Outstanding D/A for the price

I love simple, high-quality gear that does exactly what it's supposed to with no frills. If you want a great D/A and monitor control, this is great. Preamps in both the monitor control knob and headphone amp are both excellent, and function very linearly in extreme ranges (very quiet & at the high end of the range). There's no extra features in this box, so if you're looking for monitor switching, handling additional analog inputs, or talkback, this isn't for you.

Accurate sound, classy-looking, and no drivers to contend with

Purchased as a replacement for the built-in audio output of an Intel iMac (2007) to use with Logic Studio monitoring and general purpose playback. Connected via optical Toslink using the iMac's combination audio port and running to a pair of Dynaudio BM5a loudspeakers.

For the longest time, I was unconvinced that this unit or any unit could greatly improve the output of the built-in sound, as the nominal specifications of both are quite close, and I liked how the iMac sounded at the time.

I suppose you could say, I didn't rightly know what I was getting into! After hooking the BMC-2 up and listening, it was immediately apparent that this device provides greatly reduced distortion, which results in improved dynamic range and huge sound-staging. For my ears, it was a vast improvement over the on-board audio. It was obvious that I had been listening through an inferior pre-amp. Big improvement; big wow-factor--and this was in the first few minutes. I have yet to log many hours listening.

It is easy to configure the device as there are no drivers. Just set 44.1 or 48 in "Audio Midi Setup" (for OS X).

At this point, with nice monitors and the BMC-2, I feel like have have completely transparent playback of digital audio!

I suppose it would be nice if the unit did have USB or firewire connections, but then again, it would need a driver. And it is so nice not to need a driver.

TC Electronic BMC-2 Hard to Beat For This Price

This unit has excellent sound. Pro design overall while keeping costs down. You won't find a monitor controller that sounds as good as this one for anything near this inexpensive or even triple the price. The volume control is large enough, feels pro, and works well with good left to right imaging. The switches are a little small and the mono compatability switch needs to be pushed twice to go from mono back to stereo. Limited I/O flexibility. I would like to see an analog input, an AES/EBU input as well as an additional analog speaker output., but then the unit may be too small for all that. The headphone jack needs to be on the top or on the side, not the rear. Otherwise, this is the best deal in town. I would have given a full 5 stars if it wasn't for some of the less flexible features. The sound of the DA converter is WOW, especially for the money.