Shure X2u Review

Greg B. at Sweetwater Sound knew just what we needed. The Shure X2u is fantastic! Combined with our KSM-27 Shure Mic the X2u has opened so many doors and blown the roof off the place. The headphone plugin is a great added feature.Now I want another. Thanks Greg! See you soon!

Amazing!!!!

Great quality, small, easy to use, reliable, CD quality.

More Shure goodness!

As usual, Shure shows its great quality control standards with the X2u. This little device gets a very nice signal from my dynamic sm57 and my +48V Condenser Audio-Technica AT2020. It feels sturdily built, and the knobs don't feel cheap or temperamental.

This interface connects to windows by installing it as an external sound card. This makes it ultra-easy to set up with recording software. This also creates an added bonus: I can use the X2u as a headphone amp on my computer, and it gets pretty pumping loud.

The only thing I can criticize is cable length. The USB cable included is nice and long (but I needed a few extra feet in one recording session). I thought I could get around it by using a 25' XLR cable. But by doing so, I ran into a signal-to-noise ratio problem. I got a little hiss and ~14khz whine. I tried testing with a 5' cable, and the hiss wasn't as noticeable, but it was still there. So the X2u only likes direct-connect to my microphones.

Altogether, the X2u is a fantastic device for podcasters, youtubers, or amateur field recorders. The quality is what you expect out of Shure, the sound is great, but the bottleneck appeared in its distance of use (cable length).

Good product

No disk, had me worried but the driver was already available. I'm running windows 7, YUK.

Bridging the digital gap

First rate piece of equipment. The controller wheels could be a bit more fluid, but it bridges the digital gap just fine.