This thing is great. I needed to bypass my crappy soundcard on my PC in order to record high quality stereo audio onto my computer for a podcast. I had just shelled out $80 for the Inport Deluxe package from Xitel, which is basically a little analog-audio-to-USB adapter box similar to this, with a long audio cable and some bad software thrown in to justify the steep pricetag. Luckily I saved the receipt on the Inport and was able to take it back after discovering this item, which you can find for about $30 all over the internet.
The UCA202 has a headphone jack with a volume control so you can monitor what's being recorded to your computer, as you record it. Just be aware that you won't be able to listen to the playback from your audio recording software through your computer's monitor speakers unless you unplug this device from your USB port first, and there is no warning about this in the manual, which is why the 4 star review instead of 5. On some review sites there seemed to be confusion about what drivers were required to work with this device, but the first page of the manual states clearly that you don't need any drivers. I am running Windows XP and was able to just plug and play, no drivers needed, audio is loud and clear. By the way this is not a paid endorsement or anything, I just wanted to spare someone else a lot of the research time that I spent by saying, go ahead and get it.
Oh and of course you do need a good audio recording software like ProTools, Sound Forge, or Cubase to do a decent job of recording audio on your computer and letting you edit it and manipulate it with professional sounding results. If you are recording audio from a turntable (digitizing your LP collection) don't forget that you need some sort of preamp or tuner amp between the phonograph and this device. The output straight out of your turntable is too weak a signal to drive this device.
A grateful shout-out and mad props for this device go the Germans at Behringer, who designed it. Behringer U Control UCA202 USB Audio Interface
I agree with the other reviewers with one exception. I recommend that a buyer download the driver provided at behringer.com. While UCA202 works without the driver, its capabilities are expanded and the user can better manage them with the driver. If you think it is good without the drivers, try it with them. By the way it also works with Vista.
I got this after purchasing a competitor's similar device (iMic) and finding poor reviews from audio purists about that model. This Behringer model had good reviews and was a similar price to I got one to try. It works well and has more rugged construction.
When I first set it up, it did not allow monitoring except through headphones. On my Windows XP system, I went to Control Panel and opened Sounds and Audio Devices. Then clicked the Audio tab and changed the Sound Playback device to the usual system device instead of the USB device that was apparently setup when this was installed. Then the music that was being recorded played through the computer speakers fine and that setting stayed when I closed the program and restarted. This was using Audacity for recording.
This product works precisely as advertised. I use it to record my LPs to MP3 then import into iTunes. I have my old turntable feeding into a pre-amp, then from the pre-amp to this devise, which in turn plugs into one of my computer's USB ports. I use "Spin-it-again" software to capture the music files and save them to MP3 format. This set up was much cheaper than buying one of those USB turntables since I already had my old turntable. Good Luck.
I bought this device to do audio recording and it works super for me for that. I've nothing to add to the other positive reviews in this regard except to emphasize that you need some sort of pre-amp to get the signal to line-level, and that the recording level will be controlled by whatever device you have to do that -- I use a Behringer mixer.
What I do want to add is that I discovered that it is also a superb digital to audio converter. Which is to say that, when listening to mp3s or web radio, or watching videos, the audio output through it is much, much better than that from the output jacks on on-board sound cards. What had sounded harsh and tinny now sounds musical and warm, and I've found this so with both a HP laptop and a Dell desktop, whether using headphones plugged into the UCA202's headphone-jack, or listening to a stereo system plugged into its RCA output jacks. The $30 that it cost would have been well spent for this improvement in audio output alone!
I just want to ditto everything Brother Russell had to say about this device (see above). I too, searched high an low for a simple device to do good quality recording. Noone reccommended this to me, even when I went to the pro guy at the music store and told him that all I needed was something basic. All he had to reccomend to me was about $400 worth of gear...not what I was looking for. I ended up stumbling upon it on the www on my own.
As a side note to the above review, great audio recording/editing software can be had for free at [...]. I've been using it for my basic recording and have found it most competent.
It isn't rich on features, but it gets the job done. If you're looking for a cheap recording device, this is fairly good for being only $30. It's not great as a system sound card, because it's pretty limited to the amount of work it can do, but if you need something to record with and already have a sound card, this should be great for you. If you're running Linux, it's supported in ALSA, but you don't have a lot you can do with it at a time. Overall it's good for what you're paying.
Can't beat the price to skip crappy soundcards and 3.5 mm jacks to squeeze sound out of the computer, with no additional power source or weird cables required.
Instructions attached are useless, so be advised that some experimenting and exploring will be needed. In a Mac, under the "sounds" button of the control panel, you have to choose USB Codec as output.
Ergonomics are odd, but really not an issue since you rarely get to manipulate this gadget. - Recording - Audio - Behringer - Usb'
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