with my player, with RME driver and with all other drivers I remember having tried so far too.

 

25 minutes ago, Abtr said:

WASAPI (exclusive mode) normally has the advantage that it automatically plays out the sample rate of the input audio file.

 

Well, to be exact, rate of audio file and what rate plays out are not directly related...

 

I personally play all my files at fixed DSD output rate, DSD256 in case of RME ADI-2. I can play out at any rate or format I want, regardless of input file rate or format.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Abtr said:

Yes, but you must select the output sr by hand with the RME ASIO driver (Madiface).

 

No I don't, my player changes it. Never touched the RME ASIO driver's control panel.

 

Just today, for this discussion, tested it by going through different rates and formats from the player.

 

1 hour ago, Abtr said:

That's exactly what I do not want. I want my audio driver to play the sample rate and bit depth of the input file/stream.

 

OK, that's your preference.

 

I do upsampling in player software and specifically don't want to send the file as-is to the DAC, because I want best possible performance out of the DAC.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Abtr said:

Well, my experience is that I must set the sample rate by hand with the RME ASIO driver, and that's what RME told me to do when I inquired about it. I don't use HQPlayer.

 

Works for me perfectly fine, and I'd assume it works with other applications supporting ASIO as well.

 

Here's snippet from HQPlayer's log as proof:

  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Loaded ASIO driver: ASIO MADIface USB
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 ASIO device supports DSD
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 ASIO device supports PCM
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 ASIO default format is PCM
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 44100
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 48000
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 88200
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 96000
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 176400
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 192000
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 352800
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 384000
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 705600
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 768000
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Default ASIO channels: 2 in / 2 out
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Default output channel 0: Analog 1 (1)
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 ASIO SampleFormat 18, 32-bit
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Default output channel 1: Analog 2 (1)

  2018/12/07 17:05:58 ASIO format set to DSD
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 ASIO DSD buffer size is in bits
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 2822400
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 3072000
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 5644800
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 6144000
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 11289600
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Rate available: 12288000
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Default ASIO channels: 2 in / 2 out
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Default output channel 0: Analog 1 (1)
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 ASIO DSD format MSB1
  2018/12/07 17:05:58 Default output channel 1: Analog 2 (1)

 

Only difference is that I have ADI-2 Pro (I have actually two) and not ADI-2 DAC, but AFAIK it shouldn't make any difference in this respect.

 

1 hour ago, Abtr said:

Hm, I want as little processing as possible done by the PC to keep it as electrically quite as possible, with less noise potentially invading the DAC through the USB connection.

 

I've measured ADI-2 output when playing this way and at least in my system there's no influence. With upsampling I get measured improved performance.

 

But those who are worried split this over network link using my network endpoint running on a separate low power device to isolate the processing server from the device doing actual playback.

 

1 hour ago, Abtr said:

It now seems that the problem with the Windows Tidal app not playing the correct sample rate is a problem of the Windows Tidal software and not necessarily of the USB Audio 2.0 driver..

 

Tidal's application is quite horrible. I use Roon to play Tidal through HQPlayer (Roon supports HQPlayer as playback engine). But probably Roon works perfectly fine alone with the RME's ASIO driver (I've just never tried it).

 

[Miska]

20 minutes ago, Abtr said:

Nope, it's a known issue or trade (depending on your point of view) of the RME ASIO driver. I inquired why ADI-2 DAC didn't play 96 kHz files as such, and according to Matthias Carstens (RME): "You need to manually set the DAC to 96 kHz in its Settings dialog, all explained in the manual. If you use Roon with Tidal you can use ASIO, then it will work under Win 7 automatically. Otherwise it also works with Windows 10, without the RME driver."

 

I know Matthias. If you read that carefully, that applies to their WASAPI driver, not to the ASIO driver... He's saying there that with ASIO driver you can get the sample rate switched from the software. With their WASAPI driver not.

 

Tidal application doesn't support ASIO, while Roon does.

 

But if you don't want to believe that it is working the way I described, I don't think I can help it more. You can anyway try it out at any time without cost if you like, HQPlayer has free trial mode.

 

I have two of these devices and have been working with it since it arrived on the market. I even added some extra functionality to the Linux driver for it.

[Miska]

11 minutes ago, Abtr said:

As far as I know there exists no RME WASAPI driver for the ADI-2 DAC. Can you provide a download link?

 

It is in the very same driver package as the ASIO driver. The installer installs both...

 

  2018/12/07 17:05:01 Open WASAPI endpoint GUID: {0.0.0.00000000}.{eb2af813-d0d7-4e4d-91db-cb7af2c4f2ea}
  2018/12/07 17:05:01 Currently using: 'Analog (1+2) (RME ADI-2 Pro)'
  2018/12/07 17:05:01 Output type: Default
  2018/12/07 17:05:01 WinMiniEngine8 initialized
  2018/12/07 17:05:01 Discover rates for 2 channels
  2018/12/07 17:05:01 Format available: 44100/24 (32)
  2018/12/07 17:05:01 Format available: 44100/16 (16)

 

 

Here's link to one step newer driver than what I have installed:

http://rme-audio.de/download/driver_madiface_win_09680.zip

 

[Miska]

...just updated driver to the latest one (link) and still works exactly the same as before...

[Miska]

8 hours ago, Abtr said:

And the question remains, why doesn't the RME WASAPI driver do automatic sample rate switching whereas any other WASAPI DAC driver I know does this, even in Windows 7 and with Tidal?  

 

That I don't know. There are many WASAPI and ASIO drivers that have some kind of problem, some are limited to max 192k sampling rate or other strange stuff. So far the best WASAPI driver I've encountered is TEAC's driver for UD-501/503.

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, Abtr said:

I think people should also indicate if they are using a preamp after the DAC for volume control. (To use a preamp after the ADI-2, the output volume of the DAC should be set to 0db.) And is USB or SPDIF input to the DAC used?

 

I have headphone/pre- amp with analog volume control connected with balanced to the ADI-2 Pro. The other Pro is connected to preamp too (using balanced also). Since I have DSD Direct enabled and run the DAC always at DSD256 only, there's no volume control available from ADI-2. For DAC and ADC use, only USB input is used. I use ADC and the S/PDIF inputs as input to HQPlayer (thus either ADC -> USB or S/PDIF -> USB path in which case the DAC is not used).

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Abtr said:

I think that not using the ADI-2 DAC disqualifies as a DAC comparison.

 

Why? Pro has the same DAC (with somewhat different headphone connections), but in addition it has ADC and AES I/O. But otherwise they are same.

 

ADI-2 DAC can be used for same S/PDIF -> USB input cases too, there's just no AES input.

[Miska]

39 minutes ago, ferenc said:

Anybody using the ADI-2 DAC (or Pro) with iFi iUSB3.0 Micro? I got my old iUSB3 and just could not get it work, I tried different USB2, dual head USB2, USB3 cables but the RME is not recognized on my iMac. Tried all the USB ports does not make a difference.  

 

Any suggestion?

 

Probably a faulty device?

 

I have two ADI-2 Pro's and both work fine without any issues on all of my computers, including 27" iMac.