The separate outputs are already announced, 1/2 on XLR, 3/4 on TRS, both balanced.

A great start. Remains to be seen how the functionality comes out. Lots of sub/monitor combos have their own x-overs and that would work, but to have full control from ADI would be really, really cool.

BTW, ordered an ADI-2 pro, so im in perfect suspense here I just love these boxes <3

Omg @MC!

The most important request - pleeeaasssee bring back the classic blue RME colour ! :-)

I saw the two prototypes of the new ADI-2/4 at the High End 2022.
This new device would be the opportunity to use a larger chassis and not just increase the depth.
By doing so there would be more space at the front panel for a larger display and additional buttons or encoder.
This could help to greatly improve the usability but also heat dissipation.
At the back you could have more connectors and get rid of the Sub-D adapter.
Besides the features requests above additional features could be:
1. Add WiFi to enable app support and control the ADI-2 remotely
2. Additional line level inputs relay controlled to route analog sources directly the outputs.
3. I could even envision a streaming option to further reduce my HiFi stack :-)

The new linear PSU can be also used with the other ADI-2 and will be according to RME „expensive“.
I guess the new Pro will be equipped with the new top AKM A/D and DAC chips :-)

I was about to upgrade my aging Crookwood system with an ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, but then saw this. Is there any idea on price or release date yet? It looks great so will hold off for now.

Fingers crossed it'll be that soon. Price around there would be fine (you mean US dollars?) I'll hold off on buying the BE, could really do with the extra balanced outs on this new one, to drive my analogue chain and VU meter.

Yeah that's good, I know euros and  UK pounds. Price is fine if you are right about that, just hoping it'll be released sooner rather than later, am ready for an upgrade (My Crookwood is getting more and more unreliable).

The thread "Request: place volume markers in same order as the headphone outputs" brought to my mind, that this indeed is something the new device could improve upon. Just add a multicolour LED above the headphone outputs that indicates the status of it. It could show that a device is connected but not working, like an adapter without a headphone or a broken headphone, that the output is set to zero volume with a connected headphone and most importantly which output is routed to the volume knob when you use that. For this I would flash the LEDs about the corresponding outputs.

Maybe the signals can be combined for the spectrum analyzator. Color coded for differentiation. I dont know whats possible or not.

It does leave the question. What is the purpose of this box that they are going to sell alongside the current DAC/PRO. For a mere routing of internal signals they could have just made a PRO mkII. You got to have enough features to make it into a different product. Im confident I will buy this sooner or later, be it an audiophile crowdpleaser or some other animal.

I will not pay €1000+ for something as obvious as electricity, that amount should have a revelatory experience connected to it.

>  to walk away from the problem,
I would just show the pre DSP signal.
And in a lot of cases pre DSP signal actually make sense. If I room EQ 1khz to 5 db lower why showing that in the spectrum—that 5db is to correct room response, right? In audience’s respective he/she’s not hearing that sound pressure 5db lower.

That is a point

There is certainly a strict economy to DSP computations, maybe RME, in future products could offload some to a more dedicated screen controller. I dloaded a PEQ plugin, a really nice feature about it was the superimposed spectrum behind the PEQ. Ideas are endless, DSP power not so

No, probably with a sushi set, 3 kilos of rice and and audiophile WLAN cable at the 1st of April

based on the video it surely has a remote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdMFILHfpc at 0:58. notice the receiver hole between the B and T on the right.

Well I am seriously considering selling my FS R BE and purchasing the 2/4 when available, as long as the latter has Linkwitz-Riley (it would be stupid for RME not to implement it, given it has rear 3/4 output and additional dsp power). Iemme know if you want mine:)

I've never seen it in person but ESS is a reasonable guess.  it can meet the higher spec they said in video,  and has better availability.

Guy at Superbooth hinted at AKM but wouldn't answer when asked directly.

The ADI-2/4 Pro SE uses the third entry (red LED) of the included MRC. AD is ES9822Pro, DA is 2*ES9038Q2M. As KaiS explained there are other things that make the difference in real world applications. For example we improved the existing hardware reference levels in two ways: full coverage and one step more (+1, +7, +13, +19, +24 dBu). And made sure that the lower ref levels reach the max in SNR by attenuating at the output (including the self noise of the output opamps).

That gives better results in real world usage than implementing one (two) overpriced ES9038Pro. Which wouldn't fit in here for various other reasons anyway.

Same for the headphone output. Less THD plus less self noise made it possible to add a third power output setting called IEM (max +1 dBu). Should be self-explanatory.

The new ref levels are found everywhere - headphone out is now +19 dBu for high power and +7 dBu for low power. Since the unit has 2.5 dB digital and analog headroom the former +22 dBu is not needed, you can easily reach those scary levels by just upping the volume control.

While working on this new unit we also have ideas that might be ported back to the existing units. For example when trying to minimize power consumption. This might come in a later firmware update.

The biggest difference between the ADI-2 Pro and 2/4 Pro was not properly communicated on these 'pre shows'. As the name indicates the 2/4 has 2 balanced inputs and 4 balanced outputs. Other than the original Pro it can do balanced phones output on DAC 3/4, while DAC 1/2 still feeds the rear XLRs with whatever signal. This removes several limitations and even simplifies operation. To not lose performance (check the description of the Advanced Balanced Mode in the manual) we now use a True Balanced Mode, where the balanced configuration is reached by 3 double relays that change the balanced (or differential) connections between DAC output and the 4 headphone amp inputs so that unbalanced stereo turns into balanced stereo. No phase shift circuit or other electronics are added to the signal path for this.

The additional Pentaconn socket (4.4 mm) is balanced only and switches the phones out to balanced automatically when inserted. In this state it is still possible to use the front TRS and grab the same high quality signal (balanced with up to +28 dBu) as line signal (while you could plug in unbalanced headphones it doesn't make any sense as the TRS signal then is not stereo but out-of-phase mono).

The TRS on the rear can be switched from source DAC 1/2 (default) to source DAC 3/4 (another relay). This was requested from mastering studios where the ADI is used to add an analog insert for external FX. The phones still work (even balanced), but volume control is the same then (obviously), except for the ref levels that are independent.

A Trigger Output makes it possible to connect any device with trigger input and switch on/off all devices with the ADI's remote simultaneously (power amps...).

There is more to say about the 2/4 Pro SE. Stay tuned.

This is, in general, technically not possible while maintaining the specs.

You would end up with an at least one magnitude higher output impedance, which is not desirable.

As proven with ADI-2 DAC‘s IEM output, the power chips exceed the SNR of the DAC far enough, so simply lower gain does the trick.

Thanks for all the info, I guess I will wait for this to drop, it seems just perfect.

@MC any rough ETA, summer, autumn, winter?

Thanks, I want it sooner, haha.

But the penny didn't drop - no 1688 anymore, all 1622.

omg... I need to work hard and save more money for this.

I tend to disagree. people have different use cases and the unit can make almost everyone happy. the 1622s enable the unit to have super low noise headphone out, which is good news to IEM users. The 9822 ADC has better noise shaping properties, making the unit very useful in audio measurements. Neither is available with the current Pro. RME also needs a product to show case their state of the art technology, similar to the super expensive Apple display, and does not lag too behind in the current hi(sci)-fi market.

The current Pro and DAC's FPGA/DSP chips are powerful enough to do the above things you mentioned (10-band PEQ, room correction with convolution, etc) in low but reasonable frequencies (for instance 96k). It's just they decided not to do it this way.  Bigger FPGA and better DSP surely help but add the cost significantly. Today low powered ARM chip can do it better at much cheap cost, as is shown in my spare project (raspberry pi running 4 channels full ADI-2 DSP pipelines with 20band PEQ at 768khz with 64bits precision). This was not available when the audio world adopts FPGAs 20 years ago. For RME it would be a difficult move, as most of their past tech investments are in FPGA technologies.

Concerning price --- second hand RME products hold their value pretty well. I tend to not to worry too much about it. You can easily sell your DAC and Pro together and get the 2/4. You can't do that with toppin 90.

High SNR is IMHO a weak argument for those products like the mentioned Topping.

The difference in SNR between ADI-2 Pro with/without FS was already regarded as only measurable.

In my setup I am using volume levels in the range of -20 .. -35.
SNR still high enough, but this would definitively be -20 .. -35 dB SNR less on such a Topping, which brings this device quickly down in terms of SNR.

Old and new RME product support 4 (new RME product even 5) reference levels and have autoreflevel.
This can't be beaten by such a Topping.
And SNR alone doesn't deliver better sound, it's already so high, it's inaudible.

So it's more about features like better design (many reflevels) and features like autoreflevel and a lot more.

I see it this way .. besides a little better technical data here and there it's more about the added features in the new product. Speaking about features .. RME products beat the competition, even the 1st/oldest ADI-2 Pro.

For home use the feed-through or “round trip” latency is of no concern.

But you may not forget, the ADI-2 Pro and ADI-2/4 are aimed at recording studios too.

For recording studio use latency is a major factor that rules out a lot of devices.

A round trip latency input to output, with the computer and DAW in between, above 5 ms, very negatively influences the performance and the timing of an artist who monitors his live performance through the device.

Figures below 5 ms are not easy to achieve, with all the bufferings in between, and the DSP/FPGA processing at least doesn’t add to ASIO and DAW buffer delays.

Please give us 10 bands of EQ! Would be so useful!