# My take on Behringer UMC202HD



## pderbidge

Recently my 1rst Gen Scarlett 2i2 was causing major freezes when mixing. I tried 2nd Gen drivers which helped but didn't solve the problem completely. It is likely that the hardware is just getting old or my new system build and software just doesn't play nice with the drivers. Whatever the case I was forced to use my backup travel interface- the Behringer UMC202HD. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by this affordable little beast. The preamps are every bit as good as the ones in the Scarlett if not a bit more detailed. The Scarlett has a bit more warmth but not so much so that plugins couldn't make up the difference with the "midas" designed pre's. Of course these aren't likely the same quality as Midas boards but I'm pretty sure they are the same pre's used in the Behringer x series consoles. There are some cheaper Behringer interfaces that I would not reccomend but don't confuse those with this HD series.

Before I get to the good, I'll mention a couple of drawbacks. The 202hd only does stereo direct monitoring which means if you are a singer and you need to monitor your vocals then you will either hear yourself only in the left or right ear depending on the preamp you are plugged into. The 204HD solves this with a button that allows you to choose mono monitoring. The other downside is that even the 404HD does not have a line input that bypasses the preamp. This means if you want to use an external high end preamp and you plugin to the line input on the combo jack, the signal is still passing through the preamp. Most Audio Interfaces are like this (except for the new 3rd Gen Scarletts). Aside from the Scarletts it's safest to look for an interface with line inputs that are separate from the combo jacks you see on the front. Many people feel the issue is overblown since the preamps on these interfaces are fairly transparent and should not add color or noise when passing through the preamp at 0db. Still, it would be more ideal to have line inputs on the back of the interface rather than inserts that Behringer adds to the 204HD and the 404HD. Speaking of inserts, you can actually use them as a line input (using a TRS cable half plugged in depending on the external preamp output tip ring sleeve configuration) but it would not be a balanced input in this scenario.

Now onto the good.

1. Preamps. They sound great
2. EIN (the noise floor of the preamps)- This measurement is not spec'd by Behringer (go figure) but others have measured this response and it is an amazing -129db or more. That's a better EIN than a lot of more costly interfaces.
3. The AD/DA converters are really good. Once again some measurements I've read about in independent tests show that these are some really good converters.
4. Gain- Gain is decent. It's about 51db and anything above 50 is decent. Good enough for most decent mics without getting too noisy when the gain is turned up. Sure it would be nice if it was 70db or more but considering it's price point 51db is quite acceptable. To give you a reference the Audient ID4's are 58db of Gain.
5. Latency. I measured Latency of my unit to be 6.9ms at 64 samples(That's Round Trip Latency). Reaper reports 2.8ms. At 512 samples Round Trip I get 29ms (Reaper reports 12ms). That's really good. Just a bit slower than the Focusrite 3rd Gen at 64 samples where I believe RTL is around 6ms but actually waay better than the Focusrite's 48ms at 512 samples which actually matters to me more since I mix at higher buffers.
6. Last, but not least and probably most important to me are the drivers. The drivers are rock solid and I've not had a single issue with stability which mirrors all the other reviews I've read on this thing.


So Here's my take. If you want an interface under $150 I think the Behringer is the way to go but get at least the 204hd for the more versatile direct monitoring options. If you're willing to stretch it out I think the new Audient ID4 is the next step up worth paying for. It has a little bit better preamps wich are not night and day difference but the Latency at 512 samples is around 26ms which is up there with RME. The Latency on the Audients used to be bad but the new drivers have solved this. Less inputs than a 404HD though and a 404HD costs less than $150. Also bear in mind that the ID4 does not use the Burr Brown converters that are raved about on their bigger brothers.

If you're willing to spend $300 or more then things get more competitive and options start to open up a bit but for under $200 I think it's hard to beat the Behringer. After my experience I've decided to upgrade to the 404HD for more inputs and mostly for the ability to do mono direct monitoring. My next step will be to get an external preamp- probably gonna start with the Golden Age Pre-73 to have something with a little color while my Midas pre's will be my transparent pre's for now.


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## Pictus

Thank you for the report!









Budget DAC Review: behringer UMC204HD


Regular readers of this forum know that we have been searching for an excellent performing DAC for under $100. So far we have not found it. All DACs tested underperformed my reference, the iFi iDAC2 ($350). If you missed them, here is the review of Schiit Modi 2...




www.audiosciencereview.com


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## oxo

i use the UMC202HD for quite a long time. also with reaper. but can not confirm your joy with the driver. on my system i get crackle very early. often even if only one software instrument is played.
with my old soundblaster card and its outdated drivers, i could drive in the same sytem many tracks at the same time before it began to crackle (same latency/samples settings like today with the UMC202HD).
i currently use the UMC202HD only for voice recordings. for a real work with the DAW (several tracks with orchestra libraries, synth, etc.) the driver is hardly usable for me.


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## pderbidge

oxo said:


> i use the UMC202HD for quite a long time. also with reaper. but can not confirm your joy with the driver. on my system i get crackle very early. often even if only one software instrument is played.
> with my old soundblaster card and its outdated drivers, i could drive in the same sytem many tracks at the same time before it began to crackle (same latency/samples settings like today with the UMC202HD).
> i currently use the UMC202HD only for voice recordings. for a real work with the DAW (several tracks with orchestra libraries, synth, etc.) the driver is hardly usable for me.


Sorry to hear that. Are you on a Mac, Windows 7, windows 10...?


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## pderbidge

Pictus said:


> Thank you for the report!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Budget DAC Review: behringer UMC204HD
> 
> 
> Regular readers of this forum know that we have been searching for an excellent performing DAC for under $100. So far we have not found it. All DACs tested underperformed my reference, the iFi iDAC2 ($350). If you missed them, here is the review of Schiit Modi 2...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.audiosciencereview.com


Good review. The Behringer is not without it's flaws such as the signal level readout being only a green led and a red led clip indicator. That part is a bit of a joke but also something that isn't hard to get used to. I do wish they would have opted for line inputs on the back of the 404hd instead of the inserts and the extra playback output that just mimics the main outs. Dedicated line inputs would make this thing a no brainer.


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## oxo

pderbidge said:


> Are you on a Mac, Windows 7, windows 10...?



windwos 10


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## Pier

Pictus said:


> Thank you for the report!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Budget DAC Review: behringer UMC204HD
> 
> 
> Regular readers of this forum know that we have been searching for an excellent performing DAC for under $100. So far we have not found it. All DACs tested underperformed my reference, the iFi iDAC2 ($350). If you missed them, here is the review of Schiit Modi 2...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.audiosciencereview.com



I read that report some time ago and I was pretty impressed.

It seems these last years Behringer is transforming itself. I remember some 10-15 years ago Behringer was considered the absolute low end in audio stuff.


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## pderbidge

Pier Bover said:


> I read that report some time ago and I was pretty impressed.
> 
> It seems these last years Behringer is transforming itself. I remember some 10-15 years ago Behringer was considered the absolute low end in audio stuff.


Acquiring Midas was definitely a step up for Behringer, however even before that Acquisition they had a few gems like the DEQ and DCX stuff that was uniqe to Behringer, engineered from the ground up while a lot of their other stuff were low cost copy cats of the competition at a cheaper price with inferior build quality thus giving them a bad name.

After bringing in Midas the X series digital mixers are great and in fact can be great affordable alternatives to some of the other higher end audio interfaces out there. They just get overlooked because they are marketed more to the live sound market but their low latency stats look to be on par with RME and Motu.


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## Pictus

oxo said:


> windwos 10



Check this https://vi-control.net/community/th...for-music-production-2019.83462/#post-4411435


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## pderbidge

Pictus said:


> Check this https://vi-control.net/community/th...for-music-production-2019.83462/#post-4411435


Also consider trying the WDM drivers. They might be more stable and some have even reported lower latency with the WDM drivers in Win10 but that has not been the case in my testing. WDM was actually quite a bit higher latency than ASIO for me and even the WASAPI drivers were lower latency so maybe Win10 updates and Behringer driver updates have changed this but it might be worth trying. You can easily test your latency with a free tool from here https://www.oblique-audio.com/free/rtlutility.


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## pderbidge

I will add the Scarlett Solo as another good budget friendly alternative to the Behringer. I just noticed that the Instrument input can also be switched to become a line input. This is actually huge for people who want to use external Preamps, and it's cheaper than the Behringer abliet less inputs and outputs. The only reason I favor the Behringer is because it's low latency performance is better at 512 samples than the Scarlett. The Scarlett has better RTL performance at 64 samples but I don't mix at that setting and since a lower RTL actually does help when using virtual instruments I appreciate that the Behringer performs better at the higher buffer setting. When I record vocals I use the zero latency monitoring so the low buffer is not as important to me especially since I'm usually tracking a vocal over a full mix of vi's and plugins. If you "start" with a guitar and vocals then I can see the low buffer settings being enticing.


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## pderbidge

oxo said:


> i use the UMC202HD for quite a long time. also with reaper. but can not confirm your joy with the driver. on my system i get crackle very early



Sorry to hear that. I will get a click and pop once in a while when switching from my DAW to another application but that's sort of inherent to the ASIO drivers dedicating themselves to one program at a time. During a mix I will occasionally get a bit of a stutter (like once during playback) when I'm pushing things hard ( a lot of tracks and a lot of plugins) but I'd rather that than having the system freeze and hang on me causing me to force close which is what I was getting with my 1rst Gen Scarlett. I'm sure this is not an issue on the newer Scarlett interfaces though.


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## pderbidge

One other con I find with the UMC202HD is that the main outputs are not as hot as I would like them to be. This means that I have to turn my JBL LSR305's up a bit more than usual. It works but turning them up does expose the hiss from the monitors a bit but not enough to be bothersome. The behringer output I believe is set at 0db whereas a lot of other interfaces have at least a +4db output. I have never actually measured the noise level on the JBL's so I'm wondering if this could be tamed with a power conditioner or a a decent Furman power bar but if it's just inherent to the speakers, which I think it is then an interface with a stronger output would be more suitable to these monitors. To be clear, I had about the same results with my first gen scarlett, which were also known to be fairly low in output. The good news is that the headphone out on the Behringer is much louder than the old Scarlett. The 1rst Gen Scarlett's were just not the greatest for headphone monitoring. I also had read that the AD converters on the Behringer were much better than the DA converters. To me the AD converters are the most important because that is what your DAW is going to be seeing and recording and then mix down will just be in the box so no effect of the DA converters on your mix. The DA's will just be noticed more on the output to your Monitors by someone with super critical ears if they are used to high end interfaces with nice DA's.

Edit: Behringer Specs show a +3dbu output and most standards are I think around +4dbu so the Behringer doesn't seem all that bad. The specs on the new Maudio Air units show +7. The only issue is it's hard to trust Behringer specs since they tend to be wrong more often than not so I go off of tests that others have done. Nevertheless my listening tests (which is not very scientific) tells me that the main outputs are similar to the first gen Scarletts whereas the Headphone outputs are a bit higher than my Scarlett. The preamp gain on the Behringer is higher than the first Gen Scarlett at over 51db vs the Scarletts +46db. Of course the new Scarletts are +56db


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## pderbidge

As I prepare to get a new interface so I don't have to unhook my travel interface when I'm on the go I see that M-audio has a new Air Interface. I've had hit and miss results with M-audio but the latency on these new USB-C interfaces look really promising and if the drivers are as solid as my old 2496 then I'd be really interested in it.
Eventually I need to upgrade to something with more input and output capabilities and these are on my shortlist:

Audient ID14- Good price for USB
Presonus Quantum 2 22x24 - heard great things about this one and is Thunderbolt but it is more money than the Audient and also better RTL likely due to Thunderbolt.
RME HDSPe RayDAT - I prefer PCIe even more than TB but the price is a bit steep. Too bad my Motherboard doesn't have PCI slots to support those cheaper RME cards and I'm not sure if the PCI to PCIe adapters would cause issues or not. Still, it looks as though the new Presonus Quantum interfaces might have RME beat on RTL, at least in the under $1k category.

The more I look at it I think the Presonus is the clear winner in the $600 price range. Too bad their studio line doesn't seem to hold up on RTL. I'd really like to explore these new M-audio interfaces a bit more because they look like they could be a real price contender where it seems they are actually taking advantage of the USB-C spec and not just running at 2.0 speeds over a USB-C cable but still the advantage to also be backwards compatible at 2.0 speeds if you don't have USB-C, albiet I'm sure at a hit in latency vs connecting to USB-C. Of course this could all be hype and I could be wrong about this.

Edit: Looking at the Maudio Air specs there doesn't seem to be any particular spec that outshines the Behringer other than the Main Outputs, which is nice but only if the preamps are able to match the quality of the Behringer preamps which are actually pretty nice. Also if the low latency is half (which is not likely) of what the Behringer can handle then it would be worth a look.


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## pderbidge

One more con to be aware of is the Behringer THD. They don't list them in their specs but the link below is a test that someone did on the 404HD. The moral of the story is that the 1/4 inch outputs seem to have higher harmonic distortion than the XLR outputs. The XLR's seem to be on par with THD+N of the Focusrite so the best results will be using the XLR outputs. I don't know if this would be the same as the 202 or 204HD and the number of in and outs plus extra preamps may contribute to this issue on the 404HD so it may not be an issue for the other two models which I hope is the case since the 202 and 204 do not have XLR outputs.

See test done here:


Edit: Also, I've read the Headphone outputs aren't the same quality as the main outs so high fidelity is not the forte of the headphone out, although I think that's true of most all of the headphone outs on these budget interfaces and have heard even similar complaints about some higher end gear like some of the RME models. Good news is there are enough outputs on the Behringer that one could get a decent headphone amp like either a a SMSL SAP2 for only $67 or a $100+ preamp like the Magni 3 or go with a more pro one like the Presonus , ART or go really high end and get a Neve headphone amp for $500 which might seem crazy to spend to use with this interface but you'll have a better headphone mixing experience forevermore regardless of what interface you upgrade to. For headphone monitoring purposes the Behringer headphone output does just fine and I'm sure that it will work just as well for mixing as any under $300 interface. I'd be willing to bet that even the under $500 interface headphone outputs aren't all that great in comparison, maybe slightly better. For me, I use my JBL speakers to mix and only use the headphones to get a different point of view at times so the built in headphone amp is just as good if not better than my old Focusrite. I think I might get the SMSL SAP2 since it's fairly inexpensive and see if I get a better headphone mixing experience. I even wonder if Behringer's own $24 headphone amp is better than the built in one. I'd better not get too carried away cause I need to save up for either a Golden Age Pre 73 or a Warm Audio Tone Beast to have something different to use on main vocals when I feel it's warranted.


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