Best portable USB audio interface to go for?

I would get one of the NI Traktor, Audio 6 or even Audio 2 if you could live with those few inputs.

I was using a Maya 44 and that thing rocked. Same price range as the Audio 2 which I tried first I had a ton of problems with sound quality. I found out later they could have been fixed with a bunch of tinkering around but the Maya worked like a champ out of the box.

4 Analog Out and 4 Analog In, easily configurable with Traktor. Of course I’m still pretty new to all this so other peeps might have better reasoned suggestions.

If you want sound cards with decent pre-amps stay away from the NI’s and such. They are strictly stereo channel sound cards as far as I know (the DJ range obviously).

Hard to advice, lots of it is personal preference.

If you said something about budget I missed it. That is a rather important contributing factor I would say.

The double stereo out is the biggest catch.

Motu, presonus, lexicon are all nice brands that make cards in many configurations. Yamaha, Roland are others to look at.

Good luck.

Greetinx,
C.

Ok … help me out here. What pre-amp are you referring to? Generally when referring to a preamp in a sound card, we are talking about the mic preamp. Please beware that not all signal levels are the same. Unbalanced runs from -10dB to 0dB, Balanced outputs are typically +4dB to give you an example.

So depending on what you connect to what and with what cables level differences might become an issue. This has nothing to do with preamps.

The more I read your OP, the more confused I get. Do you have a sketch of how you think your future setup should be?
Tell us what you have (or want) connected to what and how and perhaps we can shed some more light on the matter.

Also I am a bit at a loss why you would need the iPhone to create a hotspot? The laptop probably has wifi and should be able to build up a wifi hotspot (might need a tool like connectify = a software router or something, not up to date on the current ones). So scratch the iPhone :-).

Greetinx,
C.

Assuming both your soundcard outputs and the inputs on your Xone are RCA and you are using a good cable, I don’t see any reason why you would not have a clean 0dB output from the sound card. That would translate to a 12 o’clock gain setting on the Xone.

Sounds like you are not sending a 0dB master out from AL9 and the broadcasting programs to the sound card and/or your sound card might be sending out -10dB while the Xone is rigged for 0dB input. That would explain you having to turn the gain almost all the way up (according to the faceplate +10dB) to match out at 0dB.

In the latter case, you’d want to make sure that the output level on the RCA’s on your external soundcard is of the 0dB variety. Alternatively, if you get a (semi)pro soundcard with XLR out, they should run at +4dB. Use an XLR to RCA cable and you should be smoking.

Greetinx,
C.

I understand where you are coming from, however a preamp is something that sits BEFORE any of the signal processing. Without going into details, the summing amp is what combines all the various signals in the sound card and delivers the output signal. It determines output level available.

So I get what you mean, just had me confused with the term preamp as a preamp has nothing to do with the loudness of the output signal.

Here’s some specs:
[SIZE=20px]Analogue Audio Outputs 1-2 (¼” TRS)[/SIZE]

• Electronically Balanced Outputs
• Maximum Output Level (0dBFS): +9 dBu
• THD+N: 0.0025% (0 dBFS input, 20Hz/22kHz bandpass filter)

[SIZE=20px]Analogue Audio Outputs 1-4 (RCA phono)[/SIZE]

• Unbalanced Outputs
• Maximum output level (0dBFS): -3.5 dBu
• THD+N: 0.03% (0 dBFS input, 20Hz/20kHz bandpass filter)

As you can tell the RCA are not as hot as the Jacks, but at -3.5 should not require so much gain on the Xone:4D. If you only need one stereo output, using the jacks with jack to rca cables would give you a serious boost in signal theoretically.
I am wondering. What are the settings for the monitor and mix knobs on the focusrite?
Greetinx,
C.