Hello,

My first audio interface was the E-MU 1212M and then bought a Steinberg UR22 mkII. I sold that and now I am looking for an upgrade.

I sold my Bass amp as well and would like to play through my studio monitors just to practice.

I was looking at the UA Apollo Solo. I have a Zephyrus G14 laptop and it has a 40 Gbps "USB 4" port. I heard the Thunderbolt version is better than it's USB counterpart. As far as Google is concerned, you can plug a Thunderbolt 3 device into a USB 4 port and it should work.

I had a dedicated music production desktop but I don't have it anymore. I plan to buy or build one if I still feel like it later on.

It's common knowledge that it's better to record a good take at the beginning instead of dealing with a not so perfect take and having to fix it after. I've seen a bunch of YouTube videos of people using the Scarlett 2i2. It seems like to get a decent and close to professional sound, you need to tweak a lot of parameters in the box.
I suspect if I buy a mid-range or high-end audio interface, the overall audio fidelity will be better right off the bat and I'll have to do less tweaking.

So, my question is what comes after using a "Budget" Audio Interface? By Budget, I meant anything $300 or less. I wasn't giving my personal Budget lol. Sorry about that. My personal budget right now is $500.

What did you guys do after purchasing your first audio interface? How did you upgrade? By increments or going for the more expensive stuff right away?

P.S. I would love to buy an RME Babyface Pro FS but at $999, I just can't justify it right now.
But hypothetically say I did have the cash for a $1,000 dollar audio interface. Would the RME be my best bet?

There are a ton of interfaces in that price range, but in my opinion the best bang for the buck and fantastic-sounding is the Audient ID range. They come at different price points including in yours.

I'd honestly say the 1212M>UR22. The TC stuff punched way above it's weight class back in the day. I still have and use my Konnekt48 for Adat channels. But I digress. Your budget (USD?) is honestly pretty low for the quality you're looking for. That said, as mentioned above the Audient stuff is good and the UA Solo would actually be in the ballpark, too.

I really don’t think you will notice much difference in interfaces unless you are looking for something that has specific mic preamps for vocals and live acoustic guitar recording. The DA converters in modern interfaces are so advanced and so good that you won’t tell the difference between them in digital domain. FWIW I upgraded my interface because I wanted and needed more inputs and extra headphone out for when someone else is in my studio working so they can also hear the headphone mix. But my projects are still 24/48 and no difference between the old interfaces I had and the new one. Good luck in your journey.

I edited my post. Sorry for the confusion. My budget is $500.

roughly three price categories for 2-channel i/o interfaces:

$100-400

$750-1200

$1500-2750

i would go with either a motu m2 or an audient in the $100-400 category. next step up from that ($750-1200) is the apogee duet 3 with the dock, or the rme babyface.

I use the Harrison 32 Ci which is exactly $500. Very happy with it and highly compatible USB audio class.

Nope. It gets a very good professional sound and little if any "tweaking" needed, but so does the Steinberg you ditched or most any other interface you can buy today. Tech is that good now.

Your suspicions are IMO inaccurate. More money can buy you more I/O, more features, etc but marginal gains (if that) in quality. Save your money and don't spend more than about $200. The Scarlett is a great AI. So is your Steinberg. Or the MOTU M2. Or the Behringer 202. etc.

I don't know what kind of production you are getting into, but you can also consider a 'niche' interface if it fits your workflow (combination interface+)
eg, Machine (for beat producers), a guitar sim for guitarists, or a synth for keyboard users. I have a IKmultimedia mini keyboard with an interface that works great for a laptop and sounds great too.
If you don't need the flexibility of a full 8/8 i/o or more and have a workflow in mind, less is better IMO..

Only marginal gains (if that) in quality?

I was planning on sticking with something cheap for now like a 2i2 and a year from now pick up something more professional like that Babyface. But are you saying if you compared their preamps, head to head, there wouldn't be that much of a difference?

More I/O would be nice as I have a drum set in my basement. But for now a 2x2 audio interface is fine. I was hoping quality would go up within each of the 3 price categories.

Oh for sure. For guitars, I've seen modeling amps like Axe FX, Helix and Kemper to name a few.

I'm in it for the long haul though and I would also like to record more than guitar or synth.

There are RME and esp Babyface groupies here who would probably scoff at this, I'd bet heavy money you couldn't tell the diff in a shootout.

Well you can get for ex. the Behringer 404 (4x4) for about $150. FWIW!

Yeah the "you get what you pay for" is so often not true that it's meaningless in terms of gear (plugins too).

Lessons?

They're all the same.

Any interface with a knob for direct monitoring.

Avoid Audient, its software routing is utterly idiotic to the point of being unusable.

SSL, Motu, UA are all solid choices.

They’re not the same. For example: 50 ohm headphone out impedance found in some interfaces can cause issues with playback on low impedance headphones.

Or maybe the headphone amp is really weak or has too high distortion.

50dB of preamp gain isn’t the same as 75dB if using dynamic mics for some purposes.

Noise isn’t the same.

Etc.

Look at it holistically.

In addition some people have extra requirements. I play ITB VIs on both Mac and PC so the only thing that has low latency without killing my CPU is RME (tried others).

Not everyone has the same requirements, so it’s not fair to be giving people advice that everything is the same just because some people don’t need certain things.

It’s like saying all cars are the same because one doesn’t need to traverse rocky terrain or race.

I will agree with this. If you are dealing with a small interface for solo bedroom producer work where you are mostly just using VIs, you probably won't tell the difference. but the software, routing and drivers you will notice if there are issues.

you would get a mixer, and go from the mixer into the interface, no?

unless you go with something like this,

https://focusrite.com/products/scarlett-18i20

but it seems like overkill just for a drum kit. it would usually need this if you are trying to record a live band in a room..

Watch less stupid youtube interface testing videos, they mess with peoples fragile brains.

They're all the same.

So they can all drive planar headphones no problem? Good to know!

I honestly can't tell the difference between my new interface and the old ones in my basement. The only difference is the new one can do 192k which I never use.

For normal people all interfaces are the same. My advice doesn't apply to wackjobs studying YT interface headphone impedance reviews and buying planar headphones for studio work.

For normal people who haven't fried their brains on youtube, all interfaces are the same.

TBH it's down to what you need in regards to inputs/outputs etc.


The actual quality between the UR 22-c and the UR-816 or whatever the top of the range is , is exactly the same.... same pre's, same AD/DA, same drivers. You're payin for the number of IO's.


So if yo don't need many the UR220c is a great choice.

If you go with the Apollo get the USB version..... I'd say get the USB version of any interface.... you're guaranteed it will work now..... and forever. I had a Zephyrus and the Apollo TB was awfull , I sent it back, crap low latency drivers , they want you to use the Console... NOT monitor at low latency.

I bought an Antelope Zen and that's been fine , sounds great and works well with USB and the Rog Zephyrus M16 I had.


Any modern interface will sound pretty much the same in the same price range. Things like headphone amps etc will be different. for example the Apollo only has 1 HP out the Antelope has 2.

M


M

For me the main areas of difference is headphone outs and mic preamps. Which is why I used it as an example.

Otherwise the main line ins/outs will be fairly similar, especially if one works in 96KHz.

Then of course you pay for connectivity options, driver latency etc.

Imho this point cannot be stressed enough. Drivers and software are so important and can drive you insane if they don’t work properly. I had an ESI 1010 interface before I got my RME UCX years ago, and with the ESI, if the DAW would crash, I had to reboot the whole computer because the driver got stuck and didn’t work anymore… Also, I couldn’t run two applications using the ASIO driver at the same time, and loopback didn’t exist either. The routing software was OK-ish, but limited. None of those problems with the RME, and I most likely get software support for 20 years or so on top (yep, fanboy here )
. Did I notice a big difference in sound quality? Hard to say, as I didn’t conduct a proper comparison. Maybe in the preamps (more gain). For sure not as much a night and day difference when I upgraded my monitors…

At the time of this writing we do not have direct preamp comparisons between 4th gen 2i2, babyface, harrisson 32 ci and neve 88m. Sad panda. Some youtuber needs to get their behind in gear.

I still wonder what the true spread is on this site between people with really good ears and those that have had their hearing destroyed over time.

And how that correlates with the advice given

That is a really good and simple post! I can tell you that there are definitely noticeable differences between audio interfaces. Sometimes it's conversion, sometimes, preamps and sometimes a mixture of both. But...if all interfaces were basically the same (let's presume the A/D and D/A conversion was identical) then why do we get different preamps at different price ranges for color/quality, etc.? I instantly can hear the quality and silky smooth sound of Audient preamps (the ones that are in their consoles, ID range and ASP880) compared to some low-level interfaces that are not using high-quality preamps. Some on this thread would know that all ID and ASP pres are the same as their high-end consoles (not the EVO line). But...interestingly enough the lower-end ID does not sound the same as the ASP880, console, etc. Why? The conversion...it is better in their upper-end interfaces so it sounds truer to the console. Equally, the thickness of Neve pre-amps aren't the same as the focusrite Scarlett or a Behringer interface, etc. While I do think sometimes it is splitting nails talking about some of the lower-end interfaces - there are definite differences in both pres and conversion. Antelope's Galaxy 32 Synergy core - which I use daily, sounds light-years smoother than a lot of cheaper interfaces. And not to go that high even...I think there are certain $500 interfaces that sound better than others.

There is no blanket statement that can be made and also the only way for you to really "hear" the differences is to hear the different interfaces with the same material in the same conditions...and not over You Tube.

frankly I don't think that extra $200 is going to buy you noticeably better sounding onboard preamps! You might get more features: extra channels, an extra headphone jack, an app with DSP, inserts, etc. Conversion is a problem that has been largely 'solved'. And if you want "flavors" of mic preamps, well, those kind of preamps tend to start at about $1000/channel. If you look at a $500 interface with two channels, how much effort can any company put 'into' the preamps? Because besides the preamps, they have to put in everything else an interface does! So probably the $300 interface has preamps that are worth $50 and maybe the $500 interface has preamps worth $60.

If you want a sonic improvement that actually makes it on to your recordings, first get better mics, then later, maybe get outboard preamps. "Front end." And of course treating your room. You said you are using amp sims? How about a nice tube DI? Or maybe get a real amp and mic it up? That's a difference you will hear.

For everything that is virtual, the front end of your interface helps you not at all. For ITB synths and drum machines the interface has no effect. OK, sure, you need to hear what you are doing in order to mix, of course. But that is 99% speakers and room treatments as opposed to maybe 1% the D/A conversion of Interface A vs the D/A of Interface B. It is well known that many manufacturers use the exact same chip.

IMHO, expecting that going from a $300 interface to a $500 interface is going to "upgrade" your sonic bottom line is barking up the wrong tree. Do it if you need more channels for the drum set. Do it if you need an interface that offers a cue-mixing app for routing and low-latency monitoring. Do it if there are features you need. But blindfolded, you will not be able to tell which interface recorded that vocal.

For sound improvements that you can hear, there are so many better places to put your money.

the popular saying around here is "buy once, cry once". Be patient and don't buy junk. But again that is generally referring to mics and analog gear.

The Harrison 32 Ci interface costs $500 and has two preamps that are supposedly identical to Harrison console strip preamps. It is why I bought it, it is the cheapest interface that at least states specifically what the preamps are modeled after.

I thought that UAD stopped supporting USB as of the latest software update.