M-Audio AIR 192|4 Reviews

Quality, Clarity, LOOKS GREAT! (Small pops on the sound)

The interface is amazing. The sound is really great as i tested it with my Rode NT1-A that I ordered at the same time. I liked everything about it except the small pops in the sound that turn to annoy me a bit. But perhaps there is someone that can help me with it.

I never owned an interface before, so i guess i'm still tuning in with it.

But overall, its a great looking interface with Crystal™ clear preamps.

Total Waste of Money

This sound interface from m-audio is just scrap.

When it connects to the pc, doesn't play music or with lots of background noise, and always disconnects, so you have to always manually connect it.

It's the last time i buy m-audio audio interface i swear to god.

DON'T BUY IT.

A very nice Interface

The interface in it's whole is a big deal. It has everything you need to make and record music.

Great AI for beginners!

Well I was wondering what audio interface to buy to record my guitars. Was choosing between this and Focusrite solo. Actually, the choice is as simple as: If you want a compact audio interface, that will be used a lot in different conditions(in the living room of your house, at your friends flat, in the park, at the studio - then choose Focusrite. It's more compact and "boxy" built. If I'd owned it, I'd confidently throw it in my backpack and go anywhere. I don't know why, but focusrite design gives me an impression that it's as reliable as a brick, and nothing will ever break it. While this M-Audio is a choice for a fancy studio setup. It just looks better on your desk than Focusrite(and it's bigger too, compare dimensions on website). Soundwise, I believe they're similar. So just choose if you need more compact or good-looking.

Best for the price

Very good price to quality ratio

Great Audio Interface for normal people

Both software and hardware are expected to be good at this price and it did def meet my expectations , sound is rich, ports are durable , sound quality is good , no lag or whatever, the only small problem I had was while using my new skullcandy headphones with 6.3mm aux adapter on it , it gave some dissapointing stereo sound but managed to fix it to my taste, it all depends on the headphone after all but still a very good audio interface , I love it

Insanely clean preamps, everything else is just fine.

I have bought this interface for a very specific use case - I know that I won't be recording more than a single source, and due to my room situation (untreated and has copper pipes that resonate a little if I get loud), I use practically only dynamics. As such, I wanted to leave myself some decent headroom when I recorded audio tracks, and this interface offers an incredibly low noise floor. So I picked this thing up for about $130.

When it arrived, I was surprised that it didn't feel cheap like some other M-Audio offerings. The cheaper M-Track interfaces are almost all-plastic and feel rather light, but this interface has metal plates on the places where it counts. As a result, this interface feels weighty enough to not make me think it's made out of paper mache. The only issue I have with it is that the monitor knob is rather easy to turn by accident. However, as I don't have any studio monitors yet, I don't think this is a large issue.

The XLR port is located at the back, and there's also two plugs for monitors. Balanced, if my eyes don't lie to me. There's also a Kensington lock and a Type-C port, which is welcome at this price point. You can use the interface with a 2.0 USB port, but I use mine with a 3.1 Type-C. The cables provided (USB-A to C and C to C) are decently long and don't feel bad. I would have appreciated another XLR port, but the 192

6 offers that for hardly $30 more. But I'll get to that later.

Note that I only use this interface for spoken word. If you were to use this interface for more purposes, I think I would recommend to look elsewhere, as this really provides a great vocal performance. I don't think it'd be great for recording instruments and such. However, the low noise is great and the gain is sufficient for most microphones. I have tested this interface with an XM8500 and can get it to a comfortable loudness level without any noise in the background. I want to test this interface with a Rode Procaster and an OD505 in the future (yes, the latter has a preamp, I am aware). But so far, I am feeling quite optimistic.

As for the headphone output, it's alright. It's not great, but it will be fine for most headphones. Lower impedance ones tend to suffer (I own a pair of SHP9600 and they introduce noise when I crank the gain past the second level). I'd recommend 300 ohms max, around 120 is the sweet spot.

There's still a very few quirks that may still prove to be annoying, if you decide to buy this interface. For starters, Windows loves to swap the bitrate to 32bit (which this interface cannot do), which messes up the inputs. The solution is to disable applications allowing to take control of the device in Windows sound properties. Some people also told me about them having stutters once in a while, if they use the interface for long-form content. I'd recommend adjusting the buffer size.

If you only need to record your own voice and only plan to use one microphone, then this is a great interface. However, in Europe, the Audient ID4 Mark II is hardly $30 away. It also has limited I/O, and I almost bought that one, but got limited by my budget. If you can stretch your budget a bit further, I would absolutely recommend that one. It'll work just as good as this one.

Solid build, easy setup and sounds as it should

Simple interface with quality knobs. It was easy to setup and looks neat. Can definitely recommend.

Not bad

For some reason the sound starts to hack when doing stuff in the browser. This doesn't happen with the onboard dac or while playing games or in the daw. It's weird, not really a dealbreaker but certainly an annoyance. Edit: Upon further listening, there is quite an audible channel imbalance until about 50% volume both on the headphone and speaker outputs. Edit 2: After messing around a bit more, turns out the interface just doesn't like USB 3.2 gen 2 ports. Over USB 2 it seems to work just fine, which is just silly in 2021.

Pretty good

Pretty good, pretty good. Good preamps also.

However, it starts distorting when you use a lot of programs. Must be a firmware issue. Fix: reconnect.

Great!

The interface is larger than it looks. For some it might be a downside, for me it's a great feature. I am happy with the quality and the way it looks. In my opinion this is better choice than Focusrite entry level interface.

I'm convinced!

Kinda new to this and don't now much about interfaces.

BUT it feels sturdy, has a neat design and comes with a lot of software (that's included in the price).

Even though I'm not that familiar with interfaces and the software feels difficult to use, I'm convinced from this purchase.

It supports microphones as well as amps and direct electrical guitars/basses inputs. It also has a direct headphones output, which is always handy.

Up to my knowledge about interfaces, it does what it's supposed to do. The software that comes with it is also big, it contains A LOT of samples, etc.

If you want to record your playings but have never done it before, this would be a great purchase. Just download the software that's given with it (or any free software like audacity, etc -> it also works without the given software!), plug it in and you're good to go!

(excuse me for any mistakes, english is not my native language)

bad driver

I had driver issues. It was pretty much unsolvable. Had to return the product. Loved the product from all other perspective. Great sound quality, well-built and solid. meters work precisely. If it didn't have the driver issue (pretty annoying and unstable while working/listening), I would have given it 5 stars.

M-Audio AIR 192 / 4

Attractive design of the device, easy to install and operate, sound quality at a height, with this card my Studio monitors, played in different ways, can be said to have reached their potential, compact, easy to fit into the design of the Studio. One minus that does not affect the sound quality, it is a sensitive surface, very quickly scratched, and the rest is just super!