Just got one of the new Focusrite Clarett USB interfaces

Thought I’d share my thoughts in case anyone is up for a new interface

This is my 3rd ever external interface (originally had internal soundcards in the pc including an Audiophile if anyone remembers those?). When I went external, I went down the FireWire route and got an original Saffire. When I wanted to replace that 6 or 7 years ago, I bought a USB interface from Native Instruments which gave me endless issues in the few months I had it and in the end it was replaced by another Focusrite product, the Saffire Pro 24.

That unit has done a good job (it’s been rock solid) but I’d heard great things about the new range and went for the Focusrite 4 pre USB. As well as using my little music room here for recording, it’s the only place I seriously listen to music. I have all my cds ripped via EAC, nice monitor speakers, room treatment and a little valve-based headphone amp. I was lured in by the promise of better preamps, better dynamic range and potentially lower noise. So really it was as much an upgrade to my hifi as well as my recording setup

The results have actually blown me away. I always had a faint computer noise via the valve headphone amp and I just figured it was because it was sensitively picking up random crap. I’ve also always had a faint (or sometimes not so faint!) noise problem whereby I’d get airbourne interference using my guitars. I semi-sorted this by putting the pc down the other end of the room and running long cables for all the monitors / mice etc. This improved it no end but never truly got rid of it.

I am delighted to report that I now have precisely zero noise through the headphone amp and the noise problems via guitar are now gone...... it’s a night and day difference. Besides the noise difference, the quality of the sound is for sure better as well..... I was always happy with the FireWire interface in this regard but my hope for better has been answered perfectly. I’m enjoying just listening to my music collection through headphones with utter silence in the background

The new preamps for vocals are really nice too..... again, the noise level is leagues better. So far only played with a couple or rough vocal takes and an acoustic guitar track. They have the ability to use AIR mode which puts a model of the transformer based preamps in there.... not sure exactly what it is doing but I understand it’s an analogue process and you hear relays clicking away when it is enabled. More experimentation needed but early signs are promising.

The two headphone sockets are an improvement too.... I have Senheisser 650’s which are tricky to drive hence me using a valve amp. Without the valve amp, these phones sound better through the new interface vs the old but the valve amp still does a better job.

Bad stuff?

I did have an issue on day one as the interface kept locking up. I called their tech support today who were excellent. It appears that the ASIO driver that comes with it is capable of talking to Studio One but, if you set buffers in the Studio One Control panel, this message does not get back the other way. This weirded me out as buffer setting on other interfaces tend to cause clicks and pops but this caused the play curser to lock in Studio One and indeed even caused music playback programs like Music Bee and Spotify to stop working. Setting the buffer a little higher in the Focusrite ASIO panel and ignoring the settings inside Studio One appears to be the answer. Latency is fine and, so far, this approach has fixed it. They’ll look at their drivers now they know that Studio One doesn’t communicate back! Seems like the driver and S1 had different settings hence the glitches but (touch wood) all is well now.

Another bad thing? For my little Home studio, I only need two mic preamps but I need SPDIF to go with this. Also nice to have 2 headphone sockets..... On the previous generation, you could buy a 2 preamp interface with SPDIF and 2 headphone sockets. Now, if you want spdif and 2 lots of phones you’re forced into going up the food chain to a more expensive 4 preamp model. Irritating as I’m paying money for two preamps I won’t use but there was no choice here. I’ll forgive it for its other abilities though...... I’m hopeful the lockups are fixed because it is overall an awesome upgrade that has exceeded my expectations hence the review

Thanks for taking the time to read the review and for the comments - I appreciate it

db - Sorry to hear you're having issues and hope you get them fixed

I should have mentioned the mixer software actually..... very remiss of me. The mixer software on the Saffire was (IMO) a complete nightmare for someone who just wanted to do simple stuff with a DAW and listen to music. It was far, far more complicated than I ever had a chance of understanding!

The software on this one, in contrast, is an absolute pleasure. Dead simple. It's like they looked at the mixer on the Saffire and said 'ok, now we know how to *not* do it.....'

Listening to it now and, since understanding that the buffer must be set in the ASIO software, not Studio One, it hasn't put a foot wrong. I shall find some wood to touch for luck here as life is too short to be chasing audio glitch problems all the time...

Hi Vincent,

I use headphones with the Focusrite all the time - the headphone preamps in there are decent and are capable of driving my (fairly difficult) Senheisser HD650’s. In terms of its ability to drive headphones, it’s certainly no worse than the socket on the front of the Kemper

One question before you explore a new interface though - there is a ‘headphone space’ parameter that can be applied to the Kemper Headphone socket which can make It sound very different from listening to the same profile through an interface. Personally I don’t use the socket on the front of the Kemper (I’m usually playing via the DAW on the computer) but, if I did, I’d probably notice a big difference too.