Behringer XENYX 302USB 5-Input Audio Mixer with USB Audio Interface, Mini USB Mixer with Mic Preamp for Podcast, Recording, Streaming & Home Studio

*Update* I have now had this thing (with the GLS ES 57 mic) for 9 years, and I still use it for work. Still works like the day I got it. If it ain't broke, no need to fix or change it. The combo works great. Easily one of the best purchases I ever made. **End update** This is my first mixer. I'd been looking for a cheap way to upgrade from USB-powered mics like the Blue Snowball to something a little more professional and, of course, that requires a mixer with these kinds of hookups. Thus, I am an amateur and you'll probably get more accurate ratings out of a professional. Anyway, my pros and cons Pros 1. This thing is way smaller than I expected. I can hold it in one hand without any difficulty and that means it doesn't take up a lot of desk space. It fits well where I put it. 2. It works as intended. I use this with a GLS ES-57 mic and this mixer is powerful enough to power it and make it sound good. I have my windows volume set at 54 and the gain is up at about 60%. I have no hissing and no problems. I did a podcast with this set up today and my podcast co-host (we do it over Skype) said I sounded very clear and my voice sounded strong and good. This is a stark improvement over the Blue Snowball. 3. It's plug and play. I plugged it in, it installed the drivers, and it automatically set itself as the default microphone. Easy peasy. 4. I use Reaper as my audio software and Reaper recognized it immediately. 5. The dials and everything was easy to understand. Cons 1. You can't plug this into a USB hub (or even an AC-powered USB hub) otherwise you'll get a hiss. This needs to be plugged directly into a computer. 2. This high-jacks your audio defaults in Windows. To fix it, open your Control Panel, open the Sound, and set your Playback device to your speakers to fix the problem. Your sound will come out through your speakers as intended. Since I use this as my main mic, I left it as default in the Sound settings. Overall, for the price, this is an amazing little mixer for beginners and amateurs. I know there are better options but they are also more expensive and I'm on a budget. It's a great way to get into the world of sound without spending a lot more money. If you're like me and a single person doing YouTube video voice overs or podcasts, this is perfect for a home studio set up where you only need one person. Worth every penny as long as it lasts. I'll update when/if it breaks down but until then, I do not regret this purchase. **Update 10-11-2015** I'm still using this thing every day and it still runs perfectly fine. I have graduated to ASIO4ALL drivers (which require some configuring) to make it sound a little more clear and work a little better. I can't imagine myself upgrading to anything else unless I start building a studio where I'm not the only person in it. Works great, easy to use, still runs after all this time with nary a problem. Nothing to complain about yet!

Don't buy an expensive sound card to boost your computers microphone audio or to bypass static. I sit on Skype several hours daily for various reasons as well as being in several mumbles. When I built my computer I went with some pretty premium hardware such as higher end Asus motherboards and 780 GTX video cards. I noticed when listening to my microphone using the audio integrated with my motherboard was very quiet even at 100%. In order to be audible I had to use the microphone boost to +20db - this was not a good solution. Computers make a lot of noise and I don't mean just the fans. Hardware in a computer like a high end graphics card creates a lot of interference and the need for a larger power supply to push out wattage - normally this isn't that big of an issue but when you need to boost your microphone from the computer to be audible it makes that slight buzzing sound from the hardware amplified that much more... and it's a lot more. A very large amount of people have complained to me that the white noise in my background was very loud and at some points louder than when I talk and this was with no running fans or ambient noise going on. Sick of the problems this was causing I purchased a higher end sound card in the $150 range with high hopes this would help as it would be more isolated and shielded, but there was still noises from the computer being picked up. I pretty much gave up on it for a while and had to deal with the issue. Recently I started thinking about it more and more and realized the static is being amplified way more than my voice due to the computer. A way to bypass this issue would be to amplify my microphone outside of the computer which is where the Behringer came into play. My microphone is very loud and clear with almost no background noise thanks to the Behringer. I tried using Behringer as a Line In to my computer via RCA to 3.5mm but this created a strange buzzing in the background when slightly turned up which is due to the computer itself. I then tried using the USB output which sounded a lot more clean at pretty much equal volume. One issue with the USB output is that if the volume of the USB is turned up to a higher percent in windows it has this static to it. I bypassed this by leaving the USB at 20% in the recording tab and turning up the mic gain on the amp itself. Everything sounds amazing and this is exactly what I wanted to achieve for a pretty low price. The equalizer is just a bonus on top of my voice which sounds absolutely amazing and adds a lot of warmth and quality to my voice. This is a steal and solved all my issues, do not spend hundreds on a sound card.

I've been playing around with my new Behringer XENYX 302USB Mixer and so far my impressions are positive. I was nervous about buying it because there were no reviews at all, so I opened the box carefully and took out only the 302, using my own cable and on-line documentation. That way, if I had to return it, packing it back up would be easy. I use Audacity (with a single core, Pentium 4 PC running XP Pro) to record, and the program recognized the 302 (as USB codex), no problem. One thing I wanted to do is record from an iPod Touch 4G to Audacity, then play that Audacity track back and record another track against it from the iPod. I used a mono cable that is 1/4 inch on one end (plugged into the mic jack of the 302) and 1/8 inch on the other (plugged into the headphone jack of the iPod). I used an app called Chordbot to play a progression on the iPod, which was recorded through the 302 into Audacity. I didn't care that the track was mono, but if I wanted stereo, I could have used the line input on the 302 with RCA cables going to an 1/8th inch stereo plug. Once my chord progression was recorded on an Audacity track, I played that back by using an RCAs to 1/8 inch plug to connect the line input on the 302 to the headphone jack of the computer. By pushing the red button on the 302, which selects input from the USB (the computer), and the black button next to it, which sends the signal to the headphones, I could hear the Audacity track playing as I recorded a new track, this time using an app called Thumbjams on the iPod. It worked very well. No hiss or other unwanted noise present. The 302 assumes (incorrectly, in my case) that I want to hear the mic input through the earphones as I'm recording. I don't. I never monitor myself when singing or playing guitar, but listen only to the backing track. I got around this by using the pan slider on the 302, panning my live performance all the way to the right. I then removed the right earphone from my ear. I panned the sound coming from the computer all the way to the left. This way I could hear the backing track but not my voice in the headphones. My Audio Technica AT2020 microphone recorded fine--with no hiss or noise--with the 302's gain set at 12 o'clock, the mic volume maxed, and the main mix volume at about 2 o'clock. I could generate hiss with the AT2020 if I cranked the 302's gain and volume all the way up, but I can do that with most any mixing deck. I could not get as loud a hissless track using the 2020 and the 302 as I would like. A preamp is probably called for. But the signal was usable if I increased the gain a bit in Audacity after recording, or if I doubled a track. In addition to the iPod experiment, I recorded a nylon-string guitar, then recorded a vocal track against it. Used the AT2020 for both tracks. Worked fine. I have an old Radio Shack dynamic mic with a built-in TSR cable that I tried. It also recorded well, for what it is. (I sound terminally depressed when I record with this mic, so only dig it out for experiments such as this.) All in all, I'm liking the 302 and plan to use it instead of the XENYX 802/UCA202 USB interface rig I was using. WOWSERS. Important update. The USB codec that Windows installed when I first plugged in the 302 doesn't play nice with Audacity. Often when I try to play back or play back and record, there is no sound through the 302, even though I can see audio levels in Audacity. I went to the Behringer website and downloaded the ASIO 32 bit driver. Now things are great. Except. Whatever USB slot you install the driver to is taken over by the driver and can't used by any other audio codec. This means that if you unplug the 302 and plug another audio device into the same slot, it can only play--if it will--using the Behringer ASIO codec. Other slots are unaffected. It's possible to undo this by running the setup file again and choosing to uninstall the driver. I'm willing to give up a USB slot to the 302 because I'm liking it so much and will probably use it every day. YMMV.

I use this unit to interface between my studio monitors and my Macbook Pro, which it does very well. It is indeed Plug and Play, and works nicely with both Logic Pro, Ableton Live and my Macbook's audio settings. However, be prepared to spend a few minutes figuring out the audio settings on the unit itself in order to get sound recorded into your software. My major gripe is, I bought the unit after reading "Phantom Powered" in its description, and I was expecting it to work with my AKG condenser mic. Not being a real audio professional, it was an especially confusing process for me, because if you are using the unit's headphone out, you will be able to hear the condenser mic and it'll sound full, even if it's not getting the proper voltage of phantom power, but it won't transfer that fullness to the recorded sound. The label on this product makes you think you're getting true 48v power, and it takes, in my opinion, too much searching to find out that you're really not - it's actually something in the range of 11v to 15v. This seems almost like false advertising. After getting an external phantom power unit (accomplished for about $20 - Nady SMPS-1X 1-Channel 48V Phantom Power Supply for SCM Series Microphones , I finally was able to record with my condenser mic and it does a great job - clean sound that, with the right setup in Logic (which can take a little effort), doesn't have any delay/latency issues. I haven't gotten it to play totally nice with Ableton yet, but the sound quality is still good. One more complaint - if you are a sound amateur like me, don't expect the unit to be able to record your electric guitar directly from the instrument. Sound pros would probably read the last sentence and scoff with sound pro haughtiness at its ignorance, but I thought the included preamp on this unit might eliminate the need for an external amp before running your instrument cable into the mic input. Not the case - you still need to connect your guitar to an actual amp first (as far as I know).

I have two of these things that I use with Linux workstations to drive Yamaha CM500 headsets that I like for videoconferencing and SIP telephony. The USB interface is a Texas Instruments PCM2902 Audio Codec, which works out of the box with Linux. Phantom power works via the 1/8" mic connector, which allows me to avoid having to use the CM500's inline power supply. I like being able to adjust the mic gain manually during calls, and although the three band EQ is basic, its very nice to have some minimal tone shaping into the headphones without having to use a software EQ. There are enough extra inputs to allow mixing some other analog source like an iPhone when I need to. I've also used the first channel with my DAW on several occasions when I needed a single channel and was too lazy to get my firewire interface; obviously it's not a high-end interface but it's got enough headroom to be useful for recording. The only issue I can think of is that I get some hum through the phone when I use it with my Macbook, but I get none with my desktop machines so I guess there may be some grounding thing I need to look into. In the past I've used similar mini mixers from Rolls Audio and I still love them, but the fact that these are bus-powered make them super convenient. They're cheap and have thus far been durable and problem free.

This unit is well worth the price. I have done an internet radio oldies show for 10 years now and I have always used a headset with a built in mic, plugged directly into my pc. But I always had trouble with the mic volume level versus the music volume levels. Meaning computer sound card mic inputs do boost the mic volume signal, but nearly enough, even with the sound card's mic volume levels at maximum. As a result, I always had to lower the music level (mp3's) to match that low mic level, which does not provide optimum music sound quality. I first bought the Behringer XENXY802 and it is a fine mixer, but it does not accommodate or work at all with headset mics (apparently the mic input levels are too low for that). So after some research, I then bought the 302USB. I use it in the analog mode (I couldn't match levels at all in the USB mode/hook up and the mic sound was really bad) and in that analog mode and as advertized, it does work great with headphone mics. In fact the best part is, I can cleanly boost the mic level or volume much higher than the pc's sound cards alone allow, thus allowing me to raise the music levels of the mp3's to a matching proper level. The built in bass & treble controls come in handy and help with mic sound too. My shows now sound better than ever and I am a very happy customer. In fact, I have a back up pc and I bought another 302USB for that one too, because the price is right and they work so well. I know there are other uses for this mixer that I can't judge, but for me this is the perfect item and real good value for the dollar.

The Behringer XENYX 302USB is a great little mixer if you need something simple and portable. It’s small enough to fit on any desk but still gives you the main controls you need for streaming, podcasting, or basic audio recording. The built-in USB interface works smoothly, and the XENYX preamp gives surprisingly clean sound for a budget mixer. It’s not meant for big multichannel projects, but for a single mic, a music source, or simple voice work, it does the job really well. Setup is easy, and it’s perfect for beginners or anyone with a small home studio. Overall, a solid, affordable mixer with great sound quality for its size. Perfect for podcasts, voiceovers, livestreaming, or travel.

I've been a minimalist for about 10 years when it comes to recording music and have been recording with my instruments connected to my PC mic input with my instrument cable and a 1/8" adapter, but it was always a hassle for me to get it sounding professional through mixing and editing. This mixer doesn't have that many frills, but it is exactly what I needed to streamline the recording process. It is powered by USB or the included AC adapter, and even has enough power for phantom powered microphones, which is perfect for my compression mic. The instrument cable and microphone XLR input are in the same place, so you can only use one at a time, but it's great for a one man band with one-by-one multitrack recording methods. There are bass, treble and pan bars for both channels, but I've only ever used the main channel and haven't tried using the line out as of yet. The sound is excellent and crystal clear once you get it completely set up. This mixer is pretty basic, and you won't find a lot of fancy features. But if you're looking to make professional sounding recordings, with some practice and tinkering, this is perfect. Having this, I really have no need for any other recording equipment besides my PC and some mulitrack software. The price is amazing for making the dream of turning my bedroom into a recording studio come true. I'm not sure how this would fare with live performances because you would have to do some rigging to run multiple instruments through it and it might be a hassle, but I think it's perfect for home recording. As a few other reviewers mentioned, you really need to go to the Behringer website and download the drivers for this mixer. It will clear up the hiss and buzz that you hear when you record with it straight out of the box, and it makes all the difference in the world quality wise. I use Audacity with ASIO plugins to record my audio, which requires me to crank up the volume and gain a lot to get the sound to a good level, but after some tinkering, you'll get very clear sound with no audible buzz or hiss, even using a microphone.

Ce l'ho da 8 mesi, non ho mai avuto un problema. Indubbiamente i materiali non sono di qualità eccelsa ma il mixer si presenta ben rifinito e particolarmente robusto. Non ha patito trasporti in automobile, cadute, ore di funzionamento sotto il sole ed altre condizioni di stress. Nel normale funzionamento non scalda nemmeno dopo 3 ore di accensione. Ottima la funzione di alimentazione e trasmissione audio tramite unico cavo USB, facilmente collegabile e sempre riconosciuto dal mio PC senza intoppi. Indubbiamente dopo un lungo funzionamento soffre di un lieve aumento di rumore di fondo ma assolutamente nulla di drammatico, calcolando che non nasce per essere votato ad un utilizzo professionale. Permette comunque di registrare tracce audio nitide e veramente superiori alle mie aspettative (con Reaper parliamo di un rumore di fondo del mixer dai - 90db appena collegato ai - 80db dopo 1h di funzionamento) . Nella gestione dei canali di uscita (output) si comporta molto bene anche se avrei preferito una manopola del main out che opponesse più resistenza (perfetta quella dell'uscita phones che può serenamente diventare uscita principale). Buono anche il sistema line/usb, mi chiedo solo perché non dare la possibilità di gestire il 2-track dal potenziometro line/usb. A volergli cercare un difetto lo si trova nel potenziometro line/usb, impreciso nell'aumento di volume nella prima "tacca" del disegno laterale. Per risolvere consiglio di impostare un volume di uscita da PC molto basso (ad esempio io uso 10 su 100) in modo tale da poter sfruttare tutto il potenziometro (fino a "max") andando ad evitare quel problema sul line/usb. In generale è davvero un prodotto gradevole, in grado di farsi apprezzare in molti contesti e di far affezionare l'utilizzatore finale. Indubbiamente lo ricomprerei anche perché, sinceramente, l'ho utilizzato molto e non mi ha mai dato un problema.

Excelente tiempo de entrega llego antes de lo anunciado al comprar, llego sin daño físico, funciona al 100%, todas las funciones especificadas en la publicación son reales, el equipo se ve de primera calidad y la verdad lo es, estoy usando su modo de interfase conectado directo a mi celular para transmisiones en vivo con sonido de estudio y se escucha genial, los seguidores de la pagina notaron la diferencia de la calidad de audio entre la interfase que usaba antes y esta... 1000% recomendado...

Installed this as a pre-amp on the wall in a pub to give control of mic and music for things like quiz night to the host, its been flawless and is a great little bit of kit, we have no need of the equalizier or any of that, but having independent volume for the mic and line is all we wanted, it really has boosted the audio quality overall and works for what we needed perfectly, cheap and a very quick easy fix.

المنتج جودته عالية صراحة بعد تجربة يعطي اداءة رائع واتمنى توفيره مرة آخرة

Sencillamente impresionante, para lo pequeña que es, me ha resuelto el problema de conectividad con el ordenador, así realizo grabaciones en el PC. La verdad es que cuando la recibí, me llevé una desilusión, porque creía que era más grande, pero al conectarla y vi su funcionamiento, quedé gratamente impresionado. Estoy muy contento con la compra.