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Posted 20 hours ago

Zoom U-22 Handy Audio Interface

£9.9£99Clearance
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Unfortunately I didn't use it extensively — my audio projects are on hold for the moment. Thus means I haven't tried the line-in feature. The U22 features a single high-performance, low noise microphone preamp that you can use to connect to any microphone or line level-source using the XLR/TRS combo input. The input has both 48V Phantom power and Hi-Z support for high quality condensor microphones and guitar/bass respectively. The U22 is an ultra portable Audio Interface that's perfect for mobile recording and on the go performances. It features a 2in/2out configuration that you can connect to either a laptopor an iPhone/ipad (needslightning to USB cable)to capture and create great sounding audio, whatever the venue. Lefties — it's quite ambidextrous, the switches are at the right side, but it is not irritating, you use them in the beginning of the session anyway.

Having a flexible 2-channel audio interface that you can throw in a gig bag, has almost become a necessity for engineers and musicians alike. The Zoom U-22 is aiming at this market and could be one of the most compact options available. By offering the option to be USB bus-powered or powered from batteries, it also permits the interface to be used anywhere. This could be one of the most convenient solutions yet for recording a high-quality mic onto your iPad, in the middle of nowhere. no gain headroom for a condenser mic —it produces somewhat quiet recordings that need normalization. I use this audio interface when traveling. It can be battery-powered or USB powered and is extremely lightweight, especially without batteries. The dimensions make this one of the smallest sized audio interfaces available. Recording guitar and dynamic microphone is a straight forward job. The gain knob is around 6-7. I got mixed results with AKG P220 condenser, some nice, even though quiet, recordings in the studio and a lot of hiss outdoors "in a quiet forest". The gain is around 8. I bet it will benefit from a signal booster device. Overall, not a bad product at all, much better reliability & quality than similar behringer products. I got this during the great indian sale week, so it was discounted. Presently the MSRP for this product is very high, around Rs.9k, its not worth it at that price but at around 6k it's okay.

Highest Rated Reviews

You can even use the U22 as a studio-quality headphone amp to listen to your favourite music in full high fidelity sound I love the flexibility to play electric guitar outdoors (a passive one) with this device and a pair of headphones. Great tone detail! The U22 is not just designed for recording. You can also use the device as the interface to blast pre-recorded sounds to your fans when on stage. Just connect to your device of choice, and pull up software effects or performanceloops and you can send this processed signal to your mixer or the house PA via RCA stereo outputs.

Great product, especially at this price. I wanted to transfer some historical tape recordings to digital format. It supports 96kHz sampling rate with 24 bit accuracy. I marked it down a notch for audio quality as it does not support either 192kHz or 32 bit float, but you would not expect this at this price point. 96kHz is more than adequate for just about any semi=por or domestic use case, so not a practical issue at all. No problems using it. I wish we could use the line input & mic/xlr input simultaneously, hence one less star. Its not noisy, it could use a little more output since it's not loud enough sometimes with earphones. Feature wise its okay, handy to carry around for on the spot recordings of ideas through iPad or laptop.

MEDIA

Robustness is fine for domestic/semi-pro usage, but I don't think it would stand up to professional use for that long, but at this price point you would not expect it to.

I love the three power source option — USB 2.0 type-B port for data transfer and bus power, power only 5 V micro-USB type-B (you probably have a charger with this port laying around, unless you are strictly an Apple user), and 2 AA batteries (choose good rechargeable ones and you will go a long way). I also own the Zoom H1n and Zoom H7. This U-22 has a similar sound quality as the H7. I prefer to take an XLR mic, XLR cable and this U-22 along with a desktop folding mic stand as my travel setup. I have found the H7 overkill for most projects because my podcast, audio and video needs usually involve 1 mic. The H7 microphone quality is good but running the U-22 with an XLR mic gives me better results. We also wanted to be "future-proof" in using these for other projects in the classrooms, such as video voice-overs, music production, and so on. The other features of the U-22 were not needed at this time, such as the optional 5V power input, RCA out, iOS support, or the link to Ableton Live Lite, but it's nice to know they're there. Only USB host controllers with Intel Chipsets are supported. Operation is not guaranteed when used with USB hubs or expansioncards.

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