When Mo Volans from MoProAudio heard about the new SPL Series One, he spared neither trouble nor expense to pay us a visit. He left the company with one of our prototypes of the SPL Marc One to do an amazing video review on his Youtube channel.
First impression of Marc One:
“It is a monitoring and recording controller … it supports two sets of stereo monitors – the first set will also support a subwoofer and you got a separate headphone out. On top of all of this, you got line inputs, a set of line outputs and it has got an analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter, which is USB class complient.”
“What this all means is: not only can you run your monitors as you would with any other monitor controller and headphones, but also you can have analog equipment going in, your mixes going in, analog equipment going out.”
“On top of this, you are able to easily mix between the USB and the analog inputs and balance between them, which I really like is you can do this with one knob.”
“Also you can record anything coming into it via the USB and it’s worth remembering that the converters in here are 32 bit and go up to 768 kHz – so for listening back to really hi-def materials on certain streaming services, this is really ideal.”
Build quality:
“It’s a full-metal design, a steel box – everything on it feels really bullet-proof. It’s really what we come to expect from SPL, everything they do is built very well, they don’t mess around when it comes to build quality and this really is no exception. It’s quite heavy, it feels dense, it’s not going to move around on your desk. All the switches and knobs feel solid. So build quality: full marks!”
Sound quality:
“As far as the sound quality goes, the headphone amp is excellent.”
“I ran it with some active monitors and also some passive monitors and it worked equally well with all of them.”
“The Crossfeed function is something I’ve been waiting for. Beeing able to have this in this really small unit is excellent. I’m really happy about that – really excellent headphone amp!”
Value for money:
“For everything that’s in here, that’s really good value.”
“If you’re looking for a monitor controller, something compact, this really is the way to go.”
“It’s pretty impressive considering the price. It is very good, it is pristine – what else can I say.”
Find the complete review online at Mo’s Youtube channel.