Topping E2x2 Audio Interface Review

[AnalogSteph]

Well, nowadays I don't own any dynamic mics, so I guess I'm (relatively) OK -- although I do sort of miss my old E-V 660 (the poor man's RE-15). Now you've got me wondering if my Behringer's "CLIP" warning LEDs are accurate -- supposedly, its mic preamp circuitry is cribbed from Midas, which Behringer acquired many years ago, but who knows what corners were cut to hit such a crazy-low price point -- thanks a lot, Steph!

These Behringer "Midas designed" preamps are NJM2122-based jobs and quite notorious for having high distortion near the upper end of the gain spectrum and at high levels. You'll probably be well-advised to only use as much input gain as needed to safely overcome the ADC noise floor and push levels digitally in post if needed, while sticking with recorded peak levels below -5 dBFS. (I would do test recordings at various gain settings and then run FFT analysis on them to see where the noise floor starts to flatten out in the high frequencies.)

Depending on how conservative you are, the input level limit for acceptable distortion near min gain is somewhere between -4 and -7 dBu, or 118 to 121 dB SPL on a relatively hot (-37 dBV/Pa) condenser.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

These Behringer "Midas designed" preamps are NJM2122-based jobs and quite notorious for having high distortion near the upper end of the gain spectrum and at high levels. You'll probably be well-advised to only use as much input gain as needed to safely overcome the ADC noise floor and push levels digitally in post if needed, while sticking with recorded peak levels below -5 dBFS. (I would do test recordings at various gain settings and then run FFT analysis on them to see where the noise floor starts to flatten out in the high frequencies.)

Depending on how conservative you are, the input level limit for acceptable distortion near min gain is somewhere between -4 and -7 dBu, or 118 to 121 dB SPL on a relatively hot (-37 dBV/Pa) condenser.

Thanks for the detailed advice.

 

[JohnYang1997]

How do you mean? In what way are the performance characteristics unique?

Unmatched headphone amp, A-D performance, Mic pre in the price range. And the full functional control center with mixers and loopbacks.

In fact the headphone amp is not shy even under 2000 dollars.
The mic pre has the EIN near physical limit and is not shy of preamp at any price range if you want a clean, detailed, dynamic preamp.
A-D although dynamic range is limited by the chip is competing very well at 200-300 dollar range. For distortion it's just one tier under Hilo, Adi2 pro.

The relative weaknesses the DAC still has low enough distortion and extremely low jitter. The analog volume control extended the real world dynamic range to 127dB so you have much less noise when you connect to monitors. The noise goes down with the volume. So this feature alone puts it up against DACs with 120-125dB without any issue.

 

[restorer-john]

But you can see that some of the knobs are stuck in a tilted state.

Send it back. If Topping think that level of fit and finish on a piece of 'professional' equipment is acceptable in 2023 they are on crack.

 

[renaudrenaud]

Maybe someone will bring out an interface one day that has a nice GUI that runs under Linux.

I've been trying to fall in love with Topping for a while now, I have DACs etc. from them here, but I can't get the spark.

Cannot see myself installing Windows just for this or another else equipment.

 

[Robbo99999]

Send it back. If Topping think that level of fit and finish on a piece of 'professional' equipment is acceptable in 2023 they are on crack.

You're better off staying down below with your irrelevant CD Players in your dinosaur basement! Ha, no, I don't hate you I'm just giving you some stick for being unreasonable given your generalised historical & misplaced Topping disdain and love of outdated irrelevant equipment! Easy pickings!

 

[restorer-john]

You're better off staying down below with your irrelevant CD Players in your dinosaur basement! Ha, no, I don't hate you I'm just giving you some stick for being unreasonable given your generalised historical & misplaced Topping disdain and love of outdated irrelevant equipment! Easy pickings!

Topping send Amir a perfect item and the first guy to buy the product with his own money and post a picture on ASR shows poor casework alignment and offset. Topping just packed it up and pushed it out the door.

Do you think that is acceptable?

And wait for the deathly silence and ghosting when you need repairs, parts, or God forbid, a service manual and schematic to have your broken Topping repaired. Who's going to help you? Answer: nobody.

And you want to bring up CD players in this thread. OK. Service manuals, parts, factory trained warranty service technicians and repair available from day one. From all brands. Not that many people needed it, the one I just dug out (world's first) is 41 years old and works perfectly. LOL.

Just no comparision is there? Quality engineering that essentially outlives the owners, or junk you throw out at the first sign of trouble.

 

[8bits]

Perhaps we have different views of how the world works, but I would definitely be okay with poor casework alignment for a $159 hardware that is very competitive feature and measurement-wise, along with OK software (expensive to create and maintain).

 

[amirm]

And you want to bring up CD players in this thread. OK. Service manuals, parts, factory trained warranty service technicians and repair available from day one. From all brands. Not that many people needed it, the one I just dug out (world's first) is 41 years old and works perfectly. LOL.

That is an era long gone. No way you get a manual for a Sony DVD player you buy today. Or have any prayer of repair. Or anyone trained on it. It is a throwaway item.

 

[amirm]

Do you think that is acceptable?

Are you being sarcastic? Of course it is acceptable in this price range and functionality/performance. And that kind of misalignment has always been there in audio products going even to days that you are proud of.

 

[LIΟN]

Send it back. If Topping think that level of fit and finish on a piece of 'professional' equipment is acceptable in 2023 they are on crack.

Hmm..
I was just curious. To what extent it meets the criteria.
It's okay because there's no problem using it.

 

[ocinn]

but I'm thinking 0.1ms latency would be fine for your usage, or not?

That’s hardware latency. Completely irrelevant in the real world.

What I am referring to is for example, how long it takes an input to go into the computer, be handled by topping’s ASIO driver, go thru the daw and get mixed with click track/instruments/effects, then back to the ASIO driver, and out of the headphone amp.


This is the data that I am looking for.

A good example I can give of hardware vs software latency is the digital guitar effects unit I own. Obviously it has some hardware latency as it is a digital device, however when I first bought it, using it as an “interface” over USB was absolutely unusable as there was like 200ms of delay. I had to use the analog outputs into a traditional interface. This was not a result of hardware, by strictly the driver design and implementation. They released a driver update and it completely solved the problem. Round trip Latency is now inaudible to my ears (so under 8ms or so) and I get all the benefits of staying completely in the digital domain.

 

[Rja4000]

Of course it is acceptable in this price range and functionality/performance.

Maybe. (LION confirmed it's not an issue for him, anyway)
Although people not able to spend more still deserve to get proper quality for their money.
Quality has little to do with cost (at least to that extent).
Bad quality actually costs money to the manufacturer, anyway.

I think what's the problem here is rather the "professional" declared ambition.
No Pro can afford low quality or low reliability, whatever the price.
Or throw away devices.

 

[Robbo99999]

Topping send Amir a perfect item and the first guy to buy the product with his own money and post a picture on ASR shows poor casework alignment and offset. Topping just packed it up and pushed it out the door.

Do you think that is acceptable?

And wait for the deathly silence and ghosting when you need repairs, parts, or God forbid, a service manual and schematic to have your broken Topping repaired. Who's going to help you? Answer: nobody.

And you want to bring up CD players in this thread. OK. Service manuals, parts, factory trained warranty service technicians and repair available from day one. From all brands. Not that many people needed it, the one I just dug out (world's first) is 41 years old and works perfectly. LOL.

Just no comparision is there? Quality engineering that essentially outlives the owners, or junk you throw out at the first sign of trouble.

I just think it's acceptable for a $160 product that performs well and has good functionality. It's a competitive product. Those knobs that aren't perfectly aligned I don't see as a big deal. As for reliability, I wouldn't really expect the device to fail - electronics generally have been very reliable for me so they tend to become obsolete before they fail. I don't know how long this device will be compatible with future Windows PC's for instance - long enough for most people I expect.

 

[Robbo99999]

That’s hardware latency. Completely irrelevant in the real world.

What I am referring to is for example, how long it takes an input to go into the computer, be handled by topping’s ASIO driver, go thru the daw and get mixed with click track/instruments/effects, then back to the ASIO driver, and out of the headphone amp.


This is the data that I am looking for.

A good example I can give of hardware vs software latency is the digital guitar effects unit I own. Obviously it has some hardware latency as it is a digital device, however when I first bought it, using it as an “interface” over USB was absolutely unusable as there was like 200ms of delay. I had to use the analog outputs into a traditional interface. This was not a result of hardware, by strictly the driver design and implementation. They released a driver update and it completely solved the problem. Round trip Latency is now inaudible to my ears (so under 8ms or so) and I get all the benefits of staying completely in the digital domain.

You'd have to ask @JohnYang1997 these questions rather than me regarding your potential concerns with this product & latency, he might be able to put your mind at ease.

 

[LIΟN]

first guy to buy the product with his own money and post a picture on ASR shows poor casework alignment and offset

Are you guys talking about the photo I posted about the tilt of the knob? I don't think this is a problem. I was just asking JohnYang.

 

[ocinn]

You'd have to ask @JohnYang1997 these questions rather than me regarding your potential concerns with this product & latency, he might be able to put your mind at ease.

My original point was not directed at topping in particular but as a new addition to the ASR testing suite for interfaces.

I’d like to see Amir independently test this.

 

[elvisizer]

Previously, many functions could only be achieved through professional interfaces like the RME Babyface Pro

if it’s not built into the HW you can always just buy Loopback from amoeba and use that on top of the interface’s mixer

 

[elvisizer]

It seems to be Topping’s answer to the ubiquitous Focusrite 2i2 - an entry level audio interface targeted at home recording types, musicians, beat makers, podcasters etc.

100%

 

[Mulder]

if it’s not built into the HW you can always just buy Loopback from amoeba and use that on top of the interface’s mixer

Yes, but it is MAC only.