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Budget DAC Review: behringer UMC204HD

scooter

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I noticed that it has much beefier output, +16dbu on the line outputs.
Isnt this to much for most home audio? My old NAD amps are getting full output on 3dbu
It seems those +16 dBu levels are balanced outputs and if your amps have balanced inputs then you should be ok
 

dukanvadet

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It seems those +16 dBu levels are balanced outputs and if your amps have balanced inputs then you should be ok

Nope no balanced inputs on my amps so i would use balanced to single ended cables. So if this actually has differentially balanced outputs i would get half the voltage ~2.45v RMS if inderstand it correctly so that would be less bad? I am not sure i understand it but as far as i can see the weak output of the 204hd is perfect for most home audio.
 
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scooter

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What are the analog input sensitivity ratings of your amps (dBu or Vrms)?
Neither I'm very competent in this but i know that it should be avoided to apply a signal which will be over the amps analog input levels causing them to overdrive or clip.
AFAIK you will loose 6dB from going to unbalanced, and remaining +10dBu and half voltage should be equal or less than amps sensitivity ratings.
 
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bequietjk

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You can use the headphone out but do not push it past 1 o'clock.
The headphone out is crap with headphones but works well enough as a line out buffer.

This I can side with. If you go past 1 o clock it will sound like somebody digging hand into a bag of chips.
 

martibs

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Hi, thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread, a great read.

I own the UMC202HD, and use it for recording in my home studio. I find the mains hum at around 60-120Hz to be quite annoying when recording. I can remedy the problem by perfect gain staging, but it's bothersome to dial in for every take on different instruments. I was wondering if switching to from unbalanced to balanced jacks would reduce the noise at all?
 

holsen

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umc202hd output is really low. I have to put atom on high gain and dial it to MAX vs pc onboard low gain 20-30%. On it's own 202hd sounds better than if its linked to atom. Oh well. Gonna wait for khadas board.
I've also got a UMC202HD and never considered using as a DAC until I came across this thread. I basically have been using it as a sound card and microphone input device and for feeding my desktop speaker for VOIP calls, Skype and various PC audio stuff. If I ever wanted to listen to JRiver from PC I always used a portable USB DAC / Amp or one of my DAPs as a USB device.

Well this thread inspired me to try it, so my new Atom arrived yesterday and I have been playing with 2 sets of IEM and I'm stunned at how good it sounds. Like really stunned. I've use this set up with Tin HiFi P1 Planar IEMs (notoriously power hungry) and with Beyer Xelentos (I have a spare new set for sale BTW).
I have the PC Volume set at 50%, the UMC202HD at 3:00 and the Atom on High Gain. I've been a big fan of the Tin P1 - the clarity, detail and resolution and even the bass, which is the biggest complaint against them. This combo of 202HD + Atom has woken these babies right up! WoW. and I'm not hearing any noise anywhere. With a bit or EQ there's so much more body in the bass. I'm in love all over again.

The Xelentos have a much higher sensitivity, so I I leave the PC at 50% and move the Behringer output to 12:00 (50%) just dial the volume on the Atom up or down. Man is it good.

Thanks for all the contributions on this thread. If the Atom / IEM combo sounds this good with the 202HD and it's anemic output I can't wait to hear it with the new D10 I just ordered!
 
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martibs

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Hi, thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread, a great read.

I own the UMC202HD, and use it for recording in my home studio. I find the mains hum at around 60-120Hz to be quite annoying when recording. I can remedy the problem by perfect gain staging, but it's bothersome to dial in for every take on different instruments. I was wondering if switching to from unbalanced to balanced jacks would reduce the noise at all?
Ach!
I have a effect unit in front of my UMC202HD, which was set to output -10dBV instead of +4dBu. Changing it back made gain staging much easier. The noise floor is still there, but it's acceptable. All in all I'm very happy with this interface. I do believe I will switch to a more professional one eventually (like the Audient ID22), but for the price, it's great.
 

holsen

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I use mine for recording YouYube and Educational Videos so I'm not plugging in instruments but I do plug in Wirless Lavs, Dynamics and Condenser Mics and have absolutely no noise using XLR cables. Just clean rich sound.
 

martibs

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Yes, I should add that the noise is most likely ground-related, coming from the USB power. My laptop has a motherboard from a cheap off-brand chinese producer, which is probably the culprit.
 

TC!!

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My daughter is studying music at University and needed a device like this to record guitar on her Macbook. She insisted that she needed the Focusrite 2i2. Well to cut a long story short she trusted me to get the Behringer 204hd and she's over the moon with it. It has one feature which is much better than the Focusrite, when she's overdubbing from Logic it's possible to adjust the balance between the instrument she's playing and the playback from the computer.
 

holsen

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Totally agree. For recording, it's flawless. As an audio interface it's a stunningly great piece of equipment and an unbelievable price and those. Midas preamps are very clean. The only downside is when used as a DAC for music playback, the outputs are anemic for audiophile use but for anything else are perfectly acceptable.
 

fsos

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Totally agree. For recording, it's flawless. As an audio interface it's a stunningly great piece of equipment and an unbelievable price jiofi.local.html tplinklogin is it downand those. Midas preamps are very clean. The only downside is when used as a DAC for music playback, the outputs are anemic for audiophile use but for anything else are perfectly acceptable.
You didn't mention the travails of getting it to work in your review. So did you have an arduous path, like plug it up and it worked?
 
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holsen

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You didn't mention the travails of getting it to work in your review. So did you have an arduous path, like plug it up and it worked?
I've used it with 2 different Win 10 PCs (Surface Pro) and have no issues. Just install the driver before you plug it in and set it as default device. For me it's worked simply and flawlessly
 

holsen

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I'm a conference speaker and corporate trainer, I even travel with it.... Sometimes I'll be doing a live workshop where the company has a few remote workers who can't travel in, and I hook up the 202HD, attach a wireless mic and broadcast what I'm doing live over zoom to the remotes....
 

TC!!

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You didn't mention the travails of getting it to work in your review. So did you have an arduous path, like plug it up and it worked?
On my part for my daughter's macbook we just plugged it in and it worked when we chose it in the Logic Pro settings
 

bequietjk

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This is kind of a random question but, does anyone know if the UMC404HD Main Outputs are balanced? I hooked it up to my THX 789 and it actually sounds pretty damn good. Wonder what kind of measurements it would come up with.
1574896865902.png
 

holsen

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The internals of the 202 and 204 should be the same with the only differences being the number or inputs and outputs. The Main outs are balanced. I just went through this with my 202. I took two 1/4 TS to RCA to 3.5 and it produced noise. Moving to 2 x 1/4 TRS to RCA to 3.5 eliminated it but it gave me too many cables, so I just go from the headphone out to my powered speakers. I also used the 202 to feed my JDS Atom and it did sound pretty good BUT when I hooked up my Topping D50s to the Atom, the it was spectacular. So now I run 2 sound cards, the D50s in ASIO for JrRiver to my earphones and the UMC202HD as default recording & Playback device for windows.
 

ajawamnet

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I saw some recent chatter on a Behringer review of some amplifier ... so I fig'd I'd post this here...


I posted about this in some other topic - I can't believe that the Behringer UMC204 was considered "good" at all.

When I was looking for a down and dirty piece diagnostic gear for my main bench, I looked at Presonus, etc... Keeping in mind that this is typically use for repairs of stuff from places like the Birchmere here in DC, I really didn't give a poo as to the specs... as long as I could sweep with Daqarta or one of the other programs (a really nice free one is Spectrum Lab) and could connect it to my scopes I was happy... didn't really care about great specs.

So I get the UMC204 - you can see it on my bench.
bench.jpg

First thing I noticed is it's not really balanced outputs. I even call the tech support guy - yep not really balanced out.

Well that sucks...

So then I figure I'll have to mod the patch bay with some transformers. Ok... I can deal with that.

BUT - what I couldn't deal with was the hideous HF noise I was seeing on my old Tek scopes and the newer Rigols. On my analog scopes I could see this fuzzy shit on a Lissajous... nasty...

So I ask the tech support guy about it. Turns out that for $70 they really can't do much as to filtering.

Just f'ing great.

So I open the f'ing thing up to see what I can do. Now I notice it's in a funky extruded AL enclosure. So I end up having to rip/machine away (too thick for an Xacto knive) the silly overlay at the locations for the hidden screws... (yes that's an old modem ... I still maintain a lot of old crap)
IMG_20200112_111506.jpg


So I'm able to get rid of some of the noise - most of it. But there's still a shit load

On a sine wave:

NewFile2.jpg



Noise itself:

NewFile1.jpg


On the QA401 set to full span (stop 95kHz):
uh204.jpg



On my SA3032 Spectrum Analyzer set for Low Freq:
UMC204HD-sa3032.jpg


So needless to say I was surprised that Amirm's test were OK...

Thing drives me nutz... but for typical day-to-day silly I get sucked into (I'm no longer an audio bench tech - but still get asked to fix a lot of pro audio gear) ...
 
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Jimster480

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Very interesting results! I only use mine for a mic that I typically use for phone calls and VOIP. I was going to use it also to record my wife playing violin but that hasn't happened yet. When I do test the violin mic (piezoelectric) I will report back on how it sounds.
 
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