Sound Devices MixPre D Portable DAC/Amp

Powered by two AA batteries. Sounds pretty good to me. Lots of power. Runs off USB mini.

This is a troll post. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I am curious how this compares with a real portable DAC/amp. It does sound pretty good to me, good detail and oddly bass-heavy, but I'm a neophyte who just happened upon this as a secondary use.

But... I actually prefer it to other portables I've used. Granted it's much bigger/heavier.

 

If you're going to go down that rabbit hole, maybe take a look at the new Centrance Mixerface. Similar featureset, and potentially cheaper depending which version.

 

Do all these interfaces sound more or less the same, though? On the input side, they don't. I had an Apogee Duet 2 at work that sounded pretty good and this does, too. Are my standards just very low and any given audio interface with decent gain would sound as good, too?