Budget DAC Review: behringer UMC204HD

[watchnerd]

I really find it incredible how they can build and distribute something like that and have any profit margin at all?

Maybe that's part of the reason they get accused of stealing designs and sued?

 

[Palladium]

Maybe that's part of the reason they get accused of stealing designs and sued?

Get sued for what...Using the same commodity ICs just like everyone else?

Even if they copied wholesale, it would be based on expired patents like the cyclonic vacuum cleaners that are popping out from every vendor over the past few years. Then there's an entire army of turnkey Chinese EEs for hire to reverse engineer existing products to avoid pesky patent infringements.

Everybody else in audio is wearing the Emperor's Clothes, doing the same thing as Behringer except selling at a much higher price tag.

 

[watchnerd]

Get sued for what...Using the same commodity ICs just like everyone else?

If you Google 'Behringer lawsuit' you'll find info on the lawsuits from Mackie, Roland, etc.

I'm not saying it's right or fair, but they are accused of IP theft.

 

[Sal1950]

Then there's an entire army of turnkey Chinese EEs for hire to reverse engineer existing products to avoid pesky patent infringements.

Can't wait till they drop their bombs on MQA for both software and hardware decoding.
That will take the wind out of Meridians sails.

 

[watchnerd]

Can't wait till they drop their bombs on MQA for both software and hardware decoding.
That will take the wind out of Meridians sails.

Then Meridian will respond by trying to embed encryption and we'll have DRM all over again, which the music labels will love.

 

[Palladium]

Can't wait till they drop their bombs on MQA for both software and hardware decoding.
That will take the wind out of Meridians sails.

Oh a newfangled audio encoding format! Reminds me of how spectacularly well SACD and DVD-A did.

 

[Sal1950]

Then Meridian will respond by trying to embed encryption and we'll have DRM all over again, which the music labels will love.

It's already a form of DRM.
But we've all been down this road more than a couple times. LOL

 

[Don Hills]

Then Meridian will respond by trying to embed encryption ...

MQA already contains strong encryption. At the moment, it's used to validate that the stream is "authentic". Apparently (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) it encrypts the "folded" audio. It can also apparently be used to encrypt the "base" or 0-20 KHz part of the datastream, preventing listening without decrypting.

 

[RayDunzl]

"Decrypting"...

Sounds like something grave robbers do...

 

[Old Listener]

"Decrypting"...

Sounds like something grave robbers do...

They are good at unearthing things too.

Good one Ray. You're our ASR online Webster.

 

[Sal1950]

"Decrypting"...

Sounds like something grave robbers do...

 

[Old Listener]

I'm interested in buying the Behringer umc204HD. I do have a couple of questions.

- This DAC is USB bus powered. Can it drive a pair of active monitors (like the JBL 705Ps) to full volume over 10-15 foot balanced cables?

- How about 20-25 foot balanced cables?

I understand that the 705P and other studio monitors often have an input sensitivity switch but the question seems worth asking.

I'd be grateful for any information from measurement or regular use.

 

[Jinjuku]

I'm interested in buying the Behringer umc204HD. I do have a couple of questions.

- This DAC is USB bus powered. Can it drive a pair of active monitors (like the JBL 705Ps) to full volume over 10-15 foot balanced cables?

- How about 20-25 foot balanced cables?

I understand that the 705P and other studio monitors often have an input sensitivity switch but the question seems worth asking.

I'd be grateful for any information from measurement or regular use.

You would be using the UMC204HD exactly as intended in you application so you are good to go.

Balanced cabling is good for 100's of feet. I think the spec is ~500 feet for XLR but don't remember exactly.

 

[Old Listener]

You would be using the UMC204HD exactly as intended in you application so you are good to go.

Thanks, Jinjuku for the reply and for the original suggestion to Amir to measure the 204HD.

 

[DonH56]

IIRC the original Sheffield recordings used something like 750' of cable from recording room to cutting room... Not something I would try, but 50' ~ 100' should be no big deal with decent cables and routing. Large arenas and such run 1000' or more of of XLR.

S/PDIF (especially) and AES digital audio links have shorter limits as they are passing wideband data even though the cables look like XLR.

 

[Old Listener]

IIRC the original Sheffield recordings used something like 750' of cable from recording room to cutting room... Not something I would try, but 50' ~ 100' should be no big deal with decent cables and routing. Large arenas and such run 1000' or more of of XLR.

S/PDIF (especially) and AES digital audio links have shorter limits as they are passing wideband data even though the cables look like XLR.

Thanks for the reply, Don. I've used balanced cables for years where I needed them. I'm using a pair right now from a DAC into an active crossover.

The Behringer would be connected to either a low power NUC (shorter cables) or a laptop (longer cables). That laptop would be either an 14" screen i5 Lenovo from 2016 or a somewhat older, cheaper laptop with an 11-13" screen. I thought it wise to ask about the Behringer's ability to drive balanced cables of the lengths I described using USB power.

 

[RayDunzl]

- This DAC is USB bus powered. Can it drive a pair of active monitors (like the JBL 705Ps) to full volume over 10-15 foot balanced cables?

- How about 20-25 foot balanced cables?

Assuming the device it feeds has an input impedance of 10k Ohms (low typical guesstimate)

A 2V signal would create a current demand of 2/10,000 of an Ampere, or .2 milliamps.

USB port power available is in the low 100's of milliamps.

I understand that the 705P and other studio monitors often have an input sensitivity switch but the question seems worth asking.

The sensitivity switch is to select "Professional" or "Consumer" input signal voltage ranges.

My JBL LSR 308 settings are marked +4dBu and -10dBu (pro and consumer)

Professional signal source could be higher voltage (6V), Consumer devices about 2V.

Set to speaker to Pro (+4dBu), if sound level is too low, set to Consumer (-10dBu).

 

[Blumlein 88]

The output level is one place they cut corners on the 204HD just a bit. Max output is +3 dbU which is a bit over a volt. Still distance of cables won't be an issue, and using the -10 dbu setting will work with room to spare.

 

[DonH56]

"A unit load is defined as 100 mA in USB 2.0, and 150 mA in USB 3.0. A device may draw a maximum of 5 unit loads (500 mA) from a port in USB 2.0; 6 (900 mA) in USB 3.0."

USB hubs and such are available to provide even more power (I have an older USB2 hub that will output 5 A -- got it to drive a USB audio interface to obviate using its wall wart).

The biggest issue is likely to be a ground loop. It's not proper and all that jazz but I have to stay on battery power or use a cheater plug on my notebook's power cord when I do audio testing because it is not plugged into the same circuit as all the audio gear (and I'm too lazy/nervous to route an extension cord behind the console).

 

[Palladium]

Set to speaker to Pro (+4dBu), if sound level is too low, set to Consumer (-10dBu).

I tested both on my LSR305, and +4dBu needed another notch up on the volume knob to reach the same volume as -10dBu. I can't see how this will be a big issue unless you are trying to give yourself hearing loss. Using 3.5 out of 10 in the volume knob is already plenty loud on 1V RMS line outs.