NI

100
Mini Reviews
The latest musical bits and pieces racked and rated
At just £16.99 this is one of the cheapest hardware products ever released
by Native Instruments. The neat looking splitter cable performs the simple
task of turning a stereo output (eg from an iPad running Traktor DJ) into
two mono signals allowing you to attach speakers and headphones at the
same time. It is one of most accessible ways of getting into Traktor DJing,
but the appeal of this product is mainly for beginners with limited funds,
because the outputs are restricted to mono and audio quality is limited by
the device you plug it into. It is well built, and by God it works! But – of
course – there are cheaper alternatives available. Oliver Smith
7/10
Line 6 Sonic Port | £69
http://line6.com
NI Traktor DJ Cable | £16.99
www.native-instruments.com
G
uitar interfaces for iOS
have been around for a
few years now, so it’s a
wonder manufacturers
have taken so long to come up with a
more desktop friendly chassis.
Thankfully the penny has dropped for
Line 6. Their latest foray into Apple
friendly interfacing alongside the
Mobile In interface is the Sonic Port
and it won’t disappear off the table as
soon as you plug in the guitar jack.
Straight out of the box and you
won’t be surprised at the plastic
construction. However, its weight and
all-round sturdy construction does
inspire condence should it be used
in a live situation.
It comes supplied with cables for
both a 30-pin and Lightning
connections, which is great as Line 6
have decided to use a proprietary
connection from the Port itself. The
front end is littered with connections
you would expect. A 1/4-inch
instrument input, 1/4-inch guitar/line
output to connect to monitors or
straight to your amp. The unit also
benets from a 1/8-inch stereo line
input for synths, keyboards or sound
modules and nally the obligatory
1/8-inch headphone output.
At £70 this unit may seem pricey
just for a basic interface, but you are
getting the feature-rich Mobile POD
and Jammit apps as free downloads.
Not only that, but it will also work
with GarageBand and any other
CoreAudio apps.
Fans of Line 6’s POD tones will
denitely love this for the Mobile POD
software. For everyone else, the £70
price tag may be slightly off-putting
with no MIDI or XLR input, but it’s a
well-bundled interface nonetheless.
Simon Arblaster
8/10
T
he HP50 is a surprisingly
stylish full-featured over-ear
phone that cuts a dash
between bulky over-ears
and the rising tide of less capable
(but more elegant) on-ears. They’re
well built, very sci- and make you
feel like a Cyberman with them on.
While it’s not in the serious sonic
league of anti-social open-backed
beauties like the AKG K712 Pro
featured this issue, the HP50’s Room
Feel technology clearly doing some
pretty clever crosstalk trickery and as
a result sound bigger and wider than
you might expect.
We were delighted by the unhyped
and crystal clear sound stage with
real pro mid and high clarity and
some lovely tight bass. There’s not the
boom and ‘warmth’ that typically
overpower consumer phones. Instead
the sound is powerful but in check
and we genuinely notice (and enjoy)
new detail in familiar tracks when
listening on the HP50 while we
happily wear them for hours.
Final attention to detail touches,
such as the ability to attach a cord to
the left or right side and the inclusion
of both (at prole and tangle-
resistant) cords for iPhone (with
volume, and mic controls) and
straight-up vanilla leads, only serve to
hype this further in our affections.
Daniel Grifths
8/10
NAD Viso
HP50 | £229
http://nadelectronics.com
FMU272.rev_mini.indd 100 10/9/13 2:07 PM