faileas
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 25, 2010
- Posts
- 148
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- 10
I do a fair amount of recording of indian classical music for my mom, and i use a mbox2/shure sm57 combo for it. I figured i'd mess around with it and try to get it to work as a DAC/headphone amp. I don't have any 'proper' gear to compare it with, so i'll be comparing it to the output of the soundmax HD audio sound card of my laptop. The headphones i used to test are the HD202 (which i generally *hate* and lend to my mom during recording sessions, and the audiotechnica M50, which is what i generally use
I wouldn't suggest *buying* an mbox as your primary DAC/amp but if you have one lying around, it might be a way to get some extra milage off it
Hardware:USB for power/signal in , 2 sets of input jacks - line in, Direct Input and XLR, balanced monitor outputs (2x 1/4 inch mono) SPDIF co-axial in and out, 2x midi, 1x headphone (1/4 inch)/ I ONLY used the headphone jack. If you're a bit adventurous you can use the monitor outputs for balanced headphones, or for a normal one with a small hack involving airplane adaptors and 1/4->1/8 inch adaptors at your own risk.
Setup: you will need the ASIO plugin for foobar2000 as well as the protools wave drivers - If you have pro-tools installed, tell it NOT to replace the 'newer' drivers with the one you're installing when it asks. You will then need to go to 'preferences' and 'Output' and 'ASIO virtual devices' and add the mbox 2 device, and then select the mbox 2 as the output in 'Output'. At this point you should be good to go
Impressions: The issue i had with the HD202 as it was was... everything. after years with a eh150, the HD202 was inferior in every department - it was dull, lacked bass, and generally didn't sound like a pair of headphones should. With the mbox 2.. It nearly sounded as good as the old EH150s - very natural sounding bass, and generally more rich and lively.
With the M50s... It turned it up to 11- incredibly natural drums, a slightly wider soundstage and in general, it was almost like being there. (as a side note, i'm finding my sources seem more important in terms of quality than format/bitrate when i A/B. I should prolly borrow my brother for double blind testing ;p)
I 'tested' (by which i meant i blew an entire weekend morning listening to music ;p)with a pretty wide range of music from nirvana to Jasmin Levy, so... there's just too much to list- I just switched sources and jacks manually since i was doing it on my own
Issues: uses a hell of a lot of processor power - my core 2 2gb was using upwards of 50% of its processor- i suppose its cause of of the work is offloaded to the main processor. I also have my music on a shared/remote drive, which might contribute. I had no skipping or pauses, so it was no big deal. This is also less a portable than a luggable setup - the mbox isn't OMGHUGE, but its hardly pocketable.
Conclusions - I'm not going to recommend anyone go out and buy one of these- you can probably get an acceptable DAC/amp combo for about the same price or cheaper. If you do mixing/music production, and want to get a little more milage out of your mbox2, this is worth trying. I'd suppose that since a lot of production is done on protools and similar hardware to the mbox, though bigger, this might sound closer to the original, but i've never gotten past the home recording stage yet
(just another tiny note: for some reason volume control via the onboard sound knob on the mbox than the sound control on foobar yields better sound quality, subjectively. I'll have to poke around this in detail later, since i have a cold at the moment and its affecting how i hear things XD)
I wouldn't suggest *buying* an mbox as your primary DAC/amp but if you have one lying around, it might be a way to get some extra milage off it
Hardware:USB for power/signal in , 2 sets of input jacks - line in, Direct Input and XLR, balanced monitor outputs (2x 1/4 inch mono) SPDIF co-axial in and out, 2x midi, 1x headphone (1/4 inch)/ I ONLY used the headphone jack. If you're a bit adventurous you can use the monitor outputs for balanced headphones, or for a normal one with a small hack involving airplane adaptors and 1/4->1/8 inch adaptors at your own risk.
Setup: you will need the ASIO plugin for foobar2000 as well as the protools wave drivers - If you have pro-tools installed, tell it NOT to replace the 'newer' drivers with the one you're installing when it asks. You will then need to go to 'preferences' and 'Output' and 'ASIO virtual devices' and add the mbox 2 device, and then select the mbox 2 as the output in 'Output'. At this point you should be good to go
Impressions: The issue i had with the HD202 as it was was... everything. after years with a eh150, the HD202 was inferior in every department - it was dull, lacked bass, and generally didn't sound like a pair of headphones should. With the mbox 2.. It nearly sounded as good as the old EH150s - very natural sounding bass, and generally more rich and lively.
With the M50s... It turned it up to 11- incredibly natural drums, a slightly wider soundstage and in general, it was almost like being there. (as a side note, i'm finding my sources seem more important in terms of quality than format/bitrate when i A/B. I should prolly borrow my brother for double blind testing ;p)
I 'tested' (by which i meant i blew an entire weekend morning listening to music ;p)with a pretty wide range of music from nirvana to Jasmin Levy, so... there's just too much to list- I just switched sources and jacks manually since i was doing it on my own
Issues: uses a hell of a lot of processor power - my core 2 2gb was using upwards of 50% of its processor- i suppose its cause of of the work is offloaded to the main processor. I also have my music on a shared/remote drive, which might contribute. I had no skipping or pauses, so it was no big deal. This is also less a portable than a luggable setup - the mbox isn't OMGHUGE, but its hardly pocketable.
Conclusions - I'm not going to recommend anyone go out and buy one of these- you can probably get an acceptable DAC/amp combo for about the same price or cheaper. If you do mixing/music production, and want to get a little more milage out of your mbox2, this is worth trying. I'd suppose that since a lot of production is done on protools and similar hardware to the mbox, though bigger, this might sound closer to the original, but i've never gotten past the home recording stage yet
(just another tiny note: for some reason volume control via the onboard sound knob on the mbox than the sound control on foobar yields better sound quality, subjectively. I'll have to poke around this in detail later, since i have a cold at the moment and its affecting how i hear things XD)
