This is a review and detailed measurements of the RØDE AI-Micro portable audio interface (dual microphone input and headphone out). It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $79.
As you probably can tell, this thing is tiny! Digital interface is USB-C and dual mics plus headphone are 3.5mm jacks. Unit is plug and play on Windows. It has variable input gain which I figured was being controlled by the volume setting in Windows control panel.
RØDE AI-Micro DAC Measurements
Treating the headphone out as line out we get:
As a DAC, it is pretty poor but for the application of using it with a headphone, it is probably OK. What was strange was clock instability. It is possible this is due to AP software but I am fairly certain there is something wrong with the clock implementation. It would jump between 1000 Hz and 0.9999 every few seconds causing large amount of interference in the FFT.
Noise may be important and there, at full level, performance is decent:
Let's see how much power we have into 300 ohm:
Not much due to rather low output voltage of 1.4. This ranks the unit below many portable headphone dongles:
Same story for 32 ohm load:
RØDE AI-Micro Microphone Input Measurements
I made the assumption of setting the volume in Windows meaning 0 dB gain and as such, treating the unit as a line interface. With that, here is our dashboard:
Note the maximum clipping level (or just shy of 0.7 volt). I next ran a frequency response test and was surprised to see the high-pass filter which is not stated in the specs:
I guess for Microphone use this is OK???
Here is our dynamic range at three gain settings:
And performance with varying input levels at two gain settings:
Nothing resembles a proper, professional audio interface but maybe for the specified application, it is good enough.
Conclusions
In absolute terms, the output and input performance of the RØDE AI-Micro is very mediocre. I don't have enough application knowledge of field recording using mic input to know whether what is there is good enough or not. Those of you who do this work, feel free to provide your assessment.
Per above, I don't feel fully qualified to make a recommendation one way or the other.
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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/
As you probably can tell, this thing is tiny! Digital interface is USB-C and dual mics plus headphone are 3.5mm jacks. Unit is plug and play on Windows. It has variable input gain which I figured was being controlled by the volume setting in Windows control panel.
RØDE AI-Micro DAC Measurements
Treating the headphone out as line out we get:
As a DAC, it is pretty poor but for the application of using it with a headphone, it is probably OK. What was strange was clock instability. It is possible this is due to AP software but I am fairly certain there is something wrong with the clock implementation. It would jump between 1000 Hz and 0.9999 every few seconds causing large amount of interference in the FFT.
Noise may be important and there, at full level, performance is decent:
Let's see how much power we have into 300 ohm:
Not much due to rather low output voltage of 1.4. This ranks the unit below many portable headphone dongles:
Same story for 32 ohm load:
RØDE AI-Micro Microphone Input Measurements
I made the assumption of setting the volume in Windows meaning 0 dB gain and as such, treating the unit as a line interface. With that, here is our dashboard:
Note the maximum clipping level (or just shy of 0.7 volt). I next ran a frequency response test and was surprised to see the high-pass filter which is not stated in the specs:
I guess for Microphone use this is OK???
Here is our dynamic range at three gain settings:
And performance with varying input levels at two gain settings:
Nothing resembles a proper, professional audio interface but maybe for the specified application, it is good enough.
Conclusions
In absolute terms, the output and input performance of the RØDE AI-Micro is very mediocre. I don't have enough application knowledge of field recording using mic input to know whether what is there is good enough or not. Those of you who do this work, feel free to provide your assessment.
Per above, I don't feel fully qualified to make a recommendation one way or the other.
----------
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/