My heart says Scarlett, my mind says Mr. Steinberg :)

[RichieWitch]

Windows 10 has been out for how long? UR22 has been out for how long? Why do you think the driver has 'issues'? If you run into something - the fault is in your setup or how you're doing things.

It's not that complex...

Tell that to Mackie. How long has the Onyx-i series of mixer/interfaces been out? A long damn time. In fact, they're still in production, available for sale at Guitar Center, Musician's friend, Sweetwater, etc.

And guess what? Zero compatibility with Windows 10. They stopped updating their drivers at Win 8, and most of their Onyx-i mixers won't work with anything later than Win 7.

I think the OP's question is entirely valid.

[chk071]

I agree that it's not a matter of time. I'd say the Steinberg/Yamaha drivers are pretty solid though. At least. i haven't run into trouble, at least not into some driver related trouble, my issue was rather my sh**ty 14 € TP-Link wi-fi card.

[e@rs]

I have Wi-Fi disabled and still have dropouts on my UR22mkII. For me it's got something to do with pop-out texts. Every time one pops on the screen, boom, no sound. Not enough power on the video card maybe. Any way to completely disable pop-outs in Win7?

What surprises me is that this unit stays completely cold, while on my Fireface UC you can fry an egg or two if you're hungry.

[RichieWitch]

What surprises me is that this unit stays completely cold, while on my Fireface UC you can fry an egg or two if you're hungry.

Must be called Fireface for a reason...

[e@rs]

[Boone777]

I installed many interfaces for friends and customers in the past years and personnaly own 5 different brands, In my experience, Focusrite does'nt have drivers as stable as Steinberg. My personnal not recommended list is: Beringher, Focusrite, Presonus, Tascam. Recommended: Roland, NI, Steinberg, Motu, RME. And on Mac only, my Duet eventually had some issues but thats part of the Apple plan to force you to update OS and change computer wich I avoided and went back to PC and very happy about it. Not perfect but more options for my liking.

[SparkySpark]

Thanks again for all input. Yes, I think this an important question with no clear answers today. My first audio interface (PCI) was Pinnacle Pro in 1996, and it worked fine after the "E-PROM" was changed. Next stop was Audigy, a true disaster (but it looked cool). I then bought the Line6 Toneport UX-2 interface, which has lots of features but is a hassle to get working. I also suspect that it is not really stable, but cannot confirm that. (It actually runs under Win 10 even though it is not supported.)

So, now I am looking for a stable Win 10 interface that lets me focus on my performance. I believe that all common interfaces sound good enough for me, so sound quality is not my biggest concern. BTW, do you think there will be a noticeable improvement in sound quality when moving from the UX-2 to a newer interface like the UR22?

I guess that interfaces can cause problems with certain setups, so one just has to try them out and stick with the one that works.

[e@rs]

UR22mkII is a great quality interface for the price they ask: solid build (so pretty heavy when compared to a Focusrite), nice sound and includes MIDI connectors too. The problem that plagues many of Steinberg interfaces are the audio dropouts caused by the the drivers. The best thing you can do is try one and see if it causes problems on your machine. If it doesn't, stick with it.

[lfm]

Scarlett sounds like some cheap chicklit - that would make the choice for me

Seriously though, Focusrite overall have pretty decent preamps.
And having really high-end stuff as well, you can assume that transfer into consumer priced stuff.

Focusrite on too many preamps has only 50 dB gain - which is not enough for my Shure SM7B.
So look at such things as well.

[SparkySpark]

Thanks both!