user42 wrote:I have RME DAC since about half a year and yes its soundstage is thinnest I ever heard.
It is only on speakers line, no 10 cm more or less. That I reallyy dislike.
Soundwise it is very very polite. If you have agressive speakers it is quiet a good pairing (which I checked with my friend setups) also great for studio monitors, but I have only laid back speakers like few pairs of Harbeth and some others and there basically every other DAC sounds more engaging.
You could ofc play with EQ, but you will mess it up anyway, so if this DAC doesn't cut it for you, sell it and move along.
I'm only keeping it if I have at the time too forward playing HPs/speakers to tame them.
I used ADI-2 Pro (old version, non-FS), ADI-2 DAC (old version), ADI-2 Pro FS R BE new version.
My signal chain: TV / BluRay/ PC (UFX+) -> TOSLINK 4:1 Switcher -> ADI-2 "*" -> Accuphase E-600 Class-A -> B&W 803 D3.
I compared the ADI-2 * side by side with the built-in Accuphase DAC-40 card (the Class-A amp has two module slots and you can feed it with DAC or phono expansion cards).
For all ADI's differences to the internal Accuphase DAC-40 module inside of the amp were extremely small and hard to hear.
Sometimes it appeared to me the internal DAC-40 sounded like the ADI-2 in NOS mode.
IF there would be such an effect, that the soundstage is thing with the ADI, then you can be sure that I would hear this.
Actually the opposite is the case in my setup, as I am having a really deep and wide soundstage.
The music completely detaches itself from the speakers and I have the illusion of another room in my room.
The stage can be very deep and also very wide depending on how the mix is.
In streamed movies sometimes a car or whatevery moves authentic from right to left through the stereo panorama.
With right I mean even ~1.5, more to the right as the speaker actually is located. So the panorama is really huge.
Its really astonishing and believe me, such a setup makes much fun.
This experience is completely the opposite to what you are telling.
It looks to me that there is something wrong with your setup, but not with the ADI.
EDIT: same positive experience with phones output.
All ADI play very well with i.e. Audeze Planar phones like i.e. LCD-X and for my ears even better with LCD-3 (Alcantara version).
I do not want to convince you or other of anything here ... so please no struggle.
But what you told sounds to me very wrong and doesn't match my experience.
Therefore I wanted to share with you my personal experiences, not more, not less.
EDIT: maybe Curt has an idea where he had similar situations, like missing depth. Maybe it has also to do with the position of the speaker. But its rather unlikely that its the DACs fault. Or you would claim, that Accuphase also build very poor DAC products, maybe
BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13