The team at RME have not left anything to chance with the design and build of this unit. Aiming for the absolute best in reference quality audio capture, they have carefully designed the components so that they produce the best results possible. Even the main PCB inside the housing has a ten layer design. Every element on the board has been balanced and laid out in symmetry to ensure the lowest possibility of interference. When you want the best AD/DA conversion and clocking, you need to start with a solid foundation and ensure that every component behaves the way it should, so it doesn’t let down its role in the preservation of the audio signal. The results speak for themselves in a unit that delivers flawless quality and ‘ultra-fidelity’ audio conversion.
With a host of connections you’ll be able to set this up in a number of ways. Two XLR/TRS combination jacks offer analogue inputs along with ADAT or SP/DIF on optical and AES/EBU and SP/DIF on coaxial connections. For outputs you get the optical pair as well as two XLR connectors. These are coupled with an extra two TS unbalanced and two TRS headphone outputs as well. Worth mentioning is the high-powered headphone amplifiers built in, ready to operate with any impedance of headphones and deliver crystal clear audio at unparalleled levels. The full colour display on the front panel makes setup and recording options simple to navigate, with only a few controls needed to perform all tasks. The 20th anniversary converters in this unit are the leaders in their class. You simply cannot imagine better quality analogue-to-digital conversion, nor sample rates of this kind in other systems. RME have pulled out a winner on this unit, and it might just make a few of you reconsider what you thought was quality audio up until now. Hearing is believing.
