The effect is real and not a house issue, it happens when the USB cable is disconnected from the source, in this case there is no grounding.
So my question is this. Why would you want to be disconnected from a source and touching your headphones? Just curious.
If you have the ADI-2 connected to an ungrounded source which could be a streamer (e.g. a Bluesound Node) or a battery powered source such as a smartphone or if you want to connect it via optical toslink or coaxial, you can't do this without getting noise, also the noise increases when touching the headphones but to a lesser extent it is always present.
Two pronged adapter on my laptop, plus 2 pronged adapter on adi 2 dac fs equalled nothing having a ground in my portable setup. Got buzzez when id touch my each cups as i became leakage point. Grounded power supply means adi 2 dac fs is now grounded. Before with two prong brick, it is not. Wiring in my house is straight.
I was also interested by transporting my RME ADI-2 2/4 I just bought second hand !It took a while to find a hard case that fits the RME and its cables well, so I thought I'd share my find. This is the Lykus HC-3810. It's a fairly large case, but not too heavy. In the pics you can see how I went about picking and plucking the Pick and Pluck Foam. Everything's snug and secure in there, with nothing left out except the manual. Hope this helps someone else.
What is the difference between this and the supplied PSU? Did it change the sound?
The supplied power supply is two prong. The nt rme 12 is three prong providing a ground. No sonic change.
Thanks. I'm in the UK so mine has a Figure 8 socket and a cable with a standard 3 pin power plug so no advantage here. I have been wondering about getting a linear power supply for it but I'm also considering a battery pack which should last long enough for a listening session and would be useful to have for recharging phones, etc. in an emergency. I know that RME say it doesn't make any difference sonically but I find it hard to believe.
RME doesn’t do audiophile snake oil. It won’t make a difference in sound.
Grounded so it prevents leakage currents through the DAC. It can affect connected components etc. Basically there are quite a few scenarios where the original PSU is "broken".
They just pushed out two super expensive LPS
Fact. However they aren’t making any claims of sound quality improvements. It’s optional.
I do trust them, but having heard the difference replacing the power cable on my amp with a high quality one and upgrading from one PSU to another in my previous Naim Audio system, I don't regard it as snake oil but a valid upgrade. PSUs and cables are very important.
Your money is better spent buying better headphones, but you do you. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing.
