Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Studio (2nd Gen)

General

For years now, Focusrite has been one of the leading developers of audio interfaces. When they let their Scarlett series loose on the public, it became the best-selling audio interface in the world. Not only did it have outstanding preamps and low latency coupled with a beautiful industrial design, but it also had a friendly price tag. Now, with the release of the second generation, it's even better than before. You can even get it in this Studio addition, which comes with a set of headphones, a microphone, an XLR cable, and a software package.

New and improved preamps with more gain

The previous version of the Scarlett 2i2 already had some impressive preamps with little noise and a neutral response. Even so, Focusrite found a way to improve them, and as a result they are even more neutral and they can handle high-output instruments better as well. If you have an electric guitar with humbuckers, for instance, then you won't have any problems hooking it up to the 2i2 and recording. You won't have any distortion in the signal, and you can adjust the gain more accurately too, so you'll have better balance.

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Gen 2: Even lower latencies

Another important factor to think about when recording is latency. This is the delay that can occur when you're recording live and editing your audio and plugins. This actually wasn't really an issue in the previous generation of Scarletts, but now it's become an rather impressive feature worth mentioning, because you get a buffer of a 32 samples and a sample rate of 96 kHz, with a delay of only 2.74 ms. A delay like this is completely inaudible, which means that your tracks won't have any problems and you'll get a quick response during editing. It's also important to mention that the Scarlett is fully USB powered. As such, you don't need to use any external power adapters to power up the device. It comes with a USB cable so you can simple connect it to your computer and get started.

• Please note: to use this interface with Windows, you need to install a driver. This is not necessary for use with Mac OSX, as the Scarlett 2i2 Studio is class compliant with Mac.