
treated myself to an M4 because i needed more gear

so many shows to tape these days

pretty versatile unit for what it costs ($170 for the 2-channel M2, $220 for the 4-channel M4). its market seems to be the home musician/podcasting crowd
like all products in this market segment they are backordered, took me about 3 weeks to get mine from sweetwater
will probably be even more scarce soon with the
recent AKM factory fireedit: as of today 11/18 sweetwater has M2s in stock
-is a USB "DAC" for the workstation (I put "DAC" in quotes because while it can function as a USB DAC it doesnt have any other spdif in)
-has a half-decent headphone amp
-is a 4-channel ADC to computer/iOS device
-2 of the channels have P48 with decent preamps (+60 dB gain)
i see it as a good computer interface for the homefront and a good field unit taboot. Rugged enough, yet affordable enought that i wouldnt hesitate to take it in the field (would be cooler if it had 'field protected' front controls but hey at this price its hard to complain). With its featureset the M2 is kind of the same functionality of an RME ADI-2 PRO (plus a bonus P48 preamp!). 90% of the RME's SOTA performance at about 10% of the price

is USB-C bus powered and seems to sip power (doesnt get warm really)
could also be used as a 4 to 2 channel mixer in the field if thats your bag
great value for someone with a handheld who wants to add a P48 preamp, it operates in stand-alone mode (sans computer) and can feed a handheld with its unbalanced outs or an HQ ADC with its balanced outs. ill try to compare it as a standalone pre vs the V3 and FP24 (AKA mixpre) into the AD2K to try to isolate preamp quality to the best of my abilities
product pagesuser guidereviewanother review with links to the specs of the ADC,DAC, and preamp chipsi have yet to do my own measurements on it but based on others' measurements i expect it to meet or exceed my other pro-sumer gear like the mixpre6 and zoom F6 in quality