Matrix element M2 vs RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE

Both are desktop DAC/amps, $2999 against $2499. This page puts them side by side on the only three things a maker can be held to — power, output impedance and noise — and then asks the question that actually matters: which headphones do they treat differently?

On raw power they are level: each reaches 100 dB on 567 of the 567 non-electrostatic models here.

A figure marked not published is missing from the maker’s own material, which is not the same as being good or bad. Where one of these two publishes a number and the other does not, the comparison on that axis cannot be made at all — and saying so is more useful than guessing.

Both makers publish a power rating, which is less common than the table above makes it look: of the 280 sources here, 209 publish a figure at at least one load and only 2 publish one at all four. Matrix element M2 publishes at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω; RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE at 32 Ω. Every other row is worked out from those — between two published loads, or beyond them holding voltage constant, which understates rather than flatters.

So the two columns are not equally firm row by row: at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω only the Matrix element M2 figure is the maker’s own and at 32 Ω only the RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE figure is the maker’s own. On those rows the derived number is the one to doubt first.

What each of these labels means, and why a derived figure is still worth printing, is set out in how this data was built.

On power they are interchangeable across this whole database: there is no headphone here that one reaches 100 dB on and the other does not.

520 headphones are left alone by the RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the Matrix element M2 (64 Audio Aspire 1, 64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 517 more).

567 of the 567 models here reach 100 dB on both. That is a power count and nothing more; whether either source suits a given headphone also depends on the two lines above.

The counts above say how many models the two treat differently. This says by how much. The same 8 headphones appear on every page of this kind, ordered from the easiest to drive to the hardest, so a row can be read across pages as well as across columns. Headroom is at a 100 dB SPL peak.

The widest gap on the list is the Shure SE846: RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE has +41 dB of headroom there against +39 dB. 2 dB is about 1.6 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Matrix element M2 because that maker publishes no output noise figure. That is a gap in the specification, not a quiet amplifier, and it is left blank here rather than filled with a plausible number.

The Matrix element M2 costs $500 more than the RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE, and on these three axes the money buys nothing: among the 567 models here there is not one that the Matrix element M2 handles and the RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE does not — not on power, not on the one-eighth rule, not on hiss. The traffic runs the other way: the cheaper RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE leaves 520 models alone under the one-eighth rule that the Matrix element M2 does not.

Everything in this paragraph counts only figures the two makers published. An advantage on an axis one of them leaves blank cannot be counted, and is not counted — how often that happens is its own page.

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: Matrix element M2 and RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.