Pro Audio on Any Budget

Most Internet discussions about pro audio interfaces and playback systems, such as headphones and near-field monitors (speakers) will feature several people recommending the following. You will also probably see a lot of “influencers” using this gear.

Popular gear debunked!

• DT 770 Pro = I call this the AK-47 of headphones. They are incredibly realiable and difficult to break. They are not accurate at all. There are tons of mods for them, and they are easy to fix. They are great in the recording booth. Do not use them for mixing and mastering! They have a very “V-shaped” curve, poor response in the highs, a huge hump in the low-end, and poor sub bass. They are not bad headphones. Everyone should own a pair of DT770 Pros! Use them in the recording booth. I’ve used them as DJ headphones and they did well in that role. Do not use them for mixing, mastering, or anything where you need accuracy or “flat and neutral” headphones. They are incredibly comfortable, even if you wear glasses.
• Sony MDR-7506 = Another “V-shaped” response curve. The low-end is too boosted, and suffers from excessive distortion. The high end has peaks at about 3 kHz, 5 kHz, and 7 kHz. This often sounds like “treble harshness”. This can be useful for exposing problems in these frequency ranges. However, this makes them far from “relatively flat and neutral”. They are also relatively uncomfortable.
• Audio-Technica M50/M50x/M40/M40x. = See all of the above.
• KRK monitors = Visit some pro studios and see if any of them are using KRK monitors. You’ll see Gelelec, Focal, Barefoot, Adam, and even Yamaha, but never KRK. KRK are like the Beats headphones, Kimber .45 pistols, Technics turntables, Pioneer mixers, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, of near-field monitors: they spend more on marketing than on actually making a solid product, and people who have never used anything better will be impressed.
• Focusrite Scarlett audio interfaces = Ask anyone who recommends these if they have used several superior options from Audient, SSL, MOTU, Topping, RME, etc. That will tell you all you need to know. Focusrite Scarlett products are notorious for broken SRC, low headphone power, high distortion, and infamously bad ASIO drivers. At the same price point, many better options exist from MOTU, Audient, SSL, Topping, ZOOM, and Arturia (just to name a few).

  Low Budget

  ASIO interface (output only)

  While all of these DAC/amps have no inputs, they provide impressive ASIO performance, audio quality, and power:

• JCally JM12 flashed with FiiO JA11 firmware+ FiiO official ASIO driver = an incredibly good ASIO driver, plus a DAC/amp which can drive most headphones and all IEMs, for about $10 USD.
• TempoTec Sonata BHD Pro + Official ASIO driver = dual Cirrus Logic CS43198 chips pushing an incredible amount of power which can drive even the most demanding headphones. The only poor reviews on Amazon are basically “this DAC/amp uses more power than my weak phone can provide”, which is a roundabout compliment!
• DEW4X + Steinberg generic ASIO driver = One of the best dual Cirrus Logic 3.5mm unbalanced + 4.4mm balanced DAC/amps out there. It achieves better latency with the Steinberg generic ASIO driver than some competitors achieve with their official ASIO drivers!

  IEMs

  All of these IEMs are basically the same thing: incredibly close compliance with the Harman curve, relatively “flat and neutral”, superior fidelity compared to the DT770 Pro and similar highly recommended budget pro headphones, and a price point around $30 USD:

• 7Hz Zero:2
• Tanchjim Bunny
• Kiwi Ears Cadenza

  Mid Budget

  Audio Interfaces

• MOTU M2 = DC coupled outputs so you can use them for CV/gate
• MOTU M4 = better audio quality than the M2, plus more inputs and outputs. It’s so good I bought it twice!
• Audient iD4 MK2
• SSL 2+
• Topping E2X2, E4X4, E22 OTG, E4X4 OTG = Topping are famous for their powerful DAC/amps, and they deliver top-tier headphone outputs.
• ZOOM UAC-232 = the noise floor is not as good as some competitors, but the 32-bit floating-point format and dual ADCS make this the perfect audio interface for field recordings and high dynamic range content.
• Arturia Minifuse series = basically the same hardware as the Focusrite Scarlett equivalents, but with a better ASIO driver, from a more reliable company.

  Headphones

• HD600 = the gold standard.
• FiiO FT1 Pro
• Hifiman Sundara

  High Budget

• RME Babyface Pro (and literally everything from RME) = RME create their own customized USB drivers to ensure that they have the most optimized latency stats of any vendor on the planet. They support their products long beyond what anyone else offers. You could buy an RME from 10 years ago and have zero issues today. This is arguably the apex, the best that money can buy.
• Metric Halo = similar to RME, but with modular designs.

  Avoid Antlion / Aardvark / whatever the third company’s name will be!

  Antlion Audio is so infamous for terrible customer support and generally not supporting their products that Sweetwater had a web page explaining why they stopped carrying the company’s products. The guy who runs the company is a genius when it comes to making world-class converters. He fails at everything else. Screenshot this page when you buy Antlion Audio, and then pull it back up when you experience what every one of their customers has to deal with after a few years.