Before eventually settling on the Universal Audio Volt 1, I tried Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen, Motu M2, Røde AI-1, and Steinberg UR12. Each of those four interfaces had its own pros and cons, but neither of them stood out as the clear winner. Their flaws were too significant for me to tolerate and far outweighed the positives. Having tried the most recommended options and been disappointed by all of them, I had almost given up hope, but then, I decided to try one of the Volt series interfaces, which were relatively new at the time. I had never heard anything about Universal Audio before, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. To my surprise, the Volt exceeded all my expectations! Firstly, the build quality was excellent: the unit was light, but it had the right amount of heft to give off an impression of quality. Also, the entire unit, except for the grey plastic front panel, seemed to be made out of powder-coated steel and aluminum! Secondly, the design had a sophisticated retro aesthetic, and the color of the aforementioned aluminum matched the color of my MacBook perfectly! Thirdly, every knob and button was placed intuitively, and I especially liked the on/off rocker switch on the back. Another great feature was a couple of signal level indicator LEDs, the uppermost of which turned red whenever the audio was clipping. Also, speaking of LEDs, the buttons were transparent and had a different color LED inside them, so it was simple to tell which of the functions were on without having to read the labels above the buttons — even in the dark! As somebody with myopia, I appreciated this feature a lot. Now, to the sound quality. Since I am not a singer, I only tried recording my electric guitar, and the results that I got were truly professional quality. Lastly, the built-in headphone amplifier was more than powerful enough for my 47 Ω headphones with a 96 dB sensitivity. As far as I can recall, I never had the headphone volume knob on my Volt 1 set past 12 o'clock. So, to sum everything up, the Volt 1 is an excellent budget interface that has an unsurpassed price-to-quality ratio.
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