New Audio Interface - ⁣Steinberg UR22C?

[champ222]

Hi All

Ive used REW some years ago, but i have a new project coming up soon and my existing audio interface is getting on a bit now and doesnt work so well with Windows 10. No one ever knows what to buy me for Christmas, so i figured i'd ask for a new one.

I want to be able to do the following:

Perform loudspeaker frequency measurements with my Behringer ECM8000 mic
Measure accurate speaker T/S parameters
Record a stereo analogue input with good quality

maybe one day...
Record guitar and vocals.

The UR22C seems like a good choice for guitar and vocal recording as it has onboard DSP which can provide very low latency reverb and guitar effects for monitoring, but can record the clean signal. Although ive never actually recorded guitar (no one wants to hear me play ) it seems like a useful feature.

Some others have better noise figures etc, but i dont know if thats really significant here.

The main use is for measurement, so its important that it does a good job in that respect.

Is the UR22C a good option? Or is there something better for similar money?

Thanks

 

[jschwender]

Looks like an spruced up version of the UR22mkII which i have. the only difference i can see is the USB C connection. It was cheap, that is why i bought it. Noise is really not the best, but that does not matter that much for measurements. What i found bad is that distortion is fairly large and increases with preamp gain. In principle it can handle up to +21,3 dBV input, as required by standard, but the distortion gets excessive beyond +16dBV. The inputs are quite robust, you can apply very high voltage without breaking things, that is good if you measure with amplifiers. If you consider recording: the headphone impedance is seriously bad with 92 Ohms. The line output has a lower impedance than the headphone, that is funny. Better devices are available, but also more costly.

 

[champ222]

Thanks.
I'm unlikely to use an amplifier, unless there are really some benefits for T/S parameters?
Would you generally use the headphone output for T/S measurement rather than the main outputs when using this type of interface? (ignoring the poor headphone out in this case).

There are many devices at similar price to this.
Motu m2
focusrite scarlett 2i2
Arturia MiniFuse 2
etc

Thanks

 

[jschwender]

If you get a motu m2 for a similar price, that's much better. I would prefer it.
Measuring TS params basically needs power. More power means higher signal to noise ratio.

 

[champ222]

The motu is more expensive than the ur22c, but it looks like its worth the extra, and isnt a whole lot more money.

Would the headphone output drive the speaker more than the line out? I assume so due to the power output impedance?

 

[jschwender]

Usually headphone output has lower impedance and is able to drive more power. But as you can see on the UR22 example, that is nothing you can rely on.
The Motu M2 has an headphone impedance of below 1 Ohm, and also the noise floor and distortion are excellent!

 

[champ222]

Thanks

I was looking at the Motu M2. I like it. There are quite a lot of reports of reliability problems and poor performance in Windows, dropouts etc thats a bit off putting. Scarlett 2i2 is an option too.

 

[jschwender]

I would not use any additional driver from manufacturer, they all should work with windows class driver, and it is important to use ASIO driver.

 

[champ222]

Ive heard other people say the opposite.

All the people with motu issues, could they have all just solved it with the Asio driver?

 

[jschwender]

I cannot say that, as i don't know their details. In fact Windows drivers an settings is complicated, and full of stumbling blocks.

 

[jschwender]

Speaking about Windows and driverd, this one sheds a light and shows the shadows:

Bit-perfect ASIO drivers to solve issues with Windows audio quality - nihtila.com

By default, Windows audio quality can be technically inferior as has been shown in this measurement. ASIO drivers or similar can improve audio output significantly by bypassing Windows resampling and other not-so-well implemented audio processing stages. This post arose as a consequence of...

nihtila.com

 

[sm52]

champ222
take a look at the Audient iD14 reviews. The MKII version is now on sale. It has better performance than the MKI. I have compared both and I like MKI better. It will be cheaper.

 

[jschwender]

The Audient iD14 mkII has absolutely excellent noise and distortion values. The MKI has higher noise and tends to distortion under load on the headphone.

 

[trobbins]

I think measurement of T/S requires an interface with 2 inputs. I've only made impedance measurements using an interface with two unbalanced inputs, where each input presented about 1Megohm impedance. It looks like those Audient interfaces only have one high impedance (DI) unbalanced input, but I'm not sure if the mic inputs can be used in an impedance measurement setup.

 

[sm52]

I'm not sure if the mic inputs can be used in an impedance measurement setup.

can. At this card two microphonic inputs, combined with linear. I measured parameters T/S, results have been estimated by a site https: // speakerbench.com as excellent.