M-Audio M Track Duo HD Producer Pack Review: Hot Takes, Cold Opens
M-Audio M Track Duo HD Producer Pack Review: Hot Takes, Cold Opens
M-Audio M Track Duo HD Producer Pack 评测：犀利观点与开箱体验
WIRED 评分：7/10
优点： 性价比极高的做工。包装内几乎包含了提升播客或 Zoom 会议质量所需的一切。支持类兼容（Class Compliance），即插即用。
缺点： 麦克风缺乏高通滤波器开关。在高增益设置下，麦克风容易拾取背景噪音和干扰。
It’s never been easier to start a podcast. Technological barriers to sharing your opinions on culture, politics, and hot sauce have never been lower, which is—in theory—a tremendous boon for the so-called “marketplace of ideas.”
现在开启播客从未如此简单。分享你对文化、政治和辣酱的看法，其技术门槛已降至历史最低点，从理论上讲，这对所谓的“思想市场”是一个巨大的福音。
Should any idiot with a hot take be allowed to broadcast their brain slop far and wide? That’s an open question society is in the midst of tackling, so we’ll set that aside for now.
任何持有激进观点的白痴都应该被允许大肆传播他们的思想垃圾吗？这是一个社会目前正在探讨的开放性问题，所以我们暂时搁置不谈。
From a gear perspective, the more pressing question is whether or not you need access to nepo baby cash to acquire the mics, headphones, cables, and stands to get started. And in that regard, there’s great news for the everyman who thinks the world needs to hear their inner monologue as quickly and clearly as possible: Budget podcasting gear is cheap and plentiful. And it’s all over the place in terms of quality and functionality.
从设备角度来看，更紧迫的问题是：你是否需要像“关系户”那样有钱才能买得起麦克风、耳机、线材和支架来开始创作？对于那些认为世界需要尽快、清晰地听到自己内心独白的普通人来说，有个好消息：预算级的播客设备既便宜又充足。只是在质量和功能上参差不齐。
A great place to start looking is legacy brands that’ve been in the game for a while, and M-Audio’s new M Track Duo Producer Pack is an all-in-one package with an audio interface, headphones, and a condenser mic, tying a bow around an affordable and approachable point of entry into the digital creator space. It won’t dazzle you with options or features, but it can turn the voice in your head into ones and zeros for a low cost and minimal effort.
一个很好的切入点是那些深耕已久的老牌厂商。M-Audio 新推出的 M Track Duo Producer Pack 是一个全能套装，包含音频接口、耳机和电容麦克风，为数字创作者提供了一个经济实惠且易于上手的入门方案。它不会用花哨的选项或功能让你眼花缭乱，但它能以低成本和极小的努力，将你脑海中的声音转化为数字信号。
The Podcast Industrial Complex
播客工业综合体
M-Audio has long been the paragon of budget recording gear that’s functional and just a click or two above embarrassing to be seen with onstage. The early iterations of its Fast Track series of audio interfaces powered countless bedroom recordings way before being a “Bedroom Artist” had a proper aesthetic/genre tag applied to it, and it did so for pennies compared to the big guys like Avid and Apogee, who anchored the upper-price bracket of the segment.
长期以来，M-Audio 一直是预算级录音设备的典范——功能实用，且在舞台上使用时还不至于让人感到尴尬。其早期版本的 Fast Track 系列音频接口在“卧室艺术家”这一标签流行之前，就支撑了无数的卧室录音。与占据高端市场的 Avid 和 Apogee 等大牌相比，它的价格简直是九牛一毛。
Reddit users claim the Fast Track Pro still works on most pre-2019 computers, which is remarkable considering those that remain are left over from the second Bush era (and easy to find for under $50 on eBay). Class compliance—which allows users to simply plug the interface into their computer and get to work without messing around with drivers—proliferated in the early 2010s, and the modern-interface market is now overrun with small sub-$200 boxes that convert an analog audio source into a digital signal that’s easy to capture in Garage Band, Reaper, or any other high-end digital audio workstation (DAW).
Reddit 用户声称 Fast Track Pro 在大多数 2019 年之前的电脑上仍能工作，考虑到这些设备大多是小布什时代的遗物（且在 eBay 上很容易以低于 50 美元的价格买到），这确实令人惊叹。类兼容性（Class Compliance）——即用户无需折腾驱动程序，只需将接口插入电脑即可工作——在 2010 年代初开始普及。如今，现代接口市场充斥着各种 200 美元以下的小盒子，它们能将模拟音频源转换为数字信号，并轻松被 Garage Band、Reaper 或任何其他高端数字音频工作站（DAW）捕获。
Cheap junk is everywhere, which makes the presence of a reliable and affordable brand like M-Audio that much more valuable for plebs who have plenty of time for pontificating but very little time for gear research.
廉价垃圾随处可见，这使得像 M-Audio 这样可靠且实惠的品牌对于那些有大把时间高谈阔论、却没时间研究设备的普通人来说，显得尤为珍贵。
M-Audio has packaged everything this person would need in a tidy little box with its M Track Duo HD producer pack. It includes a two-channel class-compliant audio interface, an M100 condenser mic, a pair of HD41 headphones, a mic clip, a USB-C cable to connect the interface to your computer or mobile device, and an XLR cable to connect the mic to the interface—all for the low price of $200. Aside from a mic stand (we love this desk clamp boom arm stand from Innogear) and the unearned confidence necessary to speak into a mic for hours about a wide variety of esoteric topics, you need nothing else than what’s in this box to get started. Plug a few things in, fire up OBS or your favorite DAW, adjust the gain on the mic preamp, and get to work.
M-Audio 将用户所需的一切都装进了一个整洁的小盒子里。它包含一个双通道类兼容音频接口、一支 M100 电容麦克风、一副 HD41 耳机、一个麦克风夹、一根用于连接电脑或移动设备的 USB-C 线，以及一根连接麦克风与接口的 XLR 线——所有这些仅需 200 美元。除了一个麦克风支架（我们很喜欢 Innogear 的这款桌面夹式悬臂支架）以及对着麦克风滔滔不绝谈论各种深奥话题所需的“迷之自信”外，你不需要任何额外的东西就能开始。插上设备，打开 OBS 或你最喜欢的 DAW，调整麦克风前置放大器的增益，然后就可以开工了。
The interface is a lightweight box of plastic that’s about the size of a VHS tape or a self-help book you’d buy at an airport bookstore. The front panel has two combo XLR quarter-inch input jacks, both of which have separate line and instrument level impedance selectors. A 48-volt switch enables phantom power for both inputs at once, which is essential to power the included condenser mic or a Cloudlifter if you decide to go full-on “PodBro” and upgrade to a dynamic mic. There’s also a single quarter-inch TRS headphone jack and a three-way selector that dictates whether a direct mono, direct stereo, or USB signal feeds the dual-mono quarter-inch tip-sleeve output jacks on the back of the box.
该接口是一个轻便的塑料盒子，大小约为一盘录像带或你在机场书店买的自助类书籍。前面板有两个 XLR/6.35mm 复合输入插孔，两者都有独立的线路和乐器电平阻抗选择器。一个 48 伏开关可同时为两个输入端开启幻象电源，这对于驱动附带的电容麦克风至关重要；如果你决定升级到动圈麦克风，它也能为 Cloudlifter 供电。此外，它还有一个 6.35mm TRS 耳机插孔，以及一个三向选择器，用于决定是将直接单声道、直接立体声还是 USB 信号输出到盒子背面的双单声道 6.35mm 输出插孔。
Each channel has its own gain knob on the top of the unit, with an indicator light below that flashes white when a signal is present and red when the signal is clipping. Each preamp has 55 dB of gain on tap, which is more than enough to turn even the meekest of Teams meeting NPCs into audible, active participants. The motion of the knob is smooth and jitter-free until you hit the last 10 percent of its sweep, at which point some ambient digital noise seemingly clicks on and off as if it were triggered with a switch. This is way too much gain for any practical application due to the amount of clipping it’s likely to cause, so this is not a major concern for anyone who’s spent 30 minutes or so dialing in their levels and getting a feel for the thing.
每个通道在设备顶部都有独立的增益旋钮，下方有一个指示灯：有信号时闪烁白光，信号削波（过载）时闪烁红光。每个前置放大器提供 55 dB 的增益，足以让 Teams 会议中最沉默的“NPC”也能成为声音清晰的活跃参与者。旋钮转动平滑且无抖动，直到最后 10% 的行程时，会出现一些环境数字噪音，仿佛被开关触发了一样。由于这会导致严重的削波，对于任何实际应用来说增益都过大了，所以对于那些花 30 分钟左右调试电平并熟悉设备的人来说，这并不是什么大问题。
A Mic for the Masses
大众麦克风
The included condenser mic pairs well with the preamp in the interface. It’s a unipolar large-diaphragm condenser mic, which in normie language means the metal grate that covers the front of the mic is where you’ll want to point your voice, instead of the back. Condenser mics are much more sensitive to ambient noise than a dynamic mic, which is both an upside and a downside. A condenser mic works well a bit farther from your face than a dynamic mic, but you’ll need to boost the gain to pick up your voice at a greater distance. This picks up more background noise as well, which can lead to some embarrassing moments on Zoom calls when, say, the small flock of fowl your neighbor is illegally housing in their…
附带的电容麦克风与接口的前置放大器配合得很好。这是一款单指向大振膜电容麦克风，用通俗的话说，就是你需要对着麦克风正面的金属网罩说话，而不是对着背面。电容麦克风比动圈麦克风对环境噪音敏感得多，这既是优点也是缺点。电容麦克风在离你脸稍远的地方也能工作良好，但你需要增加增益才能在更远的距离拾取你的声音。这也会拾取更多的背景噪音，这可能会导致 Zoom 会议中出现一些尴尬时刻，比如，当你的邻居非法饲养的一群家禽在他们的……