Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As a satisfied owner of a 1st generation Focusrite 2i2, I was curious to see what changes they would make to the 2nd generation. The most obvious changes are cosmetic ones. The rotary controls for the headphone level and monitor level are now shinier, with black lines rather than grooves in the knobs to mark the levels, making it much easier to see the setting at a glance. The same is true of the black rotary input gain controls, which now have clearly visible red lines. In fact, the labeling of the entire front panel is noticeably clearer, being white on black now rather than gray on very dark gray. The headphone control has gained the traditional 0 and 10 markings, so Spinal Tap probably won't approve. The same is true of the input gain controls. The case is the same excellent solid red metal case, now a touch brighter in color with the logo in gray rather than black. On the back, the ports are rearranged slightly, and the ¼' audio output sockets no longer protrude half a centimeter. Once you plug in ¼' jacks it'll scarcely matter, but I thought I'd point it out. Also gone from the back are the screw holes; I'm guessing they're now hidden under the rubber feet on the bottom of the unit. Once you plug the box in, an interesting change becomes apparent: The new 2i2 is faster to boot up. Whereas the old 2i2 would flicker its input LEDs a few times before settling down, the new one blinks once and is ready to go. The old units only took a couple of seconds to boot, so it's not a big deal, but it shows the attention to detail and quality Focusrite put into their products. The fact that the USB ID has changed from 0x100016e4e to 0x100016db4 as well, suggests that it's all new under the hood. As with the 1st generation 2i2, two of the best features of this audio interface are things you don't get. There's no power brick, because it's powered straight from the USB bus; and there's no driver disc, because it uses standard USB Audio Class protocols. Specifically, it's USB 2.0 Class Compliant. On the Mac, the 2i2 shows up as an AppleUSBDevice, and automatically appears in the System Preferences alongside the built-in Apple audio hardware. Open up Apple Audio MIDI Setup and you can change the format from the default 44.1kHz 24 bit to 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, or even a ludicrous 192kHz. Furthermore, no special drivers means it will continue to work with future versions of macOS. This adherence to standards also means that the Scarlett 2i2 is a great choice for Linux users. You plug it in, it works flawlessly using the snd-usb-audio ALSA module. I've no idea what the driver situation is like for Windows users, others will have to review that. The box is simple and obvious in its general usage. You have two input sockets on the front, which take either XLR connectors or ¼' jacks — one for left, one for right. You have two ¼' sockets on the back for output — one for left, one for right — and you have a headphone socket, again ¼' but this time stereo. The knobs next to the input sockets control the input gain. Switches choose line level or instrument level input, and you can choose differently for the two inputs if you want to have two mono signals instead of a stereo one. 48V phantom power is also supported via a switch, but affects both inputs. The LED rings around the knobs pulse green with the signal. If they pulse orange, it means your audio clipped but you might get away with it. If they pulse red, it means your audio clipped really badly, and you might qualify for a job with a major label fighting in the loudness wars. A switch enables direct monitoring, or you can have your computer pass the audio back out and monitor that. Audio quality hasn't changed with the new hardware as far as I can tell, though I didn't do any double-blind tests. It's certainly markedly better than Apple's built-in audio hardware on my MacBook Pro, and the headphone output can easily drive a full-size set of headphones to ear-splitting volumes. Overall, an excellent entry level choice for any Mac or Linux user wanting to connect a musical instrument, or for use as a general purpose high quality audio interface.