Audio interface for use with sennheiser hd 490 pro

[buttaballbeezley]

Hiya, appreciate any thoughts and advice

I am making music in daw with a few pieces of hardware and hopefully adding some more over time.

At the moment I basically make everything on headphones - Sennheiser HD 490 pro. I think my current audio interface setup maybe doesn't make great use of them - I am currently using a behringer xenyx q802 usb mixer/audio interface. In some ways it is good that it has the featureset it does but also I think the headphone out isn't great. Maybe my unit is broken but I think it distorts audio weirdly at times.

Anyway I am thinking about getting a interface that will provide better audio, drive my headphones adequately and hopefully be reliable enough.

I am considering ssl 2 mkii, motu m2, and topping e2x2. Is this another case of buy whatever is cheapest as they all basically sound good enough? It is hard making a decision like this. I don't want to waste money buying something that is a bit sub par, as perhaps I did with the behringer. Or should I just save up for a used babyface pro and never have to think about it again?

Thanks,
b

 

[JIW]

Hiya, appreciate any thoughts and advice

I am making music in daw with a few pieces of hardware and hopefully adding some more over time.

At the moment I basically make everything on headphones - Sennheiser HD 490 pro. I think my current audio interface setup maybe doesn't make great use of them - I am currently using a behringer xenyx q802 usb mixer/audio interface. In some ways it is good that it has the featureset it does but also I think the headphone out isn't great. Maybe my unit is broken but I think it distorts audio weirdly at times.

Anyway I am thinking about getting a interface that will provide better audio, drive my headphones adequately and hopefully be reliable enough.

I am considering ssl 2 mkii, motu m2, and topping e2x2. Is this another case of buy whatever is cheapest as they all basically sound good enough? It is hard making a decision like this. I don't want to waste money buying something that is a bit sub par, as perhaps I did with the behringer. Or should I just save up for a used babyface pro and never have to think about it again?

Thanks,
b

Consider connecting a headphone amplifier to the Behringer's line-out or headphone output.

 

[jkim]

I am currently testing SSL 2 MKII and Topping E2x2 on my bench. I think they are top two budget-friendly audio interfaces on the market now. Their headphone outputs are really good, too. If the feature set of your Behringer is useful, then you may want to consider adding a headphone amp as JIW suggested, though. Otherwise, either SSL or Topping will be a great choice. Their mic preamp, AD and DA conversion, and headphone out are all top notch in their price range (< $500).