Interface for driving k702 akg

[Bradley1602]

Good Evening,

I bought the akg k702.
They're a pleasant surprise after years of shit cans.


So I'm very very very happy with them.

Just I make music a lot on the couch.
I know that's it's own topic.
But because of certain health problems I can't sit on the desk too much.
I don't want to explain this topic more. Sorry.
If anyone really wants to talk w me about health in personal matter pm me.

So back to topic.

I am on the couch a lot while making techno and shit and I use k702.
Using the fiio fuyiama straight from my macbook no soundcard involved most of the time.
It works but I want to change things.
I get mad about cableclutter and too many devices.
Want a minimal portable setup

I want a soundcard thats small and portable and drives my headphones very well without the need for an extra headamp like the fii o-
And I want to record drum machine hits into it. So it should sound good while recording stuff on one channel. I only need one channel-
I thought of the new ssl 2 or maybe a volt card from uad.

Any suggestions guys? Or your experiences w making music on couches or the mentionend interfaces?

Thanks girls and guys.

[Bradley1602]

Also what do you thin about audient id4?
Or ni soundcards?
Motu m2?
I dont want to go w behringer focusrite or steinberg only bad experience w soundcard of each a the brands...

[Boiled Egg]

I had a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 (1st gen) and the headphone amp didn't cut it for those cans. Introduced a lot of noise when getting them to a suitable level - and I dont go loud with headphones.

I had an Audient iD22 after that and the headphone amp in that was pretty good, plenty of juice to drive the K702 and infinitely cleaner than the Scarlett. I really liked that interface. It sounded great in and out. However, it did suffer a catastrophic failure and had to go back to the factory for repair. It seems a lot of this model suffered from poor reliability but luckily mine failed with 1 month left on its 3yr warranty so it didn't cost me to get it repaired. This was the 1st generation so I'm sure some improvements have been made in the later versions.

I now have a Focusrite Clarett 8pre USB and that has a really good headphone amp. I only have it at about 50% and its plenty loud enough and my levels in the box are pretty conservative too. I'm fairly confident it will drive cans with a much higher imdepence fairly comfortably too. I'm really happy with this interface and have no desire to upgrade further. I would definitely recommend a Clarett if they make a version compact enough to meet your needs.

[Bradley1602]

I had a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 (1st gen) and the headphone amp didn't cut it for those cans. Introduced a lot of noise when getting them to a suitable level - and I dont go loud with headphones.

I had an Audient iD22 after that and the headphone amp in that was pretty good, plenty of juice to drive the K702 and infinitely cleaner than the Scarlett. I really liked that interface. It sounded great in and out. However, it did suffer a catastrophic failure and had to go back to the factory for repair. It seems a lot of this model suffered from poor reliability but luckily mine failed with 1 month left on its 3yr warranty so it didn't cost me to get it repaired. This was the 1st generation so I'm sure some improvements have been made in the later versions.

I now have a Focusrite Clarett 8pre USB and that has a really good headphone amp. I only have it at about 50% and its plenty loud enough and my levels in the box are pretty conservative too. I'm fairly confident it will drive cans with a much higher imdepence fairly comfortably too. I'm really happy with this interface and have no desire to upgrade further. I would definitely recommend a Clarett if they make a version compact enough to meet your needs.

Thanks for your thoughts.
Hm I'd love to have an audient interface just caus they look so sleek. That also counts for me. I want something thats nice to use, caus an interface, no matter what you do you use it nearly every day. Or so it is in my case. Interface I almost consider as the center of my digital life.

I'll look into clarett. My scarlett interface broke down a few years ago. Then I got steinberg ur22. What a bad choice.

hahaha steinberg is the ultimate failure in music production. Cubase bad, interface sucks. Nothing left...

[Bradley1602]

Hm maybe I should explain my needs:

Make music with headphones on the couch. Ocassionally record a drum machine kick or tom hit.

Thats it.

But I want my drum hits to sound reasonably good and not like they have been recorded with complete crap gear like they sound when I use the ur22 to record my jomox mbase hits.

Do I need to consider an extra preamp for good drum machine recording?
Just in theory, what do you need to make your drum hits sound like goldbaby?
Just nice and clean and no noise...


Maybe I'm all wrong
please feel free to correct

[Bradley1602]

I had a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 (1st gen) and the headphone amp didn't cut it for those cans. Introduced a lot of noise when getting them to a suitable level - and I dont go loud with headphones.

I had an Audient iD22 after that and the headphone amp in that was pretty good, plenty of juice to drive the K702 and infinitely cleaner than the Scarlett. I really liked that interface. It sounded great in and out. However, it did suffer a catastrophic failure and had to go back to the factory for repair. It seems a lot of this model suffered from poor reliability but luckily mine failed with 1 month left on its 3yr warranty so it didn't cost me to get it repaired. This was the 1st generation so I'm sure some improvements have been made in the later versions.

I now have a Focusrite Clarett 8pre USB and that has a really good headphone amp. I only have it at about 50% and its plenty loud enough and my levels in the box are pretty conservative too. I'm fairly confident it will drive cans with a much higher imdepence fairly comfortably too. I'm really happy with this interface and have no desire to upgrade further. I would definitely recommend a Clarett if they make a version compact enough to meet your needs.

May I ask why you chose the clarett interface? and when?

[Boiled Egg]

If the reliability issues have been resolved then my Audient experience was otherwise very positive and I don't think you can go wrong with Audient in those smaller formats.

Although as a Cubase user I will have to disagree with your generalisation of Steinberg. Sure there are legit things to complain about and I've never used their interfaces - although the impression I got from GS was that they were viewed quite positively. What issues did you have the interfaces?

[Bradley1602]

I think this seems to give me what I want:
Audient iD 4

https://www.bonedo.de/artikel/einzelans ... -test.html

I only want to record toms snares and kick and hats. So only raw mono samples..

[Bradley1602]

The interface is very noisy and extremely klunky in usage. It feels sort of sturdy but one doesn't want to touch it at all.

I used cubase for a few months. I hated the ui and their philosophy didn't get me at all. I just can't understand what cubase brings to the table in comparison to logic. Ableton has a different aim and is what I used since 10 sort of years. But I understand logic.

[Bradley1602]

If the reliability issues have been resolved then my Audient experience was otherwise very positive and I don't think you can go wrong with Audient in those smaller formats.

Although as a Cubase user I will have to disagree with your generalisation of Steinberg. Sure there are legit things to complain about and I've never used their interfaces - although the impression I got from GS was that they were viewed quite positively. What issues did you have the interfaces?

Sorry I accidently reported you. I hit the wrong button. Wanted to cite you. I obviously didn't write anything in it. Just a mistake.

Thanks for the help.
The id4 seems like absolutely exactly what I have been looking for in an audiointerface.
Thanks

[Boiled Egg]

I had a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 (1st gen) and the headphone amp didn't cut it for those cans. Introduced a lot of noise when getting them to a suitable level - and I dont go loud with headphones.

I had an Audient iD22 after that and the headphone amp in that was pretty good, plenty of juice to drive the K702 and infinitely cleaner than the Scarlett. I really liked that interface. It sounded great in and out. However, it did suffer a catastrophic failure and had to go back to the factory for repair. It seems a lot of this model suffered from poor reliability but luckily mine failed with 1 month left on its 3yr warranty so it didn't cost me to get it repaired. This was the 1st generation so I'm sure some improvements have been made in the later versions.

I now have a Focusrite Clarett 8pre USB and that has a really good headphone amp. I only have it at about 50% and its plenty loud enough and my levels in the box are pretty conservative too. I'm fairly confident it will drive cans with a much higher imdepence fairly comfortably too. I'm really happy with this interface and have no desire to upgrade further. I would definitely recommend a Clarett if they make a version compact enough to meet your needs.

May I ask why you chose the clarett interface? and when?

I bought it about 18months ago. I downsized when I went to study for my Master's about 4-5 years ago (that's when I bought the Audient iD22) and I wanted to add more hardware again when I finished at uni. I wanted 8channels and another 8 via adat - I have a focusrite scarlett octopre for the 8 additional channels.

The reason why I went for the Clarett was very much a bang-for-buck decision but also a form factor one too:

As for form, I wanted a rack mount interface. I'm still limited for space and I have a 4u rack turned on its side so it slips in nicely between my desk and the wall. That holds the midi interface, Clarett, octopre and a patchbay.

For the other reasons, I don't think super amazing preamps are needed for recording synths and drum machines. The Scarlett preamps sound fine but the headphone amp was weak and there was a big difference in sound quality when I changed from my first gen Scarlett 18i20 to the Audient. At £650 the Clarett sat at a good price point. Lots of reviews put it up against RME interfaces but these were 2-3x the price of the Clarett and mostly aging somewhat too.

I couldn't be happier with the Clarett. Not had a single wobble in stability in 18months. Latency is reasonable, handles low sample rates well, handles sample rate changes easily and sounds great too (can't really notice much difference between the Clarett and Audient tbh).

[Lost to the Void]

The alternative to buying a whole new interface is a good quality headphone amp.
I used to use one to drive my (K701) phones in the production room.

I used a Pro-Ject Headbox S2, it takes a RCA feed from your outs on your interface (and can even transparently loopback into your audio chain if you are short on in/outs), provides a wonderfully clean boost and gives you plenty of grunt for dynamics and good time-response.

https://www.project-audio.com/en/product/head-box-s2/

They have others in their range that also run as USB.

Seem to be around £120 in price.

[Bradley1602]

But if i hate my steinberg ur22 and i think i could sell it for 60,0 €, wouldnt it be easier just to get a cheapish audient interface and sort of be done about noisefloor/preamp/headphone-amp-power??

[Mslwte]

I have a Pro-ject Head Box S USB and use it for 702's cant fault it. it drives my headphones nicely. I'm also a MOTU fanboy and will always recommend their interfaces. I have a pair of old 2408 mk3's and the headphone output is very good.

[Barfunkel]

The SSL soundcards have nice headphone amps, I have the cheapest one (SSL 2), it drives the AKG's nicely.

[Bradley1602]

The SSL soundcards have nice headphone amps, I have the cheapest one (SSL 2), it drives the AKG's nicely.

Id love to obtain that interface. Just costs double the audient

[Barfunkel]

The SSL soundcards have nice headphone amps, I have the cheapest one (SSL 2), it drives the AKG's nicely.

Id love to obtain that interface. Just costs double the audient

They had it on sale locally on black friday, for 140€! That's when I got mine.

[ozias_leduc]

i recently got a Zen Can headphone amp to use with my AKG K702s... it has a bass boost which is awesome for the K702s which are severely lacking in the bass department imo

[Bradley1602]

I can only say the same as others. First i thought they were lacking bass but then:
My ears got used to the cans
I started using a fiio preamp
Now i dont miss any bass but they wont glorify

Beyerdynamic 880 glorified the bass in such a nice way. I miss them a bit

But still k702 wins for production for me

[Rickskii]

I have the iD4 and the K702 combo. Works absolutely fine. Also plays nicely with my M1 MacBook Pro. Can't go wrong...