MOTU M2

I’ve always loved MOTU (obviously nothing to do with the fact that I also love Unicorns)I :P but seriously I can remember seeing their beautiful hardware back in the 80’s as a child!

Quality, reliability and thoughtful design and aesthetics is always paramount to me being an unashamed/self confessed design/tech fiend! I’ve had so many inexpensive get by, 2/4 channel, small form factor sound cards I’ve lost count (PreSonus, Native Instruments, Steinberg et al)… all lack lustre and highly forgettable when it came to sound quality, latency, performance and driver stability.

I always promised myself something better, but as my I/O needs are kinda basic being primarily a software musician (I don’t need Dante, ADAT, 32 Channels, AVB et al); just something small that I can use with both my iPad Pro M5 and my PC workstation to create.

Having researched this need, there was only one realistic choice being the MOTU M2. Why? I want the best hardware/price ratio there is without paying for extra features I don’t need. I want industry respected drivers from a company with a lineage that goes back to 84’. I respect high design and quality manufacturing and attention to detail (which is why I usually gravitate to German made design/production).

Having researched the MOTU M2 there seemed like nothing comparable out there. The closest (RME, SSL, UAD+ cost £600/700) by comparison as they enforce broader features. Thus, I finally caved and OMG… I’m so glad I did! Just taking this beauty out of the box, you can instantly see/feel the thought and care that has gone into the design of this beauty!
The manufacturing is just gorgeous, the chassis a beautiful textured solid metal (even metal potentiometers too). Everything is machined to high tolerances so it fits perfectly along with soft, smooth edges galore. Even tiny anodised hex fittings instead of cheap screws. Beautifully formed uniquely shaped, contoured rubber feet gracefully provide solid traction and protect the underlying surface.

All inputs I/O are perfectly seated within the chassis to prevent movement (often not the case on lesser hardware which consequently can result in crackling with typically being connected directly to the PCB) …just not here!

A beautiful high definition super bright and clear OLED display with high resolution meters (not a few cheap LED’s that tell you nothing) as is the case with lesser hardware products. A really appealing, gorgeous blue illuminated monitoring GUI looks TRON’esq!

I’m already smitten, as the M2 really is a thing of beauty (and I haven't even plugged it in yet)! A short 90 CM USB A to C lead is provided, the driver installation is quick and painless. So… how does it perform, does high quality drivers and hardware features (like Sabre32) actually make a difference? Yes it really does, latency was instantly ‘massively’ reduced and running at a higher clock rate (48 instead of 44.1 Khz).

So what does it sound like then? Again the difference is not subtle, but hard to quantify also as its into the domain of psychoacoustics. Because the hardware produces such clean, pure (ultra low harmonic distortion) sound, its somewhat sublime (and deceiving in terms of the impression of loudness) as often sonic ‘impurities’ appear louder, more obviously. As such, I instinctively wanted to crank it; only to realise it was pretty darn loud (but lush too)!

The MOTU M2 has an incredibly pure and rich lush sound, and the onboard headphone AMP sounds incredible (plenty of gain) my AKG’s discovered a new sonic territory of precision. Its so easy to think that ‘passable’ is ok (until you hear the difference of quality/precision)!

I’ve not had chance to check out the Mic Pre’s yet with my Sennheiser or AKG microphones but naturally I can’t wait and I’m sure that the Amphenol driven I/O sounds utterly delicious!

To surmise, I’m basically completely impressed by how good the MOTU M2 really is and regret not upgrading to it back in 2019 when it was released. For me it’s an ideal choice as it offers the best quality and performance I can get without buying features I simply don’t need. I actually considered the MOTU 828 for my future studio expansion plans (more hardware and post production orientated), so it seemed like a logical step to remind myself why MOTU rocks! Incredible device, and basically smitten!

I was looking for really compact, transportable, bus-powered interface with very low-noise mic preamps and a decent headphone amp and the MOTU M2 fulfils that. I was not interested in on-board processing such as Air mode (Focusrite) or 4k (SSL) as all of that can be done in the DAW. After some use it is still almost all positives but I will list the couple of things that hold it back from being perfect... for me.

POSITIVES:
- smaller dimensions that the direct competitors
- very clean mic preamps (-129dBu EIN)
- decent amount of gain (60dB), although less than the Focusrite 2i2 4th gen which has 69dB.
- gorgeous screen with detailed coloured level meters for both inputs and outputs
- bus powered
- powerful and transparent and noiseless-sounding headphone amp, even with relatively high-impedance headphones
- built-in 5-pin MIDI in and out
- good build quality. Some reviews have highlighted some lateral movement in the dials - mine doesn't do this so maybe MOTU has addressed this
- switchable 48V phantom power on *each* channel
- nice rubber feet - won't slide around the desk
- loop back (see caveat below)

NEGATIVES:
- there doesn't seem to be any way to gang the gain levels for channels 1 and 2. This would be important for stereo recording in XY, ORTF etc. This is one area where I think the Focusrite 2i2 has an advantage

MINOR
- loop back only appears as additional inputs within a DAW. What this means is that once the MOTU driver is installed, device software inputs 1 and 2 are whatever is plugged into physical inputs 1 and 2 on the M2 only, device software inputs 3 and 4 is the looped back stereo sound received from the computer into the M2, and device software inputs 5 and 6 are a mix of both the physical inputs and the looped back computer audio. This is quite a flexible arrangement when working in a DAW but when using something with less flexibility such as Audacity or OBS this can be an added complication. I am coming from Zoom's implementation of loopback where it is a switch made on the hardware which them simply mixes the loopbacked audio in with the hardware inputs (like inputs 5 & 6 on the M2). This has always been sufficient flexibility for me.
- bundled USB cable a bit short
- no dB indications on meters
- hard to see the benefit of the 32-bit float implementation on the M2. It is not like the implementations on field recorders like the Zoom F series or the Sound Devices Mix Pre series where it removes the possibility of clipping the sound file. You still need to watch you gain setting; exceeding 0dBFS results in clipped audio. I think the converters are just 24 bit and then this is converted to 32-bit format.

In summary, a great little budget interface which I can recommend.

I've spent quite some time researching the market for the best balanced audio interface for my needs - record voice and electric guitar.

The best review I've seen is from Julian Krausse on YouTube, really deep technical analysis and comparison, watch it!

Now Motu M2 may cost above average for this user level devices, but I think it's worth it. It's just amazingly perfect in all aspects, but I'd mention 2 things:
- do upgrade firmware, I did have occasional weird noise in monitoring channels, and upgrade solved it
- power is just enough to drive Sony MDR-7506, maybe it will not be enough for some monitors with higher input impedance, but probably it's still better than other interfaces

I got this about a month ago and it has been stellar. Previously, I was using a Roland Rubix 22.

The Motu M2 has been reviewed in considerable depth already, so there isn't anything new I can say about it. From my personal perspective it has been excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone on a budget.

PROS:
- Best at this price range in multiple categories: balance, headphone amp (internal impedance and output power), distortion, noise, frequency response
- Can drive my 470 ohm headphones
- Solid build quality (body feels robust, knobs are smooth and have adequate weight when turning them)
- macOS driver and software shaved off additional seconds from the overall delay time in my DAW - REMEMBER to install them if you are a mac user
- Loopback functionality
- Display is not necessary but cool to have and accurate as well
- On/Off button

CONS:
- Included USB cable is dangerously close to being too short