Behringer U-Phoria UMC204HD

The best!

Multiple deployability, good pre-amps, solidly built, works -out of the box- with LINUX. Good connectivity, good price....the best!

Great windows drivers

I think one of the most important thing about soundcards is drivers. Input and output abilities etc aside. On a Windows computer you are limited by how well the drivers are written for a device. You can say all you want about Behringer, about cloning other devices etc, but the drivers for the Uphoria range are well written, in my opinion at the moment :) Pre-amps are quite good, havent had issues with them. Only thing might be the size, i think the device could have been smaller. The UMC drivers are better than ASIO4ALL, more stable. The prelistening abilities are nice. Overall great value for price!

UMC204HD

I used the program to adjust the sound in the hall. I tested it with noise, and my measurements showed that at maximum gain it was -100 / -105, and at minimum gain the average was less than -140. It works fine with both Windows and Linux

Good Features but not good audio quality

I was not happy with the audio quality and have since installed a Cambridge Audio dacmagic100 which has a vastly better sound.

I still use the UMC 204HD as an interface for midi keyboard recordings and am happy with it for this purpose.

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.

Poor sound quality

The device pops when switching the power on and off. Cheap. Poor sound quality.

excellent audio mixer

I use it for audio mixing (microphones and audio-in) for simultaneous live and online educational purposes, through ZOOM

Clear sound and easy function once connected properly

Needs some time to become familiar with the features and connections if you do not have similar experience

I love it!

This has become one of my favorite pieces of equipement ever. Not only it allowed me to play bass and guitar through VSTs without latency, it also allowed me to play VST drums with my electronic drum without latency, which with my previous basic Behringer USB interface was not possible. MIDI in is a very useful feature. Although my e-drum does have a USB connection, it was lnly a matter of time when the driver will get bugged and stop cooperating withy computer, which it did. MIDI in saved the situation, it works perfectly and I never had a glitch with it.

This interface is just fully packed with useful features, for a very reasonable price, and works just wonderfully. I fully reccomend it if you are considering it.

Simply not very good

Mediocre build quality. When switching between ASIO and Realtek I often have to re-insert the usb cable, otherwise it doesn't work. A tiny bit of sound still comes in through the mic inputs when they're turned all the way down. Scratchy noise sounds when changing the volume.

Solid build

The construction seems solid. The knobs are stable and have resistance when turning. Overall super happy with the quality and sound.