M-Audio AIR 192 14 USB-C Audio Interface

I am a hobbiest musician but I have been at it for a long time and I have a bit of experience with DAWs and Interfaces. I needed to replace a Presonus unit that had died and this interface had everything that I needed at a great price. Physically this interface is pretty nice if you like the desktop layout--it was a change for me and I do like it now that I am used to it. I wouldn't say that the knobs and switches are high quality but they seem to be o.k. I was disappointed that the big monitor volume knob isn't a detented pot--I think that would have made sense since it is such a prominent feature but it feels ok and does the job. The switches for headphone source and phantom power are slider type not rocker type--I think rocker switches have a more premium feel. These are really my only complaints and they are pretty minor once you start using it. Oh, the included USB A-C and C-C cables are ridiculously short!--unless you are using a laptop plan to buy longer cables! The things that I really like: first off, I think that sound is very good, they talk about improved AD/DA conversion and I think they deliver. I have KRK Rocket 7 monitors with an M-audio Sub and I have no complaints at all about the sound quality--even iTunes stuff sounds better than ever. I have used the preamps for acoustic guitar, electric guitar (mic'd tube amps) and some vocals so far and I think they do a nice job. I wouldn't say they are particularly colored but they do seem to roll off the harshness of the top end but should still work well with preamp plugins if you want more color or drive. They do seem very detailed--I had to adjust my acoustic guitar mic'ing technique because these preamps were picking up a lot more pick and fret noise--things that I had never noticed with my Presonus or Motu interfaces. When set up proplerly I was enjoying the acoustic sounds. This interface also has two straight line inputs (7/8) that would be perfect for external preamps. I have been using the direct guitar inputs a lot since getting this set up. They don't offer anything like variable impedance, just level control, but they seem to work just fine for getting my guitar tone into plugins. I am using this with Presonus Studio One and I think it is a great combination. Studio One has something similar to ProTools Hybrid Engine (but all native processing)--it allows live/recording inputs to be monitored at low latency while recorded tracks are running with a higher buffer setting to conserve processing power--results will still depend on your computer and what you are doing but it a very good native solution. The Windows driver for the AIR 192 14 offers way more granular buffer settings than my Presonus interface. This means that I can really fine tune the buffer size to get the lowest latency my system can handle. This driver starts at 16 samples and increases in increments of 16--others that I am used to might start at 96 samples and increase in much larger increments (96, 128, 256, 512...) If you understand this stuff this is very important and, to me, impressive and I can play technical guitar stuff with low latency. Other things that I am impressed by: Simply turning the interface on/off is very quiet--I have had other interfaces that make you shudder when you are shutting down your system thinking that you have probably shortened the life of your monitors. Being able to switch the headphone outputs between outputs 1/2 and 3/4 on the panel is very cool--Studio One has an easy Cue Mix feature to take advantage of this. Phantom power activation on pairs of mics instead of all-or-nothing works great for me. I am not sure about the metering on this yet. I like that it is more than just clipping indication, but I am not sure how far I can actually push it yet--I tend to trust the Input Level readout in Studio One over this for now but it is there and should be useful once I understand it better. The included software is basically a collection of stuff that you can get free from the vendors anyway with, I believe, the exception of the AIR FX Collection which seems to be pretty good. If they are still advertising ProTools First with it, it is not true because Avid has discontinued Pro Tools First--this is clearly stated when you register your products and go to install it. They do include Ableton Live Lite and MPC Beats so you will have a free DAW solution to start with. I would not recommend this as a portable solution--it is heavy and the knobs are vulnerable but, as a desktop home studio interface, I am really very happy with it so far.

Great all around