As you all might know so far ive been very happy with my audient evo 4 interface , especially the low latency and the mic pre quality etc etc.
Now audient has brought out a new evo 16. Outside my budget…sigh.
But looks very nice , particularly for folks needing lots of inputs and expandibility. Heres the link…

https://evo.audio/products/audio-interfaces/evo-16/overview/


Notice the adat and spdif options.

for those that might not know, audient is also a supplier of high end mixers to recording studios.

Best
om

+++ HERE +++ is a 6:30 minute video review. The review says the EVO 16 will sell for about $500 US.

That is an excellent unit for $499.

Yeah, that's a direct competition to the Focusrite 18i20, about the same price.

Aren't they magical in their IN & OUT descriptions?
Both offer 8 easy to use INs & the Audient is only $20 dearer in Australia for "6" more ins BUT the front panel of the Focusrite is MUCH better...fingers can twiddle two knobs at once where as the Evo requires selection before twiddling & one at a time. Mind you the digital dial on the Evo offers a smoother ride though a worse case scenario if it has problems.

These make the Focusrite Clarlet Octo Pre look reasonably priced at AUS$1,129 - though the additional expense of setting up Thunderbolt connections does make me squint.

If one needs more than 8 INs for drum kit micing or whole band etc. then I suspect neither of the 8s will be adequate.

If only a few inputs…go old skool 60’s… Couple mics on drum kit…lol.

prolly audient are hopeing some users will buy one of these if needing more channels than evo 16...

https://audient.com/products/mic-pres/asp800/overview/

Just a caveat emptor. When i get any new gear , my
friendly gear retailer will offer me 2 options,,viz..i can rent for a month or purchase//return within 30 days .
This allows plenty of time for testing of drivers etc, and see if product lives up to ones needs. Also just cos a product works on one persons pc rig, it might not another cos of zillions of different pc configs.
The 16 certainly looks impressive value for bucks, but i’m curious how competitors respond.

Best
om
ps if needing loads of inputs soundcraft mtk ?
or allen heath mixers ?

Wow that Evo 16 does look nice. I pulled up the specs on that one and several of the lower input interfaces but no where does it discuss whether they use ASIO or not. Is it multi-client?

Jeff

Jeff.
my evo is asio etc.
but as a new product i would contact audient support re mc...ive found their support very responsive.
best idea as i said is rent one and see.
ive never had a prob switching tween reaps and biab.
reaps asio and bb was .

om

I would be extremely surprised and disappointed if it didn't have ASIO drivers.

Multi-client ASIO is not an issue for me but it may well be for others.

I also could not find any info on drivers.

I found this unhappy customer:

https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/1224714-audient-asp800-intermittent-distortion-problems.html

Regards,

Bob

Mario..
RE…asio drivers.
If you download the manuals (there are 2 from audient site for my evo 4 ) youll see they have their own audient driver….and claim ultra low latency…latency figures are quoted in the manual. I couldnt find a manual yet for the evo 16.
Musictech gave a tech award to evo…here is their review.
Reviewer gave 10 out of 10.
https://musictech.com/reviews/studio-recording-gear/review-audient-evo-8/
(but i’m sure there will be some customers unhappy due to the bazillion different recording rigs out there…ive seen gripes about loads of gear…tis nature of the beast).
Only time will tell if the evo 16 makes people happy…in the interim i would suggest people also look at the audient id interfaces which have a very good rep.

https://audient.com/products/

I recommend anyone needing unbiased review of any interface look at julian krauses reviews on you tube. I like him cos he goes deep with analysis.

https://www.youtube.com/c/JulianKrause/videos

Finally all i can say i’m happy with my evo 4 for the daft low price i paid…
And the drivers have given me nary a problem.
Reaps and bb worked right off the get go after set up.

but mario , if you are serious bout the new evo 16, i would rent for a month to see if all is copacetic with
your rig.

Best
Om

No, I am not serious about the evo 16. I am very happy with my Roland Octa-Capture that I have had for a number of years now:

https://www.roland.com/us/products/octa-capture/

Re…Roland

Yep if your happy why change.

Frankly a unit that interests me due to the guitar features is ..

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/axeio/

But i’m in no rush. Gear changes fast these days.
i'm gonna wait awhile now.see what other gear comes out.

Best
om

No it's not, actually.

if you know what to look for, the Scarlett 18i20 3rd gen is using a later generation chip set with better specs and lower latency. So are a couple dozen other interfaces currently on the market.

The EVO 16 appears to be using something similar to what's inside the Scarlett 18i20 2nd gen. Though not bad per se, no way I would buy something new with 4 year old technology at its core.

If a new interface is not advertising the following: "Fast USB 2" or faster and 192/24 and "near zero latency", I would buy one that does. The differences between the current chip sets and the older ones is easy to hear.

No thanks.

Good insight Mike. Thanks for adding that.

Jeff

Mike.

Would love to know where you get your ad/da//chipset info from…cos i do deep dives on the net for this info, but its scant at best. And i’m fully aware of some of the manufacturers of chips and convertors like ti/burr brown/akm etc etc. but whenever i look at a new interface i find little info where someone has done a ‘teardown’.
Please share…lol…oops i think analog devices is another.
Maxim also ?..

Anyhoo my audient evo 4 was originally meant as a ‘stop gap’ and a ‘wait and see’. And so far i really cant knock it. It hasnt give me one prob. Maybe i’m lucky. Also i gotta say i get a rapid response from audient support.
Also i found out the drivers are multiclient.
I’m getting very low latency with it. I think ive seen on audients web site some of the ‘internals’ are less than 1ms. (see web site for info.)
ok i found evo specs..check out the la
tency figures and other specs...page down for latency figs. in particular notice the round trip latency figure.

https://evo.audio/products/audio-interfaces/evo-4/specs/

Now of course to be fair all interfaces have improved…and competition is fierce. I might try the new uavolt next or ssl2 or motu. I’m also waiting to see if Soundcraft or An heath do something new with their mixers.
ive always been interested in the a/h zed series.

In summary ive been pleasantly surprised by evo, and would mention also lots of studios worldwide are using the audient evo’s and also the higher end id range.
all reviews ive seen have been very positive..eg..


https://gearspace.com/board/reviews/1307424-audient-evo-4-a.html

I think if i remember after a few months of my use of evo musictech mag gave it 9 or 10 out of ten tech award. ..forgotten.

Lets remember also per a recent artice i was reading on chipsets//adda..
Also the analog circuits/components etc in the circuits are important.

And before someone says i work for audient.
dont be daft !
I mention this cos…lol…when i mentioned biab over the years to fellow musos..i was often asked if i worked for pg. Cant win…lol.

In ending , and i’m guilty as well, i think sometimes we obssess bout specs a tad too much.
For example the obsession on a minus ‘insert your under hundred noise floor number’ ..when some mics are what ? -55 ?
I made this mistake once with a product , but then found it grrreat in use.

As always to quote the ever nice marioD, ymmv. And i would just add rent//test any usb interface before purchasing.

Happiness to all.

om

When I say you can hear the differences, it boils down to Round Trip Latency aka RTL.

I've told you what to look for:



The earliest of these new devices shipped October 2019. It's easy to tell what devices are using these and I was able to figure out the OEM from the descriptions. The 8 I/O (4 mic-pre+2 DI+2 Line In–Out+2 headphone amp) version of this chip costs $6.73 each, min. qua. of 1000. That's why everyone is using it. Well… almost everyone: Audent and iConnect are not. Someone's buying the old stock that doesn't meet the good specs so, what are they saving per unit? $2–3?

Faster means USB 3 and Thunderbolt 3. The real world differences between these and Fast USB 2 work out to the same as moving your ears 12" (USB 3) or 18" (TB3) closer to or further from your monitor speakers. Use the speed of sound at sea level when you do the math.

There's no such thing as zero latency but the "near-zero" claimed is so fast that you'll hear comb filtering due to phase anomalies when monitoring the I/O through your computer at a 50/50 mix. It goes away at 60/40 or 40/60 so you no longer need dedicated monitoring apps to compensate (MOTU calls theirs CueMix—not applicable to their M2/M4, BTW).

M-Audio, MOTU M2/4/Ultralite 5, Scarlett 3rd Gen, Mackie FxProv3, NI, PreSonus, SSL and many others are using this.

If it has the right terms, buy for the feature set. I have a MOTU M4, three Mackie FxProv3 mixers with different channel configurations and an M-Audio air 192|14 that I use daily. Although the guts are the same as everyone else, M-Audio adds an additional pre-amp circuit that lets me use my ribbons and SM7B—most others can't.
M-Audio 192|14 at Sweetwater

All the ones I have use an I/O mix/blend control that I find extremely convenient—otherwise, I'm setting that up in my DAW. None of the Scarletts have this—the only reason I don't recommend them—I'm spoiled. If you look at the M-Audio above, it's the knob at the upper left corner.

Mike//ALL.

mike thanks for your further comments.
i'm not disagreeing that the products you cite and use daily arent great products.

Thinking that i might be losing the plot as i get older…lol… i decided to do deep deep dives on my evo today.
All i can say in summary is there must be a load of people that are wrong for liking this product like moi…includeing pro AE’s.
Just google > ‘review audient evo 4 (or 8)’.
Pages and pages of positive reviews on google, and you tube.

But i must say , to be fair, i believe you can do a great song with any interface including the under 100 buck ones. If it wasnt for covid , i would visit my friendly gear retailer and rent a very high end megabucks interface, lay some vocs down with it , and also with the evo and see if people can hear the diff. Ie like people do often on entertaining product comparisons on gearspace.com.

Btw heres an interesting fun review on the new evo 16. Dont let the title fool you….‘Have audient lost their minds’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqY_nEVFSbE

Personally i’m gonna wait and see what competitors bring out this year.
Best to all.
om

don't mean a thing if those users aren't comparing the known deficiency with other interfaces that don't have that problem.



Of course you can. That, however, was never the point of your original post nor of my rebuttal. You were presenting the EVO 16 as the greatest thing since sliced bread based on their marketing nonsense. I pointed out that there is better on the marketplace and it costs less—then I explained why.




It's nearly 4pm on the last day of NAMM. Anyone waiting for the next generation that blows away the 10/2019 class will be disappointed. None were announced. Since the 2019-on (aka Gen3) is near the theoretical I/O RTL, it's going to take some serious new feature.

There are refinements of old devices, however. Tweaked preamps seem to be the new feature and you can spend a pretty penny for that. The interface making the most buzz out of NAMM is this one.
Neve 88M

Same ultra-high DAC everyone else is using (again, except Audent and iConnect) but you get Neve transformer mic pres added to the input. No I/O mix/blend control so you wouldn't be able to give me one. Ok, I'll likely be sent one for teardown and evaluation but I'll be requesting a UR-RT2 for comparison sending it all back when done.

Now, if all you want are Neve transformer based interfaces, Steinberg(Yamaha) has had them since 2020. $379 for 2 channel; $649 for 4 channel with 2 headphone amps.

UR-RT2 $379

UR-RT4 $649

Again, since none of these have an I/O mix/blend control, I'm not interested in them.

I'm guessing that there will be a I'm guessing there will be an inexpensive 384/32bit float chip set happening in the next year or two. When that's announced, the current 3rd Gen interfaces will upgrade to Gen 4. Audent and iConnect will then be able to scarf up the old gen3 chips.

Mike.

Jeesh ! nowhere did i say “best thing since sliced bread’.
IN FACT i always recommend that people always test any interface prior to buying.

I guess all these sweetwater buyers are wrong as well. 108 reviews.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EVO4--audient-evo-4-usb-audio-interface/reviews

I’ll let others form their own conclusions, dont matter to moi.
And with that i’m outta here...

Peace out.
om

Looks pretty darn nice, but

This is why I keep my RME and MOTU gear. Knobs, plural.



At least the EVO 16 has a pair of ADAT IO for another 8-16 preamps.

daryel.corran

my audient evo 4 interface is asio. v low latency too in fact as well as multi client...BUT best bet as there are sooo many different pc rigs out there to rent before buying like i do.

please note that in the realband forum is a thread about interfaces that work well with pg software...viz...

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=635707#Post635707

sweetwater has a good list of interfaces ...and reviews...viz

https://www.sweetwater.com/c695--USB_Audio_Interfaces

ideally for music production i reccomend a multi client interface. check with the seller on this.

best/hth/ymmv.

om