Roland BRIDGE CAST vs Roland Rubix22

Both are audio interfaces, $340 against $210. 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?

The Roland BRIDGE CAST reaches 100 dB on 558 of the 567 models here, the Roland Rubix22 on 542.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationRoland BRIDGE CASTRoland Rubix22
Power into 32Ω78 mW19 mW
Power into 150Ω36 mW15 mW
Power into 300Ω29 mW9.4 mW
Power into 600Ω15 mW5.4 mW
Output impedance10 Ω47 Ω
Output noisenot publishednot published
Price$340$210
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
558542

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.

Where each power figure comes from

LoadRoland BRIDGE CASTRoland Rubix22
32 ΩPublishedDerived
150 ΩDerivedDerived
300 ΩDerivedDerived
600 ΩDerivedDerived

Only one of these two columns starts from a power rating. Roland BRIDGE CAST publishes one at 32 Ω; Roland Rubix22 publishes none at any of these four loads, so its column is worked out from power it published at other loads. Both are arithmetic on a maker’s own figures rather than guesses, and the method used for the Roland Rubix22 understates rather than flatters — but at 32 Ω is the only load here at which its maker can be held to a figure.

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

The headphones that tell them apart

16 headphones reach 100 dB on the Roland BRIDGE CAST but not on the Roland Rubix22 — Audeze LCD-5, Dan Clark Audio AEON 2 Closed, Dan Clark Audio AEON 2 Noire, 13 more.

51 headphones are left alone by the Roland BRIDGE CAST under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the Roland Rubix22 (AKG K612 Pro, Audeze LCD-3, Audeze LCD-4, 48 more).

542 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.

Headroom and hiss on 8 models, both sources

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 Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020: Roland BRIDGE CAST has +7 dB of headroom there against +1 dB. 6 dB is about 4 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Roland BRIDGE CAST and Roland Rubix22 because neither 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.

HeadphoneImpedanceNeedsRoland BRIDGE CAST headroomRoland Rubix22 headroomRoland BRIDGE CAST hissRoland Rubix22 hiss
Shure SE8469 Ω0.04 mW+27 dB damping+21 dB dampingnot publishednot published
Campfire Audio Andromeda 20209 Ω4.0 mW+7 dB damping+1 dB dampingnot publishednot published
Audeze LCD-2 Classic70 Ω0.79 mW+18 dB damping+13 dB dampingnot publishednot published
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)250 Ω0.63 mW+17 dB+12 dB dampingnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN HE400se25 Ω7.9 mW+9 dB damping+3 dB dampingnot publishednot published
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X470 Ω1.6 mW+11 dB+6 dBnot publishednot published
Sennheiser HD 600300 Ω6.6 mW+6 dB+2 dB dampingnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN Susvara60 Ω50 mW+0 dB damping-4 dB dampingnot publishednot published

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

The Roland BRIDGE CAST costs $130 more than the Roland Rubix22. Out of the 567 models here, that difference buys 16 more models driven to 100 dB and 51 more models left alone under the one-eighth rule.

Nothing runs the other way: there is no axis here on which the cheaper of the two does better.

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.

Both pages in full

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: Roland BRIDGE CAST and Roland Rubix22. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.

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