torbenscharling wrote:Johannes AU wrote:Besides, how many watt(s) can be output from a USB 2.0 port?
USB 2 power is irrelevant in this discussion. We are talking about a potential ADI-3 and it's feature set.
Naturally it would also have PSU plug, so you would use that cable you see above AND the PSU, other people might want to be using the just the USB-C/USB4 cable since there would be no need to also use a PSU.
If USB power was so bad, RME would not have accepted BabyFace to use USB 2.0 power. Even though it should raise the dynamic range a bit running it with a PSU (on the original BF at least), you can find several places where RME officially touts the USB power to be sufficient, which I guess is also why the BabyFace doesn't even come with a PSU.
So ya, long story short: There really are no reasons not to implement the usb powered option.
Babyface has other applications: small formfactor / mobilily.
Therefore it made sense to make it bus powered, BUT with the clever / wise option to allow the connection of a PSU, because I remember posts in this forum, where USB2 power fails for some computers.
USB power on computers can be very different due to general differences (desktop vs laptop) and how good the quality of the computers PSU is.
In such cases, where the power from computer is not sufficient, RME recommends to use a PSU. BTW similar with the old FF400 if I remember right, which could - as an option - also be operated bus powered, but in some cases that failed as well and led to issues.
For such reasons it makes more sense for a device, which claims to be a reference converter, to either have its own PSU built-in (if there is enough room) or to use again an external PSU.
Remember there are many customers who use a Raspberry Pi devices as audio source, maybe even using USB for audio (not 100% sure on this point). But when googling for Raspberry Pi and USB, you will find references which tell, that USB power is not that powerful, in such cases you will definitively need a separate PSU.
So I could bet that RME will choose again USB2 for wider compatibility because most computers still have an USB2 port and because USB2 is sufficient for the purpose to transport a "handfull" of channels. Remember, MADIface Pro supports 68 channels IN + OUT through USB2.
I wouldn't "worry" too much about this topic. You can be sure, that RME will make again a wise choise for such a product, this will surely be one of the least problems.
BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13