If you need eight mic inputs, there aren’t that many USB interfaces to choose from. Jon Musgrave plugs up Audient’s EVO 16
CONTACT WHO: Audient WEB: audient.com KEY FEATURES INPUTS: 2 mic/line/instrument, 6 mic/line, 16 digital OUTPUTS: 8 balanced line level, 16 digital, 2 headphone AUDIO STREAMS: 24 in 24 out COMPUTER INTERFACING: USB C connector using USB 2.0 DIMENSIONS: 354 x 285 x 49mm
Audient’s EVO audio interfaces are compact and simple. However, with the arrival of EVO 16, that’s all about to change. At 354 x 285mm it is still compact, but with a back panel crammed with connectors and a front panel menu system built around the full colour LCD screen, this is anything but simple.
EVO 16 is a 24 in / 24 out up to 24-bit 96kHz design, with eight mic/ line inputs and eight balanced TRS outputs. The first two inputs also include JFET instrument DIs, and the first two outputs are the designated monitor outputs and follow the main volume control. The remaining I/O uses two pairs of optical connectors offering 16 streams at 44.1/48kHz, eight streams at 88.2/96kHz or two stereo streams in S/PDIF mode. Rounding things off are two headphone outputs. Round the back there’s one USB C socket for connection to your computer and a regular mains input. Alas, there are no further powering options, which is a bit frustrating for mobile users.
EVO 16 is designed to work in tandem with the EVO software app, and this offers deep control of the unit including minimum latency headphone mixes (four separate cue mixes), flexible loop-back routing, talkback routing and firmware updates. Usefully, you can also use it to adjust the input gains and associated settings or even save settings to run in standalone mode. That said, many EVO 16 parameters can also be accessed from the front panel using the parameter buttons and main volume, which doubles as an encoder. Dedicated backlit buttons for selecting your input, 48v phantom, DI mode and Smartgain are joined by monitor and headphone selectors (1 and 2). There’s also a configurable function key (dim, alt, tal
