Best budget audio interface for monitoring

N

naavt

Well-known member
First, let me tell you that I'm not a sound guy. My department is photography. Anyway, now and then I have to mix my own small projects. With that in mind I was looking to buy a pair of monitors and had the opportunity to buy a pair of Adams A5x recently with a major discount offer.

Now I'm looking for a budgeted interface to go along with them and my MacBook Pro. I've read several reviews of interfaces like the Roland Duo Capture, Focusrite 2i2 and Mackie Onyx Blackjack but all those reviews are based on preamp quality mostly, which is not important to me. I'm more interested in the output section and DA conversion for monitoring trough the Adams.

Can you give me some advice on which interface to buy under 200USD?

Thank you.
 
Most of those are pretty competitive when it comes to output: that's the easy part. The reviews talk about preamps because that's where most low-cost interfaces struggle.

That said, I'd go with the Focusrite. You're going to be getting something with preamps, so you might as well get one that's above average. After all, once you have the ability to record, you might find that you take advantage of it once in a while, even if it's for some basic VO recording.
 
I would agree. It's a solid interface that should be supported for awhile. You may find that having the ability to record will come in handy at some point.

My biggest advice for mixing is to calibrate you set up, even if it's writing down what the various knobs (and software master levels) are set and then NOT touching them and doing all your level adjustments in your timeline.
 
Check out the Tascam US 366 as it is very desktop friendly with a nice large volume control, it also has lots of I/O and a nice software mixer built in.
 
Thank you so much for your replies on this topic.

I didn't realise Tascam did such an interface. Mixed reviews though, for what I can read online. The MOTU is beyond my price tag for now so I've bought the Focusrite 2i2. It should do the trick.
 
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