The 5 Best USB Audio Interfaces of 2025

Top pick

This USB interface offers a friendly design that’s packed with useful features. But we don’t love the rear-panel placement of the microphone inputs.

The Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 4th Gen is our favorite two-channel USB audio interface for most musicians because it offers logically laid-out controls and indicators. It’s one of the few interfaces we’ve encountered that never forced us to think about which control or connection to use, or how to use it. Simply put, using the Scarlett 2i2 felt as intuitive to us as a favorite hammer would feel to a professional carpenter.

The 4th Gen version incorporates some useful features not found on our previous top pick, the Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen.

Setting gain is easy, no matter how (in)experienced you are. The 4th Gen model adds an auto-gain function to set recording levels automatically; this comes in handy for beginners, and even for experts during long recording sessions when their focus might be flagging. Auto gain produced more-conservative settings (and thus a weaker recorded signal) than we would’ve set manually, but it always gave us a solid result nonetheless.

You can still set the gain manually (and more quickly) just by turning the input level knob and watching the level-metering LED ring surrounding the knob. It works the same as on the last couple generations of Scarlett 2i2 interfaces.

There’s also a new Clip Safe feature that makes it impossible to record at too high a level, which would “clip” (or distort) the signal. However, because it can squash the dynamics of a recording, we’d use it only when recording an amateur musician (or an overly rambunctious podcast guest) who’s incapable of performing at a consistent level.

The 4th Gen version offers other potentially useful upgrades. You get a dual-mode version of the Air button found on the 3rd Gen model, which was intended to create a more “vintage” sound. The two new modes are Presence (which boosts frequencies above about 60 Hz, to a maximum of +3.8 decibels at 20 kHz) and Harmonic Drive (which is said to add harmonics and introduces a dip of about -3 decibels centered at 500 Hz, and which also reduces the bass by about -3 decibels relative to the treble).

In our tests, the Presence mode made the sound brighter, but otherwise it didn’t seem to change the character of the sound; we found it useful for quickly and subtly livening up a dull-sounding vocalist or instrument.However, we can’t imagine where we’d use the thin, somewhat distorted sound of the Harmonic Drive mode.

Unlike the 3rd Gen version, the new version is compatible with all types of Apple iPads, not just ones that have a USB-C jack. We got it to work with a 2017, Lightning-jack-equipped iPad, but we had to use an Apple camera adapter and connect an external power supply to the newly added 5-volt USB-C port. Focusrite does not list the Scarlett 2i2 Gen 4 as being compatible with iPhones.

This USB interface performs well. Maximum audio resolution is 24-bit/192-kHz. Signals can be monitored in mono or stereo, and you can make a custom monitor mix using the Focusrite Control 2 app, which is available for PC and Mac.

In our measurements and recording tests, we couldn’t detect any flaws in the performance. It sounded practically the same as the other interfaces we tested, except when we engaged the Air button, which we’d use sporadically, at most.

The 4th Gen model’s headphone output delivered 34 milliwatts into 32 ohms. That’s only 1 mW more than the previous model and about one-third the output of the UA Volt 2 and Volt 276 models. Still, that’s enough to power most popular studio headphones, and it even did okay with some 600-ohm Beyerdynamic headphones we tried.

The interface comes with the Ableton Live Lite digital audio workstation and a three-month subscription to the Avid ProTools DAW. It also comes with Focusrite’s Hitmaker Expansion software bundle, which includes effects plug-ins for auto-tune, reverb, EQ, compression, and Marshall guitar-amp simulation, as well as MIDI drums, keyboards, and synthesizers.

If you like the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 design but don’t need or want the extra features introduced on the 4th Gen model, our former top pick, the Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen, may still be available, and at a deep discount.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The rear-panel microphone inputs are inconvenient. To accommodate the new controls, Focusrite has moved the XLR microphone inputs to the rear panel on the 4th Gen model. Depending on how your recording gear is arranged on your desktop, this can be less intuitive. We found ourselves having to feel around on the back to find where to plug in the cables and connecting a XLR microphone cable in the back and a ¼-inch line-level cable in the front makes for a messy desktop and more potential cable confusion.

It lacks five-pin MIDI input and output ports. However, those are useful only if you have an older keyboard, sampler, or drum machine that lacks a USB connection. If at some point you need a five-pin MIDI connection, an inexpensive adapter will do the job.