I have been running a MOTU Ultralite MK5 on a Macbook Air M1 for about 8 months now and have never encountered any of the issues described there. I hope I have not tempted fate… but I am very happy with it so far.
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The issue seems to be specifically on M1 Pro/Max machines, but thanks for your input!
never heard about this but M1 Ultra (which is basically two M1 Max “stitched” together) no issues for over a year…
are the reports of this issue from recent times? there was couple of FW updates in the last year so maybe it was an issue that was fixed?
irrelevant edit: am I crazy or the price increased significantly over a year? I’ve ordered mine from Sweetwater in 12/2022 for $595 and now it’s $650, that’s quite a price jump…
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never had any problems, running it with M1/Max…
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Below two threads are the most concerning, but then I look on Thomann and it has solid 5 stars… So that’s why I ask here as well, because I trust Elektronauts the most 
Ongoing Ultralite mk 5 issues digital noise on M1max - MOTUnation.com
MOTU Ultralite mk5 - Do you have issues ? - Gearspace
I would buy an RME UCX 2 in a second, if it wasn’t twice the price of the Ultralite mk5.
looks like most of the ones with the issue are from a year ago or so or with outdated drivers/os, unless you have reason to be on old macos I don’t see how these should be a
problem, but there’s always a risk…
majority of voices here at least are pretty positive…
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Thanks… I’ll research a bit more for a couple of days, but I think I’ll pull the trigger on Thomann… at least that way I will have 3 years of extended warranty.
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Ah ok. Btw I also have been running it on an M2 Macbook with no issues, but I guess that doesn’t help you much either!
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Mine has been rock solid, and I’m on M1 Max.
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I got one of these last month and use it with an M2 Pro Mini. No problems at all.
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Unfortunately I’m having constant noises when playing audio on my MacBook Pro 14 M1MAX.
Similar to vinyl cracking, very frustrating. I’ll contact support and see what they have to say, but updating the firmware didn’t work on my case.
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Oh… so it is more common than thought 
thanks for your input!
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just got one here for our commercial studio : using with a MBP M2 Pro (2023) & everything runs beautifully & sounds terrific. no issues at all…
I run the MK5 with a MB Pro 16” M1 Pro without any issues (knock on wood). Have done recording with all the analog and adat simultaneously. Works like a charm. Kinda love it actually.
Looks like there’s an Mk4 on there now for 400
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I know it’s a silly question, but do you prefer recording your synths from the line inputs or the mics? I’ve started recording from the mic inputs and there’s some difference between the two, can’t really put my hand on what exactly is happening but even if I try gain matching the same thing they always sound different, I also tried to do a null test and it was way off…
another thing I’ve noticed that the mic inputs never go over the 0db mark, unlike line levels which can clip in DAW, what’s that? is there like a limiter on there or is it natural thing for the mic inputs?
anyhow, if someone has some thoughts on the topic would love to hear, I know I can just move on with my life but love knowing the details and differences
Could be caused by a slight difference in the frequency response of the front inputs due to the different architecture.
Julian Krause has an excellent review with some input specs and latency reports etc.
totally forgot about Julian video! yyyeaaah looks like that slight roll off in the lows is what making the overall sound change I’m trying to perceive, but no mention of the limiter on the mic inputs, I wonder if I can trust them as a limiter, I want to connect my setup to a PA system and thinking going stereo outs into the mic inputs, if I can trust them to really be a limiter then I can set trim on the outs to -1db and be sure that I’m not going to peak above and damage some speakers…
otherwise I’d better get a laptop too and run everything from ableton with a limiter
You could use an iPad with Fabfilter or an iPhone with some other AUv3 plugins. I’ve tried Nolimits2 on my iPhone. Works well enough.
I don’t have any AUv3 plugins unfortunately, and I was trying to avoid extra thing to care about, so I guess it’s easier to me use my MPB but if these inputs do hard limit as they seem to do while I run stuff into them in DAW then I might not need anything…
like for example this is me crashing the rytm hard into the mic inputs:
(volume warning 
)
and in Live the meter never goes above 0 db:
even if looking at the waveform all peaks seems to be clipped hard:
even better view with -2db on the recording:
so I just want to understand what’s happening here, if there’s a limiter or whatever circuit on the mic ins that’s trashing the recording and if I can use it as a zero latency limiter…