Loop Mixer

I bought this mixer after researching various mixer options. This is a small Taiwan supplier that only makes a few products, and this is one of them. I saw the other positive reviews and decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did! I considered a bunch of different options, including Mackie and Behringer mixers, but those all have features I don't need, like microphone inputs. This one is very small and light, and it does exactly what I need it to do, which is mix stereo line level inputs and provide a headphone output. It does it quite well, and I'm happy with it.I am using this for a rather unusual purpose. I needed a way to practice playing electric guitar with headphones instead of an amp. There are various ways to do this, but I wanted something small enough that I could mount it on a pedalboard. I also wanted it to work in stereo, because I have a stereo output from the last pedal in the chain, and have another stereo input so I can mix in music from my phone, and play along with the music. This mixer fits that purpose perfectly. The sound is clear and not noisy. Like someone else said, all the sliders and controls work smoothly. It's a great little unit.One of the things I could not tell from the specs was exactly what type of power adapter was included. Having received the unit, it may be helpful to note that it uses a 9V power supply with center positive. I wanted a mixer which takes 9V, like other pedals, so I could power it off my pedalboard power supply. Because it is 9V, this can work, but the polarity is opposite from regular electric guitar pedals. Almost all electric guitar pedals use negative for the center and positive for the sleeve. Fortunately my power supply includes a cable which reverses the polarity, so I can do that. Of course, the mixer comes with its own power supply; I just wanted to use the pedalboard power supply because it makes for a neater wiring job.The mixer includes an adapter which has two 1/4" mono jacks and puts them into the left and right channels of a 1/8" stereo plug, which makes it very easy to connect my guitar pedals to the mixer. Another way this is perfect for what I needed. In case you are curious, I am using a Joyo American Sound pedal and a Joyo AC Tone pedal, to do amp simulation before sending the sound to the mixer. It's not as good as a real amp, but sounds pretty good, and is close enough to practice with.I had my hesitations about buying from a little Taiwan company that only makes a few products. But this is a well-designed and built mixer. I'm very happy with it.

For what it is, it's a little bit pricey at $70. Other mixers in this price range are made of much higher-grade materials and are designed very professionally and efficiently. However, those mixers aren't 3.5mm.Maker hart is a small Taiwanese company with devices like this one that the audio market is only just beginning to see a use for. Not as many buyers means not so much product, which translates to higher prices for materials.While I don't think that $70 is the fairest asking price for this device, I completely understand it, and I support the rare and extremely useful products these guys are making.I saw on the company's website that they have a brand new 3.5mm mixer out, called Just Mixer 5, that also features bluetooth. That will be an exciting one to try!But back to the Loop Mixer at hand:PROS:- A 3.5mm mixer with independent volume controls is quite hard to find, which probably explains the price; you won't even find one from Behringer on the market.- Low noise floor (also better than other Behringer equipment in this price range).- Lots of inputs means lots of devices. Not a musician? You can run a PC, a TV/monitor output (e.g. for listening to Xbox or Netflix), a phone or mp3 player, and maybe a tablet, and still have one port free - how about a laptop?- Independent volume controls/gains as well as a master control.- Low profile; can be velcroed to the wall, a desk, or other piece of furniture for mounting or improved stability (it has a tendency to slide on smooth surfaces)- This mixer is amplified! I recently tried another mixer that wasn't powered, and thus couldn't amplify anything. Its independent volume controls were useless, since each device I added halved the total output volume, which meant I had to have all those knobs cranked to max and still couldn't get a usable result. The Loop Mixer solves this problem with one small power cord.CONS:- The casing is made of cheap plastic.- The power button catches inside the casing and sticks if not pressed straight-on (very complicated powering on/off when set up in tight spaces). The cutout for the power button is too wide.- When powering on, it causes your speakers to pop - this device does not have a 'soft start' or other feature to prevent popping. This can be avoided by turning this device on before anything else, but if you're like me and you use your speakers for applications outside of this device, your speakers are already on and you'll need to turn them off before powering the mixer on, then turn the speakers back on. *This is a common thing with amplified mixers, and is only listed as a con to alert people unfamiliar with mixers.- The included 1/4" adapter is also made of cheap plastic, and felt like it was ready to break from the time I took it out of the box. The cable on it is very short, so the stress of 1/4" cable heads tugging on the adapter's cheap body may prove to be too much over time, especially if you do a lot of unplugging and plugging back in. You may want to use a more solid adapter of your own.All of that being said, the construction of the mixer is still higher quality than you'd get from a factory in China. That should probably be added to the list of pros.However, if you're looking for something to travel with, I wouldn't recommend going with this one. Rugged is definitely not in this mixer's repertoire. Lucky for me, this mixer sits in a stationary setup, so my primary concern is that pesky power button.In summary:- The adapter is iffy. I use it on the output, so that I can send the signal to my Rokit speakers, but sometimes I want to unplug the adapter from the back of the mixer and use headphones instead. This proves tedious as I have to be extra careful not to yank the adapter cable around, fearing it will crumble in my hands or the cable will come loose.- I didn't test the loop feature of this device. I haven't explored the full capabilities of it, as I currently have no need to. The mixer is very well suited to the application I need it for, so I am happy!- As I discussed, one reason I can see this device being so expensive for what it is, is being hard to find. Comparable hardware just isn't on the market right now.For that, I give it 5 stars. If a little more effort went into the case design, and higher-grade plastic was used on both the case and the adapter, I think it'd be worth full price, but isn't enough of an issue to lose a star.

I use this to mix audio from multiple computers, a cell phone, and my desk phone into one output for my headset. This is my third go at having a good mixer with low noise and good output signal to drive headphones. I tried an unpowered Rolls MX41b (not strong enough; low volume output) and a Rolls MX44s (two of them, both added a lot of noise to the output no matter where the sliders were or how I powered them and if I had ground loop isolation on the inputs) and had never found a solution that fit my requirements fully. I looked at a bunch of other small mixers and finally saw this one last week. It is AMAZING coming from those two other mixers. I only hear noise in the headphones when at the edges of the mixer's capabilities and usually when the overload lights are flashing or lit. The sound output is clean and distortion free and the controls move smoothly through their range of motion. I like the catch at the center of the balance knob's range so you know when you've got it centered. The overload lights work well when you are trying to get your levels set. And it looks great on my desk with all the inputs and outputs on the back of the device except for the headphone output. I've been moving it back and forth from work to home since I got it since I have very similar setups at both sites. It is light but feels well put together and durable. Love having five 1/8 inch stereo inputs as well. I've not used the mono 1/4 inch adapter yet but I see no reason why it wouldn't work as well as the rest of the device. The second one of these should be here today so I can stop moving the mixer between two sites; there was zero hesitation in spending the money for another device to leave at home. Great product and for a desktop mixer I think does amazingly well at its $70 price point.