Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't the ground wire be connected to shield at one end of the XLR cable?

I'm assuming TRS to XLR cable.

Makes sense for headphone cables . Thanks Kai.

One further quick query from me, assuming it's better to ask here than to start my own thread for small questions:

Is it possible to utilise the ADI-2 Pro FS in the same way as the Babyface Pro/UCX sound cards for Digital Vinyl Systems? E.g. as explained on the official site: https://rme-audio.de/dj-with-rme-audio-interfaces.html.

I know the ADI-2 DACs don't have Totalmix or internal routing, but considering the later models have 2x separate DAC chips, is it still possible to do an input/output loop with two simultaneous streams of audio using the available I/O? That is, connect turntable 1 RCAs to the XLR inputs using adapters, and turntable 2 RCAs to the break-out cable? And then setting the PH 1/2 (main out) and 3/4 outputs separately in the device setup, i.e. one outputs analogue in and the other outputs the breakout cable link?

I realise this is probably a 'moon-shot' solution with little hope of working, but it would be ideal if I could sell the separate DVS interface I currently have dedicated to this use-case and which is obviously introducing another stage of digital conversion whenever I play records in this way.

Thank you for the quick response. I thought as much ...

I note with the Babyface Pro that the DVS 'solution' involves using the 2 XLR inputs and a splitter for the 1/4" line input on the side.

The time-code system doesn't really require any pre-amplification, so far as I know, let alone RIAA-standard phono: it's basically just running an input/outloop loop (as best as I can tell) that corresponds to a bunch of 0s and 1s in the software. The loop setup only needs to carry a single test tone to and from the software, rather than high-quality audio as such.

In any case, I have a very nicely built pre-amplifier in the form of a rotary mixer, made courtesy of the Resor folks in Berlin. It's just a shame to degrade its signal so much with multiple stages of digital conversion! I'll think about some other solutions to this problem (the real fix, I suspect, is getting away from DVS soundcards altogether and just purchasing 2x digital CDJ players, but that's a very costly solution and anyway is not relevant here).

For now, I can use the ADI-2 for its true purpose: making pristine digital recordings straight off the output of my analogue mixer! Thanks again!

That one looks indeed promising and is definitely worth the money. When all this (the ADI's) started such adapters were 120 bucks and up, really ridiculous.

That said, and as you wrote correctly (you won't notice any difference in most cases) if such a cable is just for trying a new function and then never use it again - then 12 bucks is an ok option IMHO.

I guess that shielding prevents EMI regardless grounding it or not.

I don't think I need to read wikipedia articles. You seem well versed at it.
Analog telephone is a poor comparison to good audio.

Small note/correction. Faraday cage/effect does not require grounding to work. For example various RDIF blockers and like are not grounded, as well cars are not. The purpose of grouding in case of cables is to eliminate possible charge on shielding that might influence signal inside cable via capacitance bounds between shielding and inner wires.

Indeed, cars are isolated from ground by their rubber tires.

The faraday effect equals the voltage potential of all enclosed objects.

The car example above is a good one:

The car is isolated against ground - or not, as the lightning flash has high enough voltage to jump across the tires’ rubber to ground.
It doesn’t matter - all objects inside the car always carry about the same voltage potential, because the car’s metal’s low resistance serves for equal distribution of the electric charge across the complete enclosure surface.

Another effect is, that equal charges (on the car’s surface) repel each other, this prevents the charge to enter the inside of the car.

No significant voltage difference anywhere in the car - no dangerous current that could hurt anybody inside.
(Don’t try this with a cabrio).

Now, the balanced cable interconnecting two devices:
Keep in mind, parts of the signal chain are outside the faraday cage (shield) if the shield is not linked to the audio devices’ enclosures.

An ungrounded shield indeed serves for stray voltage potentials entering both internal signal wires by the same amount.
A balanced receiver can eliminate most of this voltage by the amount of the common mode rejection, but some is left over.
Now, if the shield is grounded at one side, additionally the stray voltage potential is greatly reduced by directing it to ground, giving even better results.

For higher, like radio- and network-frequencies, there are additional effects, as a signal wire can serve as a radio antenna, which it shouldn’t.

And I think this was a failed Google search. Tire rubber must be a bit conductive to prevent electro-static charging of the car while in use. So the 'lower' resistance is on purpose.

BUT: we are talking here north 1 MegaOhm of resistance, more typically 100 MOhm. That is still what anyone will call full isolation.

This is why cars sometimes (used to) have these little antistatic thingies, and why you can sometimes get a small electric shock if you touch a car without it...

What does RME have in common with AppSys ProAudio, Auvitran, Ferrofish and Marian? They are all in the same booth at NAMM.

Shielding prevents EMI even ungrounded, EMI will not get in, that is faraday cage principle. But yes, static charge may influence inner signals because of capacitance between inner wires and shielding. The grounding of shield is to get rid of static in shielding.

[AI generated content]

Yes, shielding in audio cables does prevent (or more precisely, significantly reduce) EMI-induced noise, though its effectiveness depends on several factors.

Shielding works by creating a conductive barrier (typically foil, braid, or a combination) around the signal conductors. This barrier intercepts external electromagnetic interference (EMI)—including radio frequency interference (RFI)—and routes the unwanted energy to ground instead of allowing it to couple into the audio signal. The shield reflects or absorbs electromagnetic fields, preventing them from inducing noise voltages in the conductors.

It is highly effective against electric-field (capacitive) coupling — common sources like nearby AC power lines, fluorescent lights, radio transmitters, computers, dimmers, or other electronics that produce electric fields. Good shielding (especially foil + braid designs with high coverage, e.g., 95–99%) can dramatically reduce or eliminate hum, buzz, static, or high-pitched whine from these sources in unbalanced cables (RCA, TS instrument cables) and even help in balanced ones.
It is less effective (or ineffective) against strong low-frequency magnetic fields — such as 50/60 Hz magnetic induction from power transformers, large motors, or very close power cables. Magnetic fields penetrate non-ferrous shields (copper/aluminum braid or foil) easily; only high-permeability materials like mu-metal or steel conduits block low-frequency magnetic fields well. In practice, this is why unbalanced cables near power lines often still pick up 60 Hz hum even when shielded—the shield helps with electric fields but not magnetic induction.
Proper implementation matters a lot:
Shield must be properly grounded (usually at one end to avoid ground loops in unbalanced setups, or both ends in balanced systems).
Coverage percentage, material, and termination quality affect performance.
Poorly terminated or low-coverage shields can be ineffective or even make things worse (acting as an antenna at certain frequencies).
Practical Scenarios in Audio

Interconnects (RCA, XLR line-level): Shielding is very important and usually sufficient to prevent most EMI/RFI pickup, especially in studios, home audio, or live sound where cable runs pass near lights, power cables, or Wi-Fi routers.
Microphone cables (balanced XLR): Shielding + balanced design provides excellent common-mode rejection; EMI rarely causes audible issues unless extreme.
Guitar/instrument cables (unbalanced): Shielding is critical because the signal is weak and the cable is prone to picking up interference.
Speaker cables: Shielding is rarely needed or used, as the high signal level and low impedance make them much less susceptible to audible EMI pickup (though some high-end or Class-D amp scenarios use it to reduce radiated EMI from the cable itself).
In summary, shielded audio cables are very effective at preventing EMI-induced noise in the vast majority of real-world audio applications, especially for electric-field and higher-frequency RFI sources. They aren't a complete cure-all for every interference scenario (particularly strong 50/60 Hz magnetic induction), but they are one of the most important and cost-effective tools for clean audio transmission. If you're dealing with persistent noise, shielded cables (with proper grounding) are almost always a worthwhile upgrade over unshielded ones in noisy environments.

@ralphb
1. When looking at cable shields, don’t mix audio frequencies (AF) and radio frequencies (RF).

When the length of a cable/shield nears the wavelength of the related frequency (typically consider 1/4 wavelength) one can no longer look at a conductor based on Ohms Law.
There’s no longer a uniform signal level along the conductor.
The conductor becomes a transmission line and radio antenna, with different physical laws applied.

For audio frequencies this happens at ca. 4000 meter length (*1), therefore never in domestic environments.

2. A shield does nothing to stop magnetically induced current, in contrary, both shield and inner wire are affected by a magnetic field the same way.

A shield does stop electrostatic fields.

3. On unbalanced interconnections the shield serves as return wire AND ground reference for the audio signal on the inner wire.

Therefore it needs to be connected to both sides of the cable.

This can cause hum loops when a second ground interconnection (e.g. through the power lines’ safety grounds, or metal case-to-case contact) between the linked devices exist.
In this case a closed loop is created, into which an external magnetic field (usually from a power transformer) induces a circulating mains frequency current.
This current, along the resistance of the cable shield, creates a hum noise voltage potential between the linked devices, that disturbs the audio.

In this special case, cutting the shield on one side stops the hum.
Typically the “cutting” is done with the so called “ground lift” switch, which still maintains some link through an e.g. 10 Ohm resistor bypassed with a 10 nF capacitor, to maintain a radio frequency grounding of the shield.
The ground lift might even separate the audio circuit from the mains’ safety ground, if there’s enough constructional safety isolation against failure built in.

This helps, albeit the result usually isn’t perfect

Cutting the safety ground by the user is NOT allowed and NOT recommended BTW.

4. Balanced interconnections are not prone to such problems.
Shields should be connected on both sides as standard, but line level balanced interconnections usually do work satisfactory without fully linked shields too.

Sometimes misconstructed balanced devices suffer from ground loop problems too, or the problem appears further down a mixed balanced/unbalanced signal chain.
In this case cutting the shield on one side of the balanced cable can help.
(In the studio we have short ground lift cables prepared, that are inserted).
Other measures are the use of audio transformer based ground isolation (Di-box) to circumvent the problem.

(*1)
Speed of light / 20,000 Hz / 4 = audio-quarter-wavelength
300,000,000 m/s / 20,000 Hz / 4 = 3750 m

It's rude to force people to read sheets of GPT-generated content. Reported.

unfortunately looks like no new models announced NAMM 2026

Yes, AI struggles mainly with time domain.... My mom has found a few stocks in her cupboard and has asked AI what is the value. The stocks had absolutely no value, but AI has found a 10 years old price and presented it as the current one....

My mom was happy and argued with me, when I told her that it has no value, that those stocks were made invalid years ago by a company that has issued them, that AI told her it is pretty valuable (few thousands EUR)...

Is there any reliable information about the successor to the ADi-2/4 Pro? There have been no PRO series devices available in EU shops for several months now, and it seems that no one at RME is willing to answer this question

RME in a business holding pattern right now. NO information available about new products,etc.  They are a small, privately held audio company.  Some obvious business   activity in the works,ie, merger or sale.  Recent sales of Adam Audio, Beyerdynamic, partial Sennheiser group, Austrian Audio indicate small companies financially struggling in current business climate.  I will hold off any new purchases until some indication from RME regarding new business operation. I own two of their products and look forward to buying more, hopefully soon.

Well, if you look at the price history of the ADI-2/4 Pro SE,* you'll find that this item was on the market for a good three years, introduced at ~2500€, and dropped steadily until it reached ~2000€ for the whole of 2025, after which supply dried out.

So people have grown accustomed to the 2000€ price and would probably not be willing to pay a higher price for the same item. I find it not unlikely that it was simply not expected to be profitable to produce another batch under these conditions.

I sure hope so. I found nothing on the market in that price range that comes close to the ADI-2/4 Pro SE's audio performance, and perhaps there's nothing at all regardless of price. I'm frustrated myself that I missed the opportunity.

One might call it the Vanessa Bartholomew Principle: "If you don't give me the real story, I'll have to make one up of my own."

* there's no way to link the chart directly; you'll have to click on "Preisentwicklung öffnen", then on "Max" at the top right.

It's pretty much the most normal and common thing that has been happening for decades, that products are more expensive at the beginning, and that prices settle on a lower "street price".

The ‘SE’ in the ADI-2/4 Pro SE model stands for "special edition". Since the beginning, it was manufactured and sold in smaller batches.

The last batch simply is sold out, and we experience a certain delay for "whatever reason".
Also, the other reference converters are impacted by this delay.
I would simply wait and not worry too much.

If you want to post pictures on this forum then place it to the cloud and link the URL to this forum, etc, explained here:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Ent … rum-EN-DE/

Although this headfi post was back in January and we don’t know whether the schedule has changed, at least we know something is definitely on the horizon. It’s not like a something that I urgently need to upgrade so I’m happy to wait patiently for the release.

It does seem like RME wants to clear out existing stock before launching the new model which made the gap between the two gens quite long. That makes me wonder if the upcoming version will be a fairly significant upgrade without a major price increase, to the point where once announced, the current model might become harder to sell. Just some wild guess.

Not commenting on upcoming/unannounced products is very normal for practically any company - I don’t think the silence means anything much.

I suspect that the practical point is that there were too many similar products in this line so they’ll likely replace the 3 with 1 which will be a refreshed SE at somewhat higher price around 3k EUR. No idea what the feature set would be though.