U-Phoria UMC204HD : A very good surprise

Considering the price and Behringer's reputation (I might not be up to date on that matter because on Youtube they seem to make everyone happy — though perhaps some polarising algorithm is holding the big picture out of my sight) I was worried about preamps and DACs.

But I needed an interface quickly and had spent all my cash on repairing the amp that literally caught fire (killing my Tascam US 2x2 in the process, hence the hurry...).

I wanted to upgrade my sampling rate for sound design purposes (ultrasonic piezo recordings slowed down four times and still bright! — still on my to do list, sorry!).

I've owned a Xenyx analogue console about a decade ago and I remember the preamps to have been dark and noisy.

OK that's too much teasing: the Midas preamps have nothing to do with their Xenyx predecessors, they have a full flat spectrum allowing for very bright recordings and thus faithfully rendering your mics/machines' character (even if it's as bright as the line output from an old Fender silverface) — beautiful brightness means beautiful transients so they can be very punchy. But they're also very dynamic in the other meaning of the word: they have a killer headroom, I never heard their noise (I know it has to exist but my other gear buries it) and they can provide a ridiculous amount of gain (I've never turned the pot over 10 o'clock).

Same goes pretty much for the headphones preamp.

The weak part is the main monitor preamp: it has a good definition over the whole spectrum but doesn't offer much gain (it feels like an attenuator) and when pushed it produces a very loud hiss. I mix on headphones (and I'm not ashamed!) so that's fine with me but most people would probably find it annoying (hence the four stars for "sound").

The software is perfectly satisfying: no fancy interface (you pay for those so good news) but all the features I expected, plus a buffer going up to 4096 which I was missing with Tascam when mixing 100+ tracks with ~5/6 plugins each.

I won't take it on the road and that's for the better because the enclosure doesn't seem exactly bullet-proof — it's not plastic but it's very light and thin. That's why four stars at "quality".

I still gave a total of five stars because at such a low price you'd be a fool not to expect sacrifices at some places and I must say I'm very comfortable with Behringer's decisions regarding those sacrifices: the limited robustness won't prevent a normal use and despite everything I blamed the main output for I still manage to have my neighbours knocking at my door.

I'm happy I bought it. Hope that helps.