Hello everyone,
I wanted to contribute a bit to this rather rare thread because it does deserve more info that it currently has.
It's a shame Roland has not marketed the Mobile UA more.
A bit of background. I have been recently (as of the past year and a half or so) in high quality audio for post production and overall musical enjoyment purposes. Post production comes first and the need for flat, transparent gear is very important. Recently I have been looking at Audio Interfaces as a colleague's friend, an audio engineer, and another engineer I have recently met, have advised me to look into them. As per their profession requires, audio for production should be colourless, clear and as true as possible so as to be able to hear nuances, edit sound and mix appropiately.
Because my needs are rather simple (no inputs, just 2 outputs) I was advised to look into the Babyface Pro, Pro Tools Duet, Steinberg 22 mkII and the like (Apogee Duo is more Mac only and I use windows) and I started the search a couple of weeks ago. I currently own a Meridian Director and a Meridian Explorer 2 as DACs and a Beyerdyanmic A20 as amp. This is a far cry from the incredibly more expensive stuff you read about around here but I thought I should start somewhere and (by the way of the wording around here) the description of the sound of the Meridians gave the impression that they would be the most neutral for that price bracket and a good place to start. So, for all intents and purposes, my comparison today lies between the two USB DACs you see in the image above: the Mobile UA and the Explorer2.
The reason I got the Mobile UA is because I first read about the Super UA, the audio interface. Seeing that the Super UA is a relatively obscure audio interface, it is not so rare to also find that the Mobile UA is also a relatively obscure DAC/amp. It looks as if Roland has not marketed these two so well. BH Photo lists the Mobile UA as discontinued albeit it is still available at Thomann in Europe for 149Eur.
The reason I was attracted at the Super UA is not only because of the 2 output (actually 6 if you use the breakout box and headphones out) but also because it appeared to be competing straight against the Apogee Duet, Pro Tools Duet and Babyface Pro and Apollo Duo (both of the latter ones being highly regarded by many reviewers and other people that use these two. While apparently not having as much market penetration in the audio interface as RME, Steinberg or Apogee, Roland is well known and respected for the recording and production side of things. I actually use a Roland field recorder for my work (R-26 is anyone cares) as it has one of the best pre-amps available for field recorders compared to Tascam, Zoom and Olympus.
While the price of the Super UA is quite a bit high compared to Steinberg or Roland's own other interfaces, it is currently priced in the middle, a bit cheaper than the RME and Apollo Twin. In any case, it doesn't stop it from being quite a bit of money so, in order to at least give the DAC a bit of a test, I decided to get the Mobile UA as another head-fier here (
@raoultrifan) noted that the Mobile UA and the Super UA use the same DAC. ( http://www.head-fi.org/t/809906/roland-super-ua )
So, to the meat of it:
I spent the day comparing the two using ER4SR (my main work driver) and DT 1770 Pro. The Mobile UA, to me, is the more transparent of the 2. I can hear details easier with it in my own recordings (work 24bit 48khz recordings) when played through Auditon. The explorer2 is also bassier...or the bass is more pronounced and it seems to taint the sound more. The bass of the Mobile UA has more depth as do the high frequencies. It feels as if the Mobile UA has more depth of sound in both directions, a cleaner sound. Listening to music through Foobar also has this effect, but it really depends on what you are listening to to make that difference. A lot of mi collection is hard rock/metal music and sadly most of those albums are not well mastered so you cant hear any difference there. But the ones that are well mastered (like Nine Inch Nails' The Slip or, on the other spectrum, Buena Vista Social Club and Massive Attack) allow you to hear the difference well.
The differences are not as pronounced on the DT1770 as they are on the Etymotics.
I will keep on listening more tomorrow to confirm but it does look like I may be selling my Explorer2. Since I am looking for a work tool more than a collection of fun toys, the Mobile UA is the more useful one of the two as far as I can for now.