Your ADI will work with a digiface USB and with a babyface pro fs. If you need 8 channels at 96k it will need to be the digiface. The babyface will only do 4 adat channels at 96k, because of one adat port.

I have both an ADI8AE (is same as ADI8DS) and a Babyface pro fs. It is absolutely not night and day.
I would not be able to guess which one I am listening to in a blind test.
But if you get a babyface pro fs, you have both at your disposal. $ channels of in/out with newer fs converters and 8 older ones.

The chip is 80$ a piece.
If you were happy for 10 years, where is this coming from?
On paper you will gain some less noise and distortion, but both are already inaudible with your (our) old devices.
The babyface uses a converter maybe one step below the ES. Our ADI's maybe 8 steps/generations. SO if 7 generations are inaudible I would guess 8 is not suddenly a magic difference.
You could say...you can record 10db quieter and get the same results if you record way to quiet. like -60db.
There were a lot of audible improvements in the first few generations of digital audio. Mainly to do with the filters.

What kind of answers do you expect, even MC says they sound the same. People who have spent big bucks will say they hear a difference.

They have not been known to reply to these questions in the way you hope. Let alone comment on other manufacturers products.
And huge means the old one is at least mediocre compared to the new ones.  Ar best it is in the audiophile regions, like deeper soundstage to my ears, or silkier highs.

fabriciom wrote:

Also, the USB chipset used by the DAC im looking at is the same that RME uses on their equipment.

So what USB chipset are you talking about? XMOS? Then you can't be more wrong than that. We do USB ourselves in the FPGA, not with a 'specific chipset'.

If I would have known you were this rude, I would not have helped! You get a reply from the founder of RME, telling you it can't be the same USB chip since it is a custom design and you react like this?
Still hope you find what you are looking for!

fabriciom wrote:

vinark wrote:

If I would have known you were this rude, I would not have helped! You get a reply from the founder of RME, telling you it can't be the same USB chip since it is a custom design and you react like this?
Still hope you find what you are looking for!

So I come to a forum asking information about chipsets and drivers.

I get an answer from the company that seems like I 'm arguing. "You are wrong and we are right". "You can't be more wrong then that"

And Im rude?

Insane.

You are rude in that you are rude to the persons trying to help. You call it a company but I am just a helpfull RME user and MC a helpfull RME founder. He is answering to what he knows for sure, the USB chipset. He  and RME are not the designers of the converter chips. They build a product around it. Answering how much better a converter chip is is impossible. Except for the specs and those are clear, 10 year old very very good. Newer even better. Audible worth it???? Who knows. The product RME build (ADI-2 series) are brilliant, maybe the chinese too? Should RME diss the Chinese? Toot their own horn?  Say their new product is so much better (insert audiophile speak) then the product they build in the past?
If you would read alot on this forum, you will see that this is one of the most helpful and honest forums there is.
Never will you get the advice to go newer when there is no point, all bugs are fixed in days.
Hope this helps!

If you want permission to buy the Chinese version? You don't need permission. Choose with your heart/gut, there is no absolute choice. Only RME vs Chinese service.