M2 - USB Audio Interface

Great interface. I'm still using it and been using it daily! I wish it had a on/off button/switch somewhere for the microphone but not a deal breaker. I've purchased a SubZero Booster Preamp and that needs the 48V turned on. I do just use that 48V switch to 'mute' the microphone.

MOTU are a great company and this is perfect for recording at home

great

This is a really excellent audio interface, good volume gain and a detailed clear sound, just plug and play, my fl studio DAW recognised it straight away.

This is a very good interface. I would highly recommended this product

Simply excellent sound quality and ultra low latency.

Very happy with my purchase

The MOTU M2, at its price point, ticks all the boxes for me. Quiet mic preamps, separate phantom power controls per channel, midi ports, both unbalanced & balanced monitor/loudspeaker outputs, great build quality, clear display, on/off switch, USB C and unlike other audio interface manufacturers, you don't need to create an account to access the drivers (I'm looking at you Universal Audio - shameful). The sound quality is excellent, by that I mean the mic pres are quiet until driven really hard which is expected at this price, and the interface can comfortably drive high impedance headphones. From a hardware point of view, this is a fantastic interface at a great price. But all of the above is let down by the, frankly, appalling Windows drivers. I don't know what the experience is like on the Macintosh side and I don't use desktop Linux either, but I've tried the M2 on Windows 10 and 11 and have observed the same behaviour: Unreliable and unstable audio caused (as far as I have discovered) by dreadful Windows drivers. I knew there were problems a few years ago, but was under the impression that these issues have all been patched and resolved. Indeed, I was encouraged to see up-to-date drivers and a new firmware available to install after I had unboxed the M2, however it looks like no progress has been made on the issues I have been reading about from years ago. One example: The interface is working perfectly, I have a dynamic mic attached to channel 1, headphones plugged in at the front and (powered off) bookshelf speakers connected via unbalanced RCA at the rear. I suddenly decide to remove the headphones and switch on the speakers (unreasonable, I know) and the entire audio stops working. Nothing gets recorded, nothing gets played. This isn't an isolated power surge or anything like that, I can recreate it time and time again using different speakers and even a different desktop computer. A similar situation happened with the microphones. I had 2 mics connected - 1 via an outboard mic pre (DBX 286) that was switched off but connected, the other a dynamic mic connected and in use. When I powered on the external preamp, all the audio stops, Audacity crashes and I'm forced to power off/power on the M2 to resolve it. There is a lengthy and extremely useful guide on the MOTU website about troubleshooting the M2 audio issues, but I have followed all of the steps in order and to the letter, but with no real improvement to speak of. It seems the drivers can't reliably handle a change in inputs whilst the unit is powered on. This is insane... The drivers are unacceptably poor and I'm thinking of simply returning the M2 for a refund. I don't believe what I'm doing (changing inputs & outputs on the fly) is an unreasonable use case and as a comparison, the Focusrite 2i4 2nd gen which I upgraded from does not do this at all, using the same set of equipment and the same tests. So to conclude, the MOTU M2 is an excellent audio interface offering a lot of compelling features for the price, yet hindered in a big way by poor software support. The LCD meter on the front is neither here nor there and almost completely useless - it looks a lot like a gimmick to me. Without a useful scale to accompany it, how do I know what I'm peaking at? What is this panel telling me? Yes, I can see where I start to clip - but what does that mean? 0db? +6? +16? Totally meaningless, albeit colourful, graphics designed to attract the easily amused. I would still have bought this unit even without the LCD screen as it had all the features I needed. I understand that the M2 "just works" over on MacOS, but if you are a Windows user like I am then you would be well advised to do some research and get some anecdotal information before making a purchase. If the M2 was backed up by solid driver support I would have no hesitation in recommending it, but for a device that is several years old the state of the drivers (or firmware, or both) is really quite appalling. EDIT 21/02/2023 - For anybody wondering, the MOTU M2 works perfectly with FreeBSD 13.0 & 13.1 It simply worked out of the box without any tinkering & with crystal clear sound as expected. I would assume Linux & MacOS behave the same way, which is why I stand by my initial review lambasting the terrible Windows drivers. EDIT 24/05/2023 - The MOTU M2 was demoted to my secondary audio interface and I reverted back to the Focusrite 2i4 2nd gen on my main desktop PC. Along with the sound cutting out when the inputs or outputs changed, I also noticed that sound would drop out (and stay gone) whilst gaming. I'm starting to think the inclusion of an on/off switch was to quickly work around the various issues with the interface. In all cases, a power cycle of the unit resolved the problem - but this is a solution to a problem which shouldn't exist in the first place. So my M2 now sits permanently attached to my work-provided Win 10 Enterprise laptop so I can use decent microphones for my multiple daily meetings. Is a £200 audio interface overkill for Teams & Zoom? Definitely. Should I have returned the M2 when I had the opportunity? 100% yes. Do I hate the unit? No, as the hardware is excellent, but I'm starting to feel that Windows users were a secondary thought & MOTU targeted MacOS users (who don't seem to have any M2 issues at all) as their primary audience. The Windows drivers are unacceptably poor and I have no further desire to try and make the M2 work properly. An audio interface should be plugged in and then largely fotgotten about, not be a constant source of problems. My time with MOTU devices is now done and I won't be buying one again.