Behringer UCA202 U-Control Ultra low-latency 2 In/2 Out USB/Audio Interface

PS - 28 April 2014. In some of the reviews that I have read some of the correspondents have reported difficulty getting the Behringer UCA202 U Control to record in stereo and some are having difficulty adjusting the volume levels. Sometimes you have to adjust the sound settings in the control panel on a laptop or PC. You have to tell your computer to record in two channels instead of one for stereo. Go into the sounds window and select " Microphone 2 USB codec" with the device plugged in to a USB connexion. Select recording and advanced and set the device to 2 channel CD quality. I use Audacity software. You need to check that Audacity is recording in two channels for stereo recording rather than one channel for mono. You go into "Preferences" which is in the "Edit" menu and then set the USB recording device to stereo in the recording box. If you are having problems setting up the recording volumes then Audacity can be adjusted with the microphone slider which is on the tool bar. This works fine for me with a line level output from my amplifier - I do not use the phono pre-amp from my turntable kit when I record an LP or single. If this fails (or where you do not have a line output from your amp) you could try the headphone output which is usually located on the front of the amplifier. If you turn the amplifier volume control right down then it will attenuate the output level. Using a combination of the Audacity microphone slider and the headphone output you should be able to adjust the volume of the recording level to make sure the recording is loud enough but does not distort. In the view menu you can set Audacity to "show" clipping" . This will display a vertical red line on sections of the recording where the volume levels are too high and therefore the music will sound distorted - this is a very useful tool. I have never used a MAC PC but I would think that it has similar methods of controlling whether you record in stereo or not by using a sound control feature. I would guess that other types of recording software similar to Audacity need to be set up to record and playback in stereo or mono according to your choice. If the above does not work then you are faced with the possibility that some of your equipment is not working correctly from a physical point of view. You could check the connections have been fitted correctly or use alternative equipment to find out what has gone wrong. When set up correctly this product works really well; I am sure you will not be disappointed. Main text: I bought this brilliant device to "digitise" old LPs, which I buy in second hand shops, and archive old audio cassettes before they self destruct. I read all the reviews and I agree with most of them and decided to buy it even though it is of flimsy construction. It is not going to be used very often and I am careful with equipment so it should last years. It literally took me ten minutes to plug it into the line outputs of my amplifier and connect the device to a laptop, then cue up a Beatles 45 and digitise it with Audacity. Audacity is brilliant in my opinion and there is plenty of help text and Wikipedia information to get you going. I deleted the the Beatles 45 file as I just used it to test the recording levels. Next up was a Shadows LP "Rock on with the Shadows in Mono". Yes, you can buy this on CD but sometimes I like to play an ageing LP for old time's sake. I was pleasantly surprised with the results. I did not use Audacity to remove any surface noise from the record or clicks or pops; Hank's twanging drowns them out anyway. I played the digital recording back through the same amplifier and neither my wife nor I could hear any difference from the original: it sounded the same warts and all. At the end of the "first side" I felt compelled to jump up and turn the laptop er, record over. What more can I say about the sound quality? This was great stuff - the Shadows back in their 1960's glory, and you cannot damage the needle when you jive. One of the reviewers has complained about the the inability of the analogue converter to sample at 24 bit 96 KHz (24/96) as it is limited to 16 bit 48 KHz. This might affect you if you are mastering music and you want to keep the noise floor down when mixing lots of "takes". So, I take the point. For me, digitising old recordings at 16/44.1 or at red book CD standard is good enough. I fail to see how using a 24/96 sampling rate could improve the sound quality as I am only doing one "take". If you are only going to use this converter to digitise your records you can save yourself money and some disk space by buying this device. I have got plenty of external DACs, so I do not need to use this device for playback from a laptop or PC but I tested it just the same. The Toslink optical output works really well and so do the line outputs. The headphone amplifier is not so good but it is sufficient for my purposes. If you are on the road this device will probably perform better than your laptop's sound card or headphone output. The Behringer does not perform as well as the rinky dink DAC that I have got in my main HI-FI and I could not expect it to. But, it performs well compared to my other portable DACs. There is no Toslink input facility. Pros :- You can use a laptop for line output sources. You no longer have to use the line inputs of a desktop PC. You can connect it to a USB port on the front rather than fiddle about with connecting line outputs to the input connexions on the back of the PC. This is especially useful if your kit is under a desk. You can take your laptop to your HI-FI equipment rather than the other way round. There is no need to unplug your turntable or cassette player etc. and then plug it all back in again. It is small, very portable and very versatile - an ADC and DAC in one box! Cons: None really unless you are going to subject the device to hard and continuous use. In conclusion: Five stars for sonic performance and overall convenience; it is simply brilliant . But, it gets only three stars for build quality. The USB deck can now be given away.

this is a 16bit/44Khz device... some may say "Nahh, this is too old by today standards, not 24 bit, not 192Khz" etc... Well, depends on the case. if you are not a professional musician and you want to do some sound work without breaking the budget then this is something you will not regret buying. If you open it inside you may think that you are ripped off because it has so few components. But the quality you get does not match the appearances... Connected it to my HIFI without any input and there is 0 hissing or noise. recorded with nothing at the input and there is also no noise. This device is really very quite, so it will not degrade whatever work you want to do..I have not observed any distortion or issues. The frequency response also implies that it does not ad any colour to the reproduced sound. I have been using it connected to my HIFI and listen to music from my laptop. i also have a BT adapter that sounds great but AB testing shows that this one sounds much better . I have used it to listen vinyl rips from Youtube and the result is still breath taking (given that a vinyl rip was uploaded to Youtube, it was compressed and then played back through this - but the vinyl rip is from AudioPhill - if you know what that means). Overall, a great all around device. Do not underestimate the quality of the 16bit/44Khz

I have come back to PC music production after a while away and realised that Realtek chipsets on most motherboards, although better than they used to be,can't quite cut it, particularly in the latency department. I was loathed to spend £50+ on a proper pro sound card while I was tentatively returning to this hobby so this Behringer UCA202 seemed perfect. It arrived on time and well packed and straight out of the box its smaller than I expected, about the size of a cigarette packet. I plugged mine in a proper USB port (not a hub) and immediately installed and worked (Windows 8.1 and 10), no issues. A little light on the top tells you its on and you get the glow from the optical out too. I fed my 10 channel WharfdalePro mixer into it and connected it to the line in on my Logitech Z speakers. Not exactly a pro setup but entry level music making kit. I tested it with Cakewalk and Ableton and there was a noticeable improvement in latency when feeding stuff in and through the PC i.e. guitar and mic effects etc. Not 0 latency, in fact on my set-up probably still 10-20ms, I used the ASIO4ALL drivers which have mixed success with most people but they reported something like 11ms via Cakewalk. Previously I could achieve similar latency with my Realtek card but it would become unstable and break up and need resetting every 20mins. This didn't happen with the Behringer, it works flawlessly for hours on end and basically it does what I bought it for. Furthermore there's a little switch for monitoring directly so if you just want to echo the in to the out with 0 latency, you can do that but clearly it won't be going though any effects etc on the PC. I also played music from Google Play though the unit and I the is a noticeable improvement in clarity, so much so that I can actually hear stuff in the songs that I hadn't heard before and that is usually the mark of an great audio equipment. I listened through my Logitech speakers and some mid range over ear Sony headphones and in both cases the music was balanced and defined. If you're buying this only for music playback and don't care about music production, as most people will, its worth it for that alone. OK, so why the four stars...Well, I used this on headphones and it was superb, when I connected the line out to the Z speakers there was a noticeable whine, digital interference whine that alters when you move the mouse pointer or change stuff on the screen. That is very far from pro audio or high quality, it doesn't happen on my built in Realtek where I would expect more interference. Now this COULD be the crap cable I used or the positioning, I haven't tested it on ANYTHING else yet. I plan to test it on my proper AV unit in the lounge so I will report back if I notice any difference.

I bought this to act as an external sound card/digital-to-analogue-converter (DAC) to improve the sound output from a laptop. I have found it to be absolutely excellent and remarkable value for money! Without this device sound output from laptops tends to be very flat with no dynamic range (e.g. an audible difference between quiet and loud sounds). Music lacks depth and feeling. However, as soon as you plug in this device the sound output from the computer is transformed: it goes from being 2D to 3D; from car stereo to hi-fi: the difference in quality is remarkable! The device is about the size of a cassette, and has both RCA outputs (to connect to a hi-fi) and a headphone output. You simply plug it into the USB port on you computer... plug some output cables into the device.... and it just works! There is no annoying software to install, and it works on PCs and Macs (I use both) Sometimes you may need to go into control panel/audio devices and select the 'USB Audio Codec' to activate it, but it really is straightforward. (The device also has audio inputs for recording instruments, but I haven't used it in that function so can't comment on performance.) For the price it's performance is fantastic. I even gave one to my boss as a present and he absolutely loves it too! Compared to more expensive devices I expect a 90/10 rule applies - this device gives you 90% of the performance for 10% of the price. If you listen to music through your laptop/computer through headphones or a hi-fi and value good sound quality, I highly recommend this device! Advantages: - Excellent performance for the price - Transforms sound quality from laptops - Small size - Easy to use - No annoying software - Works on Macs and PCs Disadvantages: - Low price won't impress hi-fi snob friends

We have been using these for a number of years and they have been great. They sound perfect fo corporate work for interfaces with Teams and Zoom. Clear buzz free sound. The RCA outputs & inputs mean they work with most gear and they don't pretend to be anything more than what they are. Does what it says they will do. Light weight and great as a back up device that won't take up space in your kit bag. Be aware the monitor switch may cause feedback loops so we generally keep that off.

Ok it's early days (only got it today) but I have to give my initial impressions about the UCA202... First of all some background: I have a MSI GT70 2pc laptop (UK) and I have an issue with the Realtek sound output via the 3.5mm jack. Namely there is a manufacturing flaw in the laptop that means as the GPU heats up and the fans kicks in, this affects the sound chip due to it's proximity to the GPU and the sound eventually fades and drops out until the temp cools down again. Very frustrating for graphics heavy games and also Rocksmith 2014! You can get around this using another sound output option (HDMI or Bluetooth for example). Ultimately though I didn't think these were the best solutions. Also my HiFi amp/receiver, Pioneer XCHM82D has optical input and is running Wharfdale Diamond 220 speakers so I wanted to get the best sound out of my laptop which hasn't got an optical out. I have some 6,000 MP3 and FLACS stored there. Now honestly I have tinnitus in my left ear and hear a reduced frequency range generally (although I love listening to music and play around with a guitar and with Audacity/Rocksmith). I wasn't expecting to actually hear much of a difference between the laptop sound (via Realtek when it works) and the DAC.. BOY WAS I WRONG. Doing some A/B listening and the difference was night and day! Suddenly the whole soundstage sounded a lot more open and revealing. I really had no idea that a digital link to the amp vs a 3.5mm analogue connection from the onboard sound could be that different. It's a bit like comparing a 128kpbs MP3 and it's lossless equivalent through good headphones. Shocked was an understatement. I have an MP3 of Marthas Harbour by All About Eve which I've played many times before on my laptop through the amp Playing the same track through the UCA202 revealed some audio glitches in the MP3 that I hadn't noticed before! I think there is a real chance to discover new nuances now on some of my favourite tunes and I'm looking forward to some listening sessions. The other bonus is that this unit adds RCA phono stereo input and output to the laptop - this will be useful as I just received an Alto ZMX52 mixer to see if it can kick start my creativity. Oh, by the way no drivers were required for Windows 10 and for fans of Rocksmith 2014, there is no discernable latency when I connect the guitar to laptop via the Ubisoft USB cable so this may be a good choice if you are having problems in that area. All in all after just a few hours I'm very impressed.

I have to admit I was not expecting very much from this piece of kit - given the price compared to other DACs on the market. What I found however was that this is a superb little gizmo that makes a crucial difference to my audio setup way beyond its price tag. My need was for a way to connect a laptop with 160GBytes of MP3 and FLAC files to an amplifier/hifi. The old way - using 3.5mm jacks and lead from a headphone socket - was proving lifeless, noisy and prone to cutting out. I plugged in the Behringer and waited only moments for the gizmo to install. Within a minute I had connected phono leads to the amp and was ready. One tweak to the driver used for output from MusicBee and all was done. The sound output was clear, full, wide and rich compared to the flat sound from the headphone socket. There was far less noise (and most of that was later traced to the transformer in the docking station of my Dell laptop). The amplifier used is a Cambridge Audio Topaz AM10 - known for showing up less-than-perfect input devices. The reason I got the Behringer over any other model was the presence of inputs as well as outputs. Not so happy here at first as USB audio drivers do not have input volume control - and clipping was present most of the time. In the end I used an old cassette deck paused in Record mode as a volume control, and the result was frankly stunning! I can now record vinyl without using one of those terrible USB turntables. You might need to source some attenuators if you don't have old hardware laying about. This device gets my full approval. For the money it is amazing, and if you are toying with the idea of trying a DAC then this has a lot to recommend it. With it my laptop has just become a legitimate 'audio separate'! 5 out of 5.

This device is in many ways very good, but the build quality is spoilt by a stupid 2 cent saving in manufacture. The Output RCA terminals, instead of a proper sleeve that grips the inner contact, is just a hole in a piece of plastic with a small spring loaded contact that must press against the inner connector as it is pushed in. If your RCA cable has a slightly undersize inner connector, as many are because there seems to be no standard, that will not happen reliably and you will get hum, deafening hum, clicks and all sorts. So you have to look for RCA cables with fat inner connectors. Ah, but not too fat, or they won't fit in the hole. An excellent example of stupid cost saving in manufacture fitting sub-standard connectors and spoiling a good product.

I had this item in my wishlist for a long time and finally bought it. Totally worth its price. I use it with Audio Technica M20x monitor headphones and it's a very good combination.

review: Ultra-Low Latency 2 In/2 Out USB/Audio Interface with Digital Output Got this to do a quick and simple job recording vinyls to my laptop. Stereo L/R recording works. sample rate 48khz at 16bit res. Auto detected driver from win10. Matched it with free software Audacity. Initially had trouble recording stereo -- kept recording in mono. Ended up being windows not audacity . The trick for me was to CLOSE software (audacity) then open windows Sound manager -> Recording -> Mic properties -> Advanced -> pick a TWO CHANNEL recording format mode. For some strange reason when the driver auto installed, it picked ONE CHANNEL MONO recording only. And no matter what i did in Audacity, it would only record MONO. This trick allowed me to record in independent L / R channels. I was about to return this product as a defect until i realised this wasnt setup properly by default. Anyway, a few things about this product 1. nice clean simply recording -- i have no complaints. I wouldnt call this the most cleaning audio interface (like my steinberg box) but for the size and portability, its darn good. 2. headphone direct monitoring with no latency -- nice that it has this switch. very handy when youre trying to monitor the recording. 3. Also used as a DAC so you can OUtPUT to the audio interface to send the audio to external amp (via output RCA ) or just headphones from the unit 4. Headphone DAC has a small dial to control volume of headphone monitoring (nice!) for the price, portability, and function, this cannot be beat.

Einstecken und läuft. Treiber waren bei mir nicht nötig. Für den Preis bekommt man ein solides Interface mit Cinch-Ein- und -Ausgängen und Kopfhöreranschluss, ideal zum Digitalisieren oder als externe Soundkarte.

For this low price you get the interface you need to be able to play along with yourself with a guitar and an amp! Drivers installed this thing automatically in windows 7 and a few tweaks in Audacidy and you have it ready to record and monitor the input via headphones in real time as you are recording! This will eventually be used to connect my mixer (and drum machine(s) and bass and microphone(s) connected via said mixer) to my computer but I wanted to try a quick 20 minute or so trial run on said product and found it very easy to get an acceptable sound out of my guitar and amp with very little work. That is right, get a 1/4 in to rca cable and plug from your headphone out on your amp into the UCA 202 RCA input and click the monitor switch 'on' that is found on the UCA 202 and you will be able to hear your tone sound exactly like it will on audacity as it is being recorded! I was able to get the levels to an acceptable range so there was no distortion, connected everything up with the 202 from the amp and heard myself playing along with my self in 3 tracks in only 20 minutes. I will say that for my 5 year old laptop that there was a very small lag that can easily be corrected in audacity but there were no background hiss or buzz noises compared to when I input directly to the computer from amp or mixer. I can't wait to see what I can do with this thing once I get enough of a studio area set up, I recommend this for those that are recording on a budget to pair with other behringer products such as their mixers and headphone splitters. I may potentially use the headphone out to monitor the input of a full band so we can all hear one another live as we record through a mixer into the 202. This is my ideal set up for a band with a budget to record themselves: Use Audacity, get a mixer, mic/hook your band up to said mixer, input the mixer output into the UCA202 and have its headphone jack split into 4 (or more) using the Behringer HA400 4-Channel Stereo Headphone Amp. TADA! Everyone can hear themselves playing along in real time with what will be recorded! This thing may cater more to different crowds but if you want to have you own budget studio I think it can be done effectively using the process I listed above.

Ottimo prodotto, promesse mantenute a pieno. Su linux (Debian) non è secessario configurare nulla, lo colleghi ed è gia pronto. Lo uso per registrare la mia batteria acustica, lo collego all'uscita RCA di un mixer (Behringer UBB-1002 + set microfoni CAD 5 attivi,2 pan condensarore) e registro sul software Audacity. Il suono esce pulito, ho eliminato tutti i problemi di crepitii e lag della scheda embeded. Collego le anche cuffie per sentire la base e/o metronomo che suona separato dalla registrazione (sorgente audacity) Il cavo USB è sufficientemente lungo da tenere il laptop in posizione comoda rispetto al mixer e alle cuffie. Stavo valutando acquisti molto piu costosi e temevo di dover spendere altri soldi e invece lo portero anche in sala prove per registrare il gruppo.