Vincent, they do not have the same specs nor measurements. The Pro version measures a bit worse.

You write you can not hear the differences between amps - if you have the possibility, try to compare for example Primare i25 and Parasound HINT 6. Both are decent integrated amps but with very different approach to the sound. You should hear it very clearly. If not, good for you (I mean it with no sarcasm too) and you have one big problem solved :-).

willem:
Yes, theory says what you wrote. Still grey is the theory and green is the tree of life :-).

I have done enough double blind ABX tests in my couple of decades long audio journey to know well their strong disadvantages. It has been reported, tested, proved that this methodology significantly lower the ability to distinguish the two components.

I will give you an example from another world. I used to be a MTB downhill racer. You go downhill on a bike through rough terrain, roots, rocks, drops, big jumps and the best time matters. If I would focus on every single obstacle and try to get over it the most time-efficient way, if I would think how to go over it the best way, I would be insanely slow. The opposite is the right way - to be strongly inside your mind but fairly relaxed not to detail focus on every aspect of the ride and just go.
And with listening it is the same. If I really focus on particular aspects of a music while it is being swithed between A, B and X, I lose it all very fast.

How I do my listening comparisons I did describe above. I listen to the gear couple of weeks, switch randomly with knowing which of the components is on. After that period, if I can hear any differences (which not always is the case), I am able to recognize one unit from another after their switch without knowing which is on. This I have proved in many cases.

I am far from being interested in fooling myself. Why would I go that? Music (and gear) is just a hobby, moreover just one of my hobbies. If I did it (in case of ADI-2 Pro vs DAC in my case), I would "hear" DAC sounding better because I did like it more and I wanted to switch it with the Pro. But it was not the case.

Just please do not apply the logic "if your way does not match to my assumptions and opinions then you are a superhuman". It is weel outside the boundaries of a relevant discussion.

And if so, a golden ear like you, who can tell the difference between 2 pro DACS by ear, I think it will be easy to make a perfect score on this simple and fast test (lossless vs lossy MP3 :
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/ … io-quality

It takes 5 minutes...

The Pro measures a bit "worse" than the DAC, but the Pro FS measures the same than the DAC (it is FS too)

Before you contribute with such a nonsense next time, please read carefully before. It can hardly be psychoacoustics if I did not know which of the DACs was on.....

Btw, this always surprises me that some people can not resist to start being personal once someone presents different experience than they have. Children act like this, not adults...

This was the second try. With the first one I had 1 mistake with the poorly recorded Coldplay sample.
BTW if you would go back that czech thread, you would see more result with no or one mistake. It is not difficult test, the differences are quite big.

Going back to the difference between ADI-2 DAC and Pro, they are slightly smaller and of a different nature than the difference between CD and a proper mp3 320kbps but still clearly audible.

Again: please read more carefuly. I did not call you a child (not children assuming you are just one person). There is no post like it from me. I wrote that degrading other's experience by being personal just because you have a different one is childish behavior. Feel the difference?

And other thing once again: how it could be psychoacoustics in the case I did not know which of the DACs is on? Please answer.
By easily throwing it to psychoacoustics you simply ignore facts. And yes, it is childish. The same way as being personal to someone who has different experience (and apparently far better ability to listen to the music).

I think that none of us is interested in such a conversation. I fully admit what you write about your experiences, you should do the same without trying to degrade the others by presenting your thought about their experience by ignoring simple facts.

You are evaluating engineering quality with a listening test. For the results to be valid you have to follow proper scientific protocol, and you do not show that you did. Therefore, your conclusions would never be accepted in a proper scientific journal. They are quack science, and that is all there is to it. That ends the discussion for me, and all the more so given your unacademic manners.

What a bullshit you talk, you are such a snob...

What you actually suggest that distortions in the chain cancel each other out to achieve a more accurate sound (measurable) than should be expected based on the weakest part (less accurate component) in the chain. Accuracy is perfectly measurable and not a subjective issue or perception. Please stop bragging these nonsense.

I have absolutely no problem that you trust your ears and perception and that your choice for equipment is based on it. But stop mixing your perception with science.

This is quite common that people of certain mindset are hiding their inability to use argument with personal offenses. So I am leaving it aside.

I never wrote anything about "distortion cancellation". Nor specifically neither in any meaning of my texts. You just made it in the need of creating an argument.

Moreover, the total distortion of the system in not determined by the weakest part of the chain, what might be understood from your opinion, but by the sum of distortions of all the components.

Agree, and that's why you were talking nonsense while suggesting

Indicating combining less components can result in more accurate sound...

I rest my case.

...Still waiting on your factual proof that attenuators clearly degrade sound..., would remind you that this is a technical forum (as you did)... But you remain so quiet...

I can easily make a screenshot with 6 out of 6 score... That doesn't prove anything!
And a lot of people made the test at my home (about 10, most of them are musicians), and no 6 out of 6 til now... You are a true and rare golden ear (or a lier ).

And I confess that for me 320 vs lossless is very difficult to recognize by my ear on this test... Except with the piano track.

And I'm not representative of this forum population: not professionnal, I just like music (more than gears BTW).

One relevant reason: you used "purely factual" as argument but did not gave any facts that underlined your bold assertions so it would be rewarding if you adhere to your own standards.

Question remains: do you take the challenge ?!

But glad I discovered God exists, i.e. a true audio God with platinum ears. You're a very talented and lucky man.

It is just your wish. Not a relevant reason. I know what and why I do and have no need to push others to accept that or not. It is up to you. Not my business.

If you need to proof something to someone, feel free. I do not need it. Especially not to someone who is firstly that offensive and then begs for favours. Mind your behaviour.

Psst... please don't talk science this is a "technical forum"... so you may only talk about things non-technical such as perception ! (haha)

Amazing that someone with the best ears in the word can be so deaf at the same time.

Stop attacking me on my age or to tease me about the price of my speakers. Get a life...

Not very pleasant, is it. And I even did not write you are a possible liar, did not start to be offensive, did not start to rate your ears, did not laugh at your listening experience etc...

Let us stop it. If someone should get life, here it is you, as for today .
With you I still think you are a decent man who just lost it a bit today.
Let us talk next time with more decent respect to others' experiences .

Cheers

I'm not smart enough to laugh at those teasings... My brain is like my ears: cotton-filled!!! I hope both will grow when I will become an adult.

And it is the point - rating the behaviour instead of discussion about the topic.

Get back to the start. I just shared my experience. With no personal or anyhow offensive content. Who started it all? Who started to degrade, laugh and turned to into personal? Who started ignoring facts and turning "childish behaviour" to "you are a child" just to have something to fight with?

And this game on the last word :-D . We did it with my brother when I was 10 or so... This is a discussion. Unfortunetly it ends when one looses it and instead of discussing the topic starts to be personal, offensive. And then the NPR test came where you wanted to "teach" me and you turned red. Because all who hear better than you are liers. No one can do it when you can not do it! What an embarrasment .

Who should get life?

...but you don't own "extremely high quality audio" so no need to use a pre-amp next to RME DAC in order to "fool yourself (and us)" and hence add "distortion thus coloration = artificial ingredients." which Pitrs prefers :-) ;-P

Haha

I just read all Pitrs posts: some 90 % are fights with others who he thinks are wrong, fool people, write nonsense etc. Also, in one of his early posts he berates someone who thinks he needs a preamp but Pitrs argues correctly that a DAC such as the ADI-2 is in fact already a pre amp so there is no need for yet another. However, in the current thread he seems to argue the opposite and rather forcefully so.
So my diagnosis is that he just likes a fight.  Let us ignore him.

The ADI-2 DAC/Pro/Pro FS are indeed preamps, and very good ones: no audible distorsion, EQ, Dynamic Loundness, configurable and variable B/T ajustements, the automatic switch between 4 hardware levels, the good remote...

Since it is possible to distinguish Pro from DAC by listening without knowing which one is playing, you'd better should write "no audible distortion in my system, my acoustics and with my ears". The difference is quite well audible and is on +/- same level as for example the difference between 44.1/16 and 320 mp3 = quite easily audible.
No one of us is a speaker of everyone else each of us speaks just for himself (though some would wish to be the ones aroud who the world turns - "no one does anything better than me")

So, in sum, from reading through this thread (and many similar on this and other forums) I have drawn a number of conclusions.

1.  If you want ‘neutrality’ and ‘accuracy’ and what you believe to be the most faithful reproduction of music possible at this price point, you use the RME as a pre.

2.  If you find that ‘neutral’ and ‘accurate’ to your ears sounds ‘clinical’, ‘bland’, ‘analytical’ or even ‘harsh’ you will use a separate preamp, probably one based on valves.

3.  If you fall into the former camp, you will probably use measurements and ‘science’ to convince yourself that you are correct.  If you fall into the latter camp, you will use your possibly flawed subjective perception to convince yourself that you are correct.

4.  Whichever camp you fall into, you will think the other camp in some way mentally deficient, and will go to great lengths to explain to members of the opposing camp why they are mentally deficient and completely wrong. 

5.  These long explanations (of which I am currently becoming guilty) are boring, and don’t help anyone achieve better sound or more musical enjoyment from their sound systems.  So can we please all just give it a rest and realise that these are just hi tech boxes that transmit noises, not important things like, for example, the future of the EU post-Brexit?

Thanks,

J