I'm always on the look out for the perfect audio interface. Perfect for me, that is, for what I need and what I do. I've been using the M-Audio Omni I/O and Delta 44 card for about 10 years and although tempted from time to time I've yet to find anything with the right feature set that could replace it – until now. I don't need outputs as I mix everything on the computer, I don't want a rack unit as I don't have any other rack gear and they tend to be either in the way or inaccessible while at the computer, and I don't want something ugly or fiddly. Ta-da! In walks the Lexicon U82s – gleaming, understated, accessible, weighty, lovely knobs and a level of design that sets it apart from pretty much everything else out there. Oh yes, this could be the one.

Desktop Revitalisation

There's an aura of style around this box. So much so that I felt impelled to completely tidy my desk simply to accommodate it. Once set in place you simply sigh “why has no one thought of this before”?

Actually, I have thought of this before – when I was at Carillon I put together a design for remote mounting the RK8 MIDI knobs and RTM1 transport controls between the keyboard and the monitor – a completely obvious space it seemed to me. But we never managed to make the controllers removable and so the idea was shelved. Lexicon have taken the brave decision to do something different, something that might be helpful to users and it's a lovely thing to behold.

The Hardware

The U82s has a simple feature set – 8 inputs, stereo output, S/PDIF and MIDI. There are two instrument inputs which use the first two inputs and two headphone sockets with their own level knobs. The jack sockets for these are neatly angled on the either end of the box allowing easy access while running the cables out of the way – really nice. Each input (featuring newly designed dbx preamps) has an 8 LED meter, a gain knob to range between Mic and Line inputs and each pair has a phantom power switch and a “stereo” button. When activated the stereo button pans a pair of inputs hard left and right, ideal for plugging in external synths or other stereo sources. On the far right you have a Monitor Mix knob which mixes the playback from software with the inputs to give direct, latency free monitoring – it goes from all playback (if you are monitoring through the software) to all input. Which leaves us with the wonderfully massive output level knob complete with its own meters – it's so great having that volume knob right there, just above the keyboard - wonderful.

The quality and “feel” of these knobs is in another league compared to the usual fair. It's like they borrowed them from their pro hi-fi division and that feel is very much followed throughout the unit. Should also mention the weight of it – heavy – but in a good, solid, “this is a real piece of kit” kind of way. I can't find any way to fault the design or build quality of the U82s, even the angle of the surface is perfect when it sits in place between keyboard and monitor. Actually I did find something – the stand for my monitor protrudes a bit and clashes slightly with the feet of the U82s, but then the U82s sits happily on the edge of the monitor stand and it's still all perfect. Oh, one other omission – an on/off switch!

Installation

Had a quick look on the website for the latest drivers but there was nothing to be found – not even the original ones so let's hope I haven't lost the driver CD. Pop the CD in, nice “Flash” installer takes you by the hand and installation couldn't be easier. You also get the Pantheon II reverb and a couple of extras including Cubase LE in case you don't have recording software already. After a reboot for good measure there was non of the usual evidence that it was installed. There's no icon in the system tray, no icon in the Control Panel, nothing under “Programs” except for info about Pantheon II – weird. It seems to exist in the Device Manager and under Audio Devices so that's the main thing.

Firing up Cubase the Lexicon appeared in the Devices list along with access to the control panel which allows you to set the driver buffer size and sample rate. I couldn't find any other way to access this panel and with Vista 32 I had to reload Cubase each time I changed a setting which was very annoying – this wasn't a problem on Windows XP.

The U82s in Use

Working with the U82s it quickly becomes apparent that the quality of the internal components is every bit as good as the exterior. The inputs are transparent, you've got a good bit of play on the gain knob for getting the level right and the meters accurately reflect what's going on. The output is big and loud, even with the output knob up just a couple of notches I had to adjust my powered monitors to cope with the sound. The inputs appear very clean and it's a doddle to plug things in and out. Stick your guitar in the side, the first input lights up an “instrument” light acknowledging the presence of the jack, adjust the gain and off you go. Using the monitor knob I could switch between direct and software monitoring and this is where things started to get a bit sticky. There's really no need for direct monitoring these days as the latency in most ASIO drivers is small enough to be unnoticeable (depending on who you are) and it's common practice to monitor inputs through software effects – especially with guitars using plug-ins such as Amplitube or Guitar Rig. With the U82s when I turned off the direct monitoring there was quite a bit of noticeable latency. I was running on all the default settings so I thought i'd best investigate.

Looking into the control panel it turns out that the default setting of “Normal” gives up a latency in Cubase of 6ms in and 33ms out which is pretty hefty. Generally speaking to work with what most people consider to be unnoticeable latency you need to get it down to under 10ms in and out – so a round trip of 20-25ms would be enough. Centrance's ASIO Latency tester gives a round trip figure of 50ms, not really what we're after. In the U82s control panel you can choose a number of latency settings – Normal, Fast, Rapid or High Speed. This is where it gets a bit odd. According to Centrance “Normal”  is a buffer of 512 samples. I would expect that to give a latency of 20-30ms but it measures it at 50ms. “Fast” has a buffer of 256 samples which I would expect 8-12ms, “Rapid is 128 samples 4-6ms, and “HighSpeed” is 96 samples which is very very fast and usually gives under 3ms with other interfaces. However, Centrance has them at 50sm, 33sm, 20ms and 13ms respectively. It's like the USB bus is adding on 10-20ms of latency and that's making all the difference. Checking to see if there was something inherently wrong with the USB bus I plugged in an old Line 6 Guitar Port but was able to achieve half the latency for the same buffer settings – I had to go to 1024 samples to encounter a slight delay similar to what the Lexicon gave on its “Fast” setting of 256 samples. I cross referenced my findings on another computer running XP and alongside a Firewire box by Edirol, the FA-66. It showed a similar result. Comparing the CPU load at similar latencies of around 20ms I found that the FA-66 was able to run a hand full more plug-ins than the U82s meaning that the Lexicon was having to work harder than other interfaces.

All technical babble aside the reality is that there's noticeable latency on all the settings except “Rapid” and “HighSpeed” so when you play your guitar you'll notice a drag on “Fast” and an echo on “Normal” - or when playing a keyboard you hear the sound after you've played the key. And when running at the higher setting there's a added strain on the CPU – more so than other interfaces. To add insult to injury there's no separate setting for the WDM buffer so if you are playing CD's or audio off web pages through the Lexicon it stutters and glitches when set to “Rapid” or “High” - you only get smooth playback on lower settings. Considering you can't access the control panel to change the setting without loading up Cubase first it makes you want to throw this beautiful box across the room. No, it's too beautiful - it's enhancing my working environment.

Talking to the good people at Lexicon there's a hint that new drivers might be on the way and there's certainly have a keeness to address the control panel access issue. Apparently they are written by the same people who write the RME drivers in which case I'm doubly surprised by their poor performance. The great thing about drivers though is that they can be continually revised and improved and so hopefully in time the issues i encountered will get patched and sorted.

That said, if you had nothing to compare it to then you would happily get good performance at the Rapid or HighSpeed settings oblivious to the CPU performance hit – so it certainly does work, just not as well as I'd like it to when compared to other interfaces.

Ending on a High note.

The Pantheon II reverb is very good. Perhaps it's lost some of its perceived value in that the first version was bundled for “free” with Sonar but it can still create a good range of environments and is relatively easy to use – it's a helpful plug-in. Also the U82s installed and worked fine on Windows 7 (32 bit) which is a hopeful sign :)

Dammit!

The design of the hardware is almost flawless, everything about it screams quality and usability. Aesthetically and ergonomically wonderful. It was on course to knock the Omni I/O off its perch as my perfect audio interface but the current weirdness of the drivers and control software makes me reluctantly put it back in the box. I dearly hope that they can get the drivers sorted out, produce some 64bit ones and make the control panel more available because then it could be a real winner. At the moment I'm a tiny bit disappointed and frustrated with what is otherwise a lovely bit of kit. (Note to add that Vista 64 drivers are now available 17/08/09)

The last note is a high one – the price – as far as I can make out it originally retailed at £699 but it seems to have recently been cut down to a much more realistic £499. This puts it a bit above similar interfaces from Presonus, MOTU or Focusrite all of which have more I/O but neither the style nor build quality of the beautiful Lexicon U82s.

So, if you're after something life enhancing, something that has a fabulous feel and sound quality, something that can make recording a few instruments and mics an absolute breeze then I'd recommend sampling the Lexicon I-ONIX U82s. Even with the less than perfect drivers it's still the best interface i've played with in a long time.

It also has a little brother, the U42s and a little sister, the U22 and it's not hard to guess the differences.
http://www.lexiconpro.com