Looks like a decent shootout and pretty thorough too!
Opinions are welcome

 

My personal favorite is the MOTU 8PRE because I got it for a hundred dollars dude said the drivers didn't work, it works fine on Windows 11.
Every now and then I need to open the control panel to set the sample rate before opening my DAW but that's the most issues I've had with it. Best purchase I ever made.

 

I put cleanest sine at 64 bit float and almost maximum loudness and gaining at different levels, from one interface into Audient iD14 mkII and it showed captured harmonics at -80dB, not queiter.. So, cleanest AD and DA, but seems dirty analog console preamps

 

What I found interesting was that Behringer UMC series interfaces got such favourable review

 

Because the do input = output. 100% correct. You can't be better. Every decent Interface does this.

Watch, learn, understand, draw conclusion:

So in a sense this "shoot outs" can tell you something about the surroundings and gimmicks on interfaces, but not about "sound quality". It's time to kill all those snake oil and myth sellers, all these brainwashers and all these "expert"-idiots. :-((( This all works only because colse to no one pays attention when it is about physics and math in school. :-((

 

RME Babyface wins again with latency (at around 11:05),

for me, essential thing about interface is direct monitoring with Pan knob (when recording any stereo sources like drum overheads, piano, synths...) the sound is completely different) and Phase switch (when recording multi-mic sources, vocals and woodwinds/brass instruments it makes a huge change),
it seems none of those new interfaces allow that, and excuse "use a mixer" is a last century advice lol

 

Presonus Quantum ES4 has this

 

Who gets an interface for its DA? It's widely known I think that that's not the problem. Isn't it all about the "gimmicks" like headphone out, pres, onboard mixing, number of ins/Outs, output level, latency, driver support and so on?
I saw Fred Again performing with a Behringer UMC. I'm sure dude can afford any interface.

 

Love my Behringer. Why pay more?

 

For quality.

 

Nothing Comes close to Topping DACs and Interfaces besides MOTU and RME Babyface, all in terms of clean AD/DA, Powerful headphone amps and low distortion, but for interfaces you intend to do more for recording while having good conversion is Lynx Aurora, Apogee Quartet, MOTU M4 and the Neumann MT 48...... the new UAD Apollo's are really great as well.

 

RME ADI-2 DAC is what I got indeed

 

The SSL interfaces sure tested well. I wish he'd had the SSL12 in that shootout because the extra features at that price point combined with how many times SSL ranked #1 or in the top class in various tests makes it a winner. I like how tactile everything is on the SSL. The Lewitt looks interesting though. Good video.

 

From my experience you can't go wrong with RME, I have had my RME 9632 pci card for about 10years without any issues, solid drivers, direct monitoring & latency 3.5ms playing VSTi instruments. I also use a Behringer UMC 1820 with midas pre, direct mon & latency 1.5ms when playing VSTi or playing my Bass guitar through software amps.

 

Last edited: May 13, 2025

Anyone still on the market today has certainly done a lot of things right. Even Behringer has improved. Overall, there has never been such great hardware as there is today. Anyone who sells junk goes bankrupt quickly. Even the small company ESI is still on the market, with very reasonable prices. RME and Audient are my favorite companies!

 

I have and have had many audio interfaces, with the Babyface definitely being among the best. But my insider tip remains the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 (not the much inferior MK2, but the original). It's been through a lot, been taken on numerous mobile sessions, and still works flawlessly. Sounds great and has great features (multiple outputs, midi, direct monitoring..). The build quality is also very stable. I can only recommend to buy it if you find it cheap second hand.

 

Look up Julian Krause on YouTube if you want the most in depth and technical reviews of interfaces. Nobody else comes close to him (from the people I've seen).

 

Motu failed too many times on me when it comes to drivers.
It started in the nineties with a midi only interface with shitty drivers, and yet once a decade I was stupid enough to buy hardware from them. NEVER have I ever had something from Motu that ran decently on a PC.
Now the good part: When I talk to Mac people they say "yeah... its the same with mac"
And yeah, it might run right now on that one specific win 11 version. Just wait, the day will come it stops working after an update and Motu will not provide a new driver. They will instead release a new interface to buy.

 

I have plenty of those for not so important stuff. They just work. Behringer has gained a lot know how since they bought TC and Midas and what not. They're not the Behringer from back then any more.

 

Interesting. I have a MOTU M4 interface and it has some of the most reliable drivers of the last 6-10 interfaces I've used/owned. I have heard of some of their old gear being quirky (or just straight up unsupported) on windows machines.

I use my MOTU M4 on a Catalina Mac Pro and a Ryzen 5000 series b550 Windows 10 PC, and the latency is the best on PC compared to other interfaces I use.

Other Interfaces I've owned/used -
Presonus AudioBox USB 96 (Actual Hot Garbage, Humbuckers will clip the input w/ lowest gain setting)
Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 Gen 3 (Abysmal Latency times on Windows, Good on Mac)
iCon Pro Audio Duo 22 Live (Just weird, ProDriver4 software is amazing though (like 6 independent loopback channels?!))
Presonus Studio 26c (Surprisingly good drivers, hardware is prone to fail tho)
Behringer UMC404HD (Pretty bad latency on Windows but great interface for the price)
Roland Quad Capture (Deprecated, no M1 Support. Worked well on both Mac and Windows)
ESI Maya22 (Hilariously tiny interface but wayy too noisy. Returned)
Lexicon Alpha (Actually not that bad. Shouldn't have sold it to guitar center for like $12)