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Centrance R4 Portable Audio Interface Review

Rate this audio interface

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 135 97.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 3 2.2%

  • Total voters
    138

amirm

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Centrance R4 portable audio interface/mixer. It is on kind loan from member and cost US $449 when it was available.
Centrance R4 Portable Audio Interface Review.jpg

The R4 is well built and controls have a quality feel to them. There useful indicators and lots of functionality:
Centrance R4 Portable Audio Interface Input Output Headphone Balanced Review.jpg

I am going to test a subset of it.

My test platform is Windows 10. I downloaded and used the ASIO driver for all testing. There were a number of times when my Audio Precision software would hang, or lose connection to the driver/device. The AP is not the most stable software so some of this could be its own fault but the failure rate was well above average, substantially lengthening my testing. I would seek out advice from others before attempting to use the R4 on Windows.

Performance specs are confusing as they don't even tell you which output/inputs are being talked about:
Centrance R4 Portable Audio Interface Specs.png


Centrance R4 DAC & Headphone Measurements
The balanced outputs are oddly 3.5mm which I did not have on hand. So I tested using the headphone out. Input was USB. Let's start with our usual dashboard with USB gain set to max:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone Measurement.png


I wish the output would be at least 2 volts as this will hurt available power for headphone use. The bigger issue though is high noise floor and distortion. SINAD of 71 dB as represented by both of those, lands the R4 at the bottom of our pile:

Best audio portable interface 2023.png


Zooming in, we see that it is far worse than native interface on my workstation motherboard:
Best audio portable interface zoom 2023.png


SNR can't even achieve 16 bit dynamic range:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone DNR Measurement.png


Multitone output is much worse than it should be:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone Multitone Measurement.png


IMD test shows noise level that is a bit worse than a cheap phone dongle!
Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone IMD Measurement.png


Jitter test shows really bad noise floor and man spurious tones/jitter components:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone Jitter Measurement.png


Linearity is the worst I have seen:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone Linearity Measurement.png


For some reason the driver refused to let me select 44.1 kHz half-way through testing so I could not test its filter. THD+N results are poor which may be partially due to that:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone THD vs Frequency Measurement.png


Switching to headphone loads, we see poor noise&distortion and inadequate output:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone power 300 ohm Measurement.png

Centrance R4 portable audio interface DAC Headphone power 32 ohm Measurement.png


All in all, this is performance that I would expect from a $20 no-name dongle, not a proper professional DAC.

Centrance R4 ADC Measurements
I used the XLR connections which oddly have lower input voltage limit than the 3.5mm connectors:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface ADC Measurement.png


Very odd that we are landing at the same SINAD as the DAC output! This is embarrassingly poor results:
Best ADC review 2023.png


Dynamic range barely reaches 16 bits:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface ADC DNR Measurement.png


Frequency response at 192 kHz is decent although there is some bass roll off even without the HP filter:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface ADC frequency response Measurement.png


IMD test shows the effect of early distortion and saturation:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface ADC IMD Measurement.png


Same with THD+N vs level:
Centrance R4 portable audio interface ADC THD+N vs Level Measurement.png


Conclusions
It is clearly that little attention was made to produce a well engineered and high performance audio interface. Yes, for the typical application of hooking up a mic and playing some background music it will be fine. But then how do you justify the $440 price? You can't. Clearly the company could do much better without incurring any additional manufacturing cost.

On basis of measured performance, I can't recommend Centrance R4.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
 

tktran303

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Shame.

Centrance’s entry to the market over a decade ago was the Dacmini, a headphone amplifier in the form factor of a Macmini. It was one of the first dedicated headphone amps to have relatively high output power, relatively low output impedance (1ohm) and switchable inputs including optical and coax input as well as USB asynchronous input. The line out or could be optioned for a volume controlled line out at the time of order at no (or minimal cost, IIRC)

Oh, and capable for 24/96Khz. You know, back when audiophools were poo-ing poo-ing everything but silver disc players. And thought computer music didn’t send the bits correctly?
This was back in 2011. It didn’t have SOTA measurements, despite (or because of) its class-A headphone amp, but it sounded good enough for 16 bit audio coming of your TV/computer.

Can someone contact Michael Goodman?

Someone fell asleep at the wheel.
Clearly more attention needs to be paid to circuit layout.
 
Last edited:

phoenixsong

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Shame.

Centrance’s entry to the market over a decade ago was the Dacmini, a headphone amplifier in the form factor of a Macmini. It was one of the first dedicated headphone amps to have relatively high output power, relatively low output impedance (1ohm) and switchable inputs including optical and coax input as well as USB asynchronous input. The line out or could be optioned for a volume controlled line out at the time of order at no (or minimal cost, IIRC)

Oh, and capable for 24/96Khz. You know, back when audiophools were poo-ing poo-ing everything but silver disc players. And thought computer music didn’t send the bits correctly?
This was back in 2011. It didn’t have SOTA measurements, despite (or because of) its class-A headphone amp, but it sounded good enough for 16 bit audio coming of your TV/computer.

Can someone contact Michael Goodman?

Someone fell asleep at the wheel.
Clearly more attention needs to be paid to circuit layout.
Yeah at one point they had potential. Their DACPort line of products wasn't too shabby. I followed their newsletter for awhile and was interested in these crowd-funded portable audio interfaces and mixers which were targeted at the pro community. However, there were so many delays and complaints that my senses told me to stay away
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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BTW, owner says he bought them near their end of life for $185. At that price if one just wants it for mic recording and such, seems fine.....
 

Joachim Herbert

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BTW, owner says he bought them near their end of life for $185. At that price if one just wants it for mic recording and such, seems fine.....
Not really, given the likes of tascam or yamaha/steinberg in the $100 region. These cannot be much worse...
 

Ra1zel

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Screenshot_20230505_094604_Chrome.jpg


At least we all know what it deserves :cool:
 

TNT

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32 tone.... ..free = 15dB -> bits.

/
 

badspeakerdesigner

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Interesting. My brand impressions of centrance over time has been a company that makes performant and feature rich devices that very much give the feeling of a tool meant for a job. Looks like that was all just optics. Pass on their products.
 

AdamG

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Well in this arena of measured performance, someone has to be at the bottom. So Kudos for that achievement! :cool:

Thanks Amir for the never ending flow of knowledge and information. You Sir are a Workhorse! :cool:
 
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anphex

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Makes me curious about DJ products. I bet the Pioneer DJM900 performs horribly.
 

Steve Dallas

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I suppose battery power is its differentiating feature and its reason to exist?
 

Xulonn

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Well in this arena of measured performance, someone has to be at the bottom. So Kudos for that achievement.

However, a bottom dweller like the Raphaelite 300b amplifier is a much more desirable audio component.
 
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