XTONE 192K Mobile Guitar Interface With MIDI Control & Ultra Low Latency & BIAS & JamUp

I love this little box. It is what you never realized you needed until you try it. Pristine 192 kHz audio, negligible latency, patch changing capabilities, expression pedal input - it turns a newer iPad/iPhone into your new preamp. I did not that know this device existed, now its my favourite piece of kit. Perhaps the novelty will wear off a bit after I use it for a while, but I doubt it. It really is alone in its field - the Irig perhaps is some competition, but it sonically pales in comparison for almost the same price. There may be some quality control issues that I see some other users have had negative experiences - I have had nothing but fun with mine, and that is saying something these days. Thank you Xtone - you make nice gear. The GE Labs Mooer amp sim software is my favourite - it gives one the capability to set the buffer size of the audio down to 32! At 192 kHz, with a buffer of 32, I get no clicks or pops, and rarely go over 35% CPU with a new iPad Mini. Outstanding.

Vraiment super polyvalent!!

I've had the XTONE for three weeks or a little more and am through the 'honeymoon' period. I am not affiliated with them in any way, and I bought the XTONE here on Amazon.That said this little beast is worth the cash outlay. In my headphone practice rig it replaced an IK Multimedia iRig 2 HD (whose headphone jack failed after a year or two of very infrequent use, as the headphones were hardly ever removed; the iRig was of course out of warranty)The XTONE is solid. Its built like a tank compared to the little black plastic thing that it replaced. It was the same price as the Apogee Jam + and offers more functionality, albeit in a larger pedal sized package.On Windows 10 version 2004 the downloaded XTONE drivers worked the first time right out of the box and the apps I use on windows run fine and sound good (Amplitube 5, SGear, others and a DAW). The Windows install was fresh. Windows has itself some pops and clicks at low buffer settings that do NOT exist on iOS or my Macbook at the same (or smaller) buffer settings but I have not investigated how to solve that on Windows yet. That is more a comment on Windows than the XTONE but should be known. Compared to the previous device mentioned above that used ASIO4ALL and was all but unusable on Windows, the XTONE is great. Previous Windows audio problems caused me to buy a Macbook, I think I might use Windows only for email and net surfing.The XTONE just sounds so much better than the previous guitar interfaces I have used. I feel that in comparison the iRig colored the sound and added a few ms of latency. Using AUM in IOS tells me about the latency, so that observation is objective, the coloring of the sound or lack thereof is subjective.With the XTONE I can charge my iPad while in use, it came with the Apple Camera Connection cable thingy to do so. The latency is non existent 1 ms and around 5 round trip. The sound quality is.... pristine is a good word.The only, and I mean only, negative is that there is no input gain control on the XTONE like on the IK or Apogee Jam interfaces for guitar, so different guitars need to have patches adjusted for them, like a patch that I would use on a low output Strat is far different with a different guitar with higher output pickups--that is where an input gain control would be useful. Its really a small matter, given how good it sounds and how well it works.I am using it with a Damage Control Womanizer Tube Pre-Amp into a Joyo American Sound and/or an old Sansamp for practice, and into iPad and an AUv3 host called AUM with Ownhammer and York Audio IR's for cabinets in Thafknar (and Impulsation) for IOS, and various IOS effects like IK Mixbox, THU, Eventide, FAC, Audio Damage and Nembrini and it all just sounds amazing.Even without the pedals, pairing this interface with AUM and Magic Death Eye Compressor running into iOS amps from Nembrini, THU Overloud for IOS (or Windows for that matter) along with some slow down apps for IOS like Anytune and Transcribe for looping and slowing down videos and audio, as well as using Guitar Pro and Rock Drummer makes a nice little practice rig. I use XTONE to get guitar into AUM and AudioShare to loop files to play along with--It sounds good. The above apps do not give me 'ear fatigue' like other modelers and IOS software did.I would buy one of these again. I read the other reviews before I bought it. The one I have is dead quiet.The XTONE does not color the sound to the point that it made me realize that the headphones I had in my practice rig and that were just "ok sounding" with the iRig were actually really bad when compared to good studio grade headphones, of which I tried many sets before deciding on the ones I am currently using.The XTONE does not seem to color the sound at all like other interfaces did. With the iRig HD 2 I could not hear the difference between different headphones, but now I can. These are great times to be a guitarist, gear wise! It comes with everything you need to connect to a Macbook, Windows or iOS lightning or USB -C.

EDIT: They provided me with a BIAS FX code for IOS. It shows they read these reviews and care what we say. Which is very commendable and rare (especially these days). Still using the unit in Win10 using the new free version of Cakewalk along with BIAS FX 2. The lag has gotten better, it’s just a matter of dialing it in but for very complicated presets, I still get some lag. I doubt there will ever be a PERFECT hardware/software interface, but that’s also why the modeling hardware units cost $1000’s. If you want to record with this however, there shouldn’t be any issues as you add the effects later but for playing live gigs, I’m not sure I’d recommend it.——————————————————————————————-Two Issues: First, I want to use this with Windows 10 and am having some issues. Latency isn’t terrible but it’s definitely present. With BIAS FX 2, I actually get less lag when using it through a DAW compared to the standalone app which seems somewhat counterintuitive. Not sure if this is a software or hardware issue. In general, it IS playing with Win10, just not very nicely.[I’ll assume it works fine with my iPad based on the other reviews...]My second issue is just about truth in advertising. It says that you get a free code for Bias Fx with the purchase but, what you actually get is a code for a free upgrade for JamUp to the full version on iOS (if you don’t have an iPad/iPhone, ur out of luck anyways). If you zoom in on the picture right here on Amazon, you can see it says it’s a code for JamUp. Just don’t understand why they’re saying it’s BIAS FX (which I actually wanted) vs JamUp (which I’d imagine most experienced guitarists could care less about).

Excellent clear low latency sound. Love that they package the Apple camera converter kit to let you plug into your iPad AND charge at the same time. Using this with Bias FX2 and loving it.Only caveat to know... your order will likely be shipped on a slow boat from China (literally). It took 13 days to arrive.