Hello folks,
First of all, a shout-out to Steve, Peter, Koz and Bill, how are you guys doing? I know I’ve been MIA for a very loooong time, but I’m still alive and kicking
I hope you are doing well too.
My speakers died, I lost my mic preamp (the good old ART Dual Pre USB) and my new(ish) desktop mini-pc (Intel NUC) has a crappy/noisy audio output. So I’m in the hunt for a new pair of speakers and an audio interface (USB).
Main use will be to listen to music while I work at my home office, but even though I haven’t been playing my guitar or recording anything for a long time, it would be nice to have a decent mic input (for condenser T.bone mic) and a decent headphones output as well.
I’m trying to keep the total budget under 200 euros.
For speakers, I’m pretty much convinced in getting a pair of Presonus Eris 3.5 studio monitors. That’s as big as I can fit in my desk. They’re within budget (under 100€) and according to the reviews they seem to have a very neutral signature which appeals to me.
For the audio interface I’m not sure yet… Presonus Audiobox USB 96 is a good candidate, Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD comes next.
Other alternatives could be Presonus iOne (or iTwo but I doubt I’ll need 2 inputs), or Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen.
Focusrite is a bit more expensive, Behringer is on the cheaper side.
A friend of mine landed me his Presonus AudioBox USB (the original version I believe). I have no speakers to test at the moment, but I’ve done a test recording with my condenser mic (T.bone SC-1100) and I’ve tested the headphone output with 3 different headphones.
Both on the recording and on headphones out I can hear some noise (a hiss and some white and high frequency noises).
The noise/hiss on the headphones is there even if I turn the volume all the way down and doesn’t seem to change much if I raise the volume on the knob.
If I connect the Audiobox to my laptop I can hear some noise too, but at difference frequencies.
When I press the 48V phantom power button the noises change too.
If I connect it to an USB power bank (no data connection to the PC, just 5V coming from a battery) it’s dead silence (yes it’s powered, I can hear perfectly the sound coming from the mic crystal clear).
So I guess the Audiobox isn’t filtering properly the 5V coming from the computer’s USB (which usually are full of noise, especially in the high frequencies).
Other than that the Audiobox sounds likes a decent interface, but the noise/hiss coming from the USB and leaking to the recording and headphones (and probably speakers if I had one) is a problem… I wonder if Behringer or Focusrite do a better job filtering the USB’s 5V or if I should consider getting either an USB filter or a USB hub with external power supply.
The USB filters seem to be a bit on the expensive side (50-150 € for the ones I found online). I never had one, so not sure how efficient they are…
Powered USB hubs are cheaper, but its PSU might be noisy too…
Any recommendations?
Thanks,
Bruno