After many hours of research, I decided to go with the Audient ID4 and ordered it last night. I could have spent months comparing, but I finally decided that, for me, the ID4 was the biggest bang for the buck. It's not pretty, but the sound is what matters most, and it rates highly for the price.

Thanks to all that replied!

Please let us know asap if the sound quality is an improvement over your current situation. I am considering a move away from my Saffire Pro 40 and the Audient is a contender, but I still would like some more real world opinions if possible.

Thanks,

fb

I understand and will be glad to post my opinions after I try it with instruments and vocals.

There are so many choices and conflicting reviews/reports when looking into new gear. I did notice almost nothing negative reported about the Audient with the exception of some folks mentioning latency issues. Even those were rare, and Audient told me that new drivers will be out soon that will make their numbers even better. And with direct monitoring, there wouldn't be a problem anyway.

Have a good day!

i am finding the headphone output very unsatisfying my apogee nearly could of blow ur head away.The converters of Audient are overrated maybe users never used good converters. For the price its good maybe there its no better but overall i am not so impressed with the converter typical lowend gear.

Hmm, interesting. I would love to know if there are any Saffire Pro 40 users who think the Audient sounds better or worse or about the same.

Thanks again,

fb

I had saffire before it sounds different not better not worse.Audient have obvious high mid high emphasis giving u impression of clarity.Focusrite converter its neutral both have bad headphone outputs the dynamic range its low on the dac.Had very good mixes with Focusrite cant say they are bad with audient either but this brightness its ear piercing to me i had duet 2 had the same emphasis its just so harsh.My ribbon tweeters catch most of this harmonics its unbearable u might cut more highs then needed.

Wow and thanks! You might have just saved me some cash.

Sometimes it just seems like there is a cloud over the sound of the Saffire, but I have wondered about the hyped highs that you mention especially when I hear/read so many reviews where people talk about the clarity of these devices other than the Saffires.

Well, more food for thought.

Thanks again.

fb

i tought the same when switched apogee duet 2 with the saffire like blanket was lifted but i never ever made one good mix with duet 2 where none of my focusrite mixes was bad.This emphasis its very subtle but its leading you to cut a lot in that area and ur mixes become dull.Audient obvously haas less dynamics then the saffire it feels a bit flat.The saffire has issues so it does the Audient the audient a bit less.For this price range i suspose this is what u get the focusrite converters are underrated they are not bad converters the others have sound which gives false impression, very few are neutral like rme for example.I think Clarett its better then both someone said sounds as good as focusrite red the red series are not joke for sure.

I don't have a lot I can invest, but am hoping the Audient is a big step up from my Alesis IO2 Express...an even cheaper interface. Thanks for writing.

Ye if u on budget go ahead if u can squeeze for id 14 would give u an extra pre and io.Remember its the ear not the gear I ve made my most.saled.track on a realtek sound card.Now.I can't even comes close.to.this gear obcession I suspose.

Thanks geeorge, In my home studio it's always just one instrument or vocal at a time, so not having lots of ins/outs is not a problem. I go to a friend's large studio for multi-player recording. Have a nice weekend.

In the same boat with Saffire Pro 40. Don't need 8x pre so looking to upgrade quality by sacrificing inputs. Been looking hard at the Audient line especially the new 1d44. The Saffire works great on my 2011 macbook pro via firewire but wondering if another mid priced interface will be a worthy upgrade. Inserts that can also bypass the pres is a huge selling point for me on an interface.

Thanks for all of your advice. After further consideration I have decided to save up some cash and try to get in to the world of Ethernet audio devices. I am getting tired of wondering what type of connection I should get and have decided that ethernet seems like a good open ended solution.

Thanks again,

fb

Would you mind to explain why you chose Ethernet?
Thank you!

Because, in my opinion, I believe that almost any decent desktop computer or laptop computer will have an ethernet connection even many years from now. My current computer has an ethernet card, so I can use an ethernet device NOW and if I get a nice new fast computer in the future, I can STILL use it on the new ethernet computer.I feel that if I spend money on a usb device or a firewire device or even a thunderbolt device, that there will be some new connection that Apple or somebody will invent and then you will HAVE to buy a computer with THAT connection and blah,blah,blah......at least with a simple ethernet connection, there should be plenty of options without having to buy a new computer with a "special" connection.

Does that make sense?

fb

Don't all the current ethernet audio solutions still use another interface standard to the computer?
I get kind of lost in the blurb, but they all seem to offer PCIe cards or TB connection to computer.

There is Dante VSC software which can access ethernet audio devices direct but it has much higher latency and using it would be a bit like buying an RME and then running it on ASIO4all.

I may be missing something but this is how it seems from the little reading I've done.

Sorry for answering rather rhetorical question for someone else.
From my point of view (well everyone can have own reasons for his decisions) perceived universal compatibility advantage doesn't really have so high priority.

There are certainly some clear advantages of networked audio, anyone can benefit, although honestly most of them aren't really so important for smaller rigs (eg. one converter/interfrace hooked to PC) as opposed to larger installations, PAs, studios with larger modular setup.
So I can imagine quite few situations, where networked audio can provide inherent "killer" features.

As correctly mentioned before, networked audio without dedicated hardware endpoint (like Dante PCIe accelerator card) doesn't match latency and efficiency performance of well implemented native PCIe or USB interfaces, unless you descend into quite complicated approach with realtime OS extensions like in case of MassCore or Hono AVB, which basically hogs one host CPU core to perform latency sensitive operations of the endpoint.
(in that case, it's supported only at certain Windows versions - and endpoint vendor has to pay OEM licensing for Windows RTX realtime extension, which is another 3rd party product).
There are certainly cases, where higher latency or some restrictions of generic endpoints like DVS or say Apple's built-in AVB endpoint at OS X doesn't matter, but if you're concerned, then it really doesn't apply, you can just connect networked audio hardware to any computer with Ethernet port.
There will be always some restrictions and requirements, you have to follow and in that sense, there's no difference to "conventional" audio interfaces, where in some cases you have better chance for "univesal" support like with some class compliant USB audio interfaces, which can use built-in drives at all major operating systems.

Michal

Also with regards to used data bus or transport interface ("My budget USB thingie sucks, do I have to buy PCIe interface go with networked audio or what?..")..
I've mentioned several times, that typically, except some standard obsolesce due to continuous progress in IT world, the bus is not the primary factor, why someone ends up dissatisfied with some audio interface.. Much more often, it's just not so well implemented product or the one with subpar support from its vendor.

This touches other important aspect.. Sometimes I feel, people have unrealistic expectations about lifespan of such gear.. and somewhat expecting, it will last for decades like microphone, tube amp or so. There are couple of involved aspects, first of all we're talking about computer peripherals, which can't be really designed with foreseeing of future progress in that field with regards to hardware.. even though it's not really as bad with regards to connectivity, as it might look like. For example you can still get either PCIe or TB adapters to Firewire, newer USB standards are still backward compatible using appropriate cables or adapters, there are PCI to PCIe bridges..
Much more serious issue is sustained software support, which depends on both device pricepoint and overall attitude of its vendor. At lower end (budget and prosumer segments), there's much higher chance, some products won't receive proper software updates or bugs will be solved at its successor. It's added cost for vendors and one of reasons, why for example Lynx, RME or say DigiGram won't release $200 budget interfaces IMO, such level of support has its value.
I can see also reasons, why some people get dissatisfied by some product EOL, but very often it's either defunct company (well **** happens) or cheaper product already at market for say 6-8y. Possibly some older professional gear, which has its successor for long time (say legacy AVID interfaces or control surfaces).

Michal

Guys when you play amp sims like biasfx where do you put your Gain level from your Audient ID card ?
i have put it to Zero cause it gives the natural feel of the amps or i m wrong ?

This sucker randomly stops passing audio to the monitors. I hear a pop and then no sound. Have to crank volume knob for sound to pass again. Super annoying. Hoping it’s somethkng fixable and dumb.

I was looking for a low budget 2ch interface with the only purpose of watching movies at home. I usually work with audient stuff, so i gave id4 a chance.
The sound quality of the DA surprised me instantly so I took it to my studio to compare with an antelope orion studio rev2017 on my loved Neumanns KH310:

-The stereo image is pretty good
-Transients well defined
-Its bright but not harsh
-In the low end there is a big difference in punch and definition

Considering that it is 20 times cheaper than the antelope, I can say that in price- quality relation is the best interface I ever heard. DA sounds better than my old apogee ensemble firewire and motu 828 mkiii.

I agree; it's a great value.

Glad you guys are happy with it, but I respectfully disagree. I love the tuner knob/DAW thing, but a single I/O interface with no appreciable diff in sound quality (IMO after blind tests were done) over comparable units like the Behringer 404 or Steinburg UR22 (which cost less), and no MIDI? For that matter, do ANY Audient AIs have MIDI? I get exclusion from the bottom-end unit, but for the others it's inexcusable. I also get the impression they are slightly below average in reliability. Pass.

your in the minority on sound quality, midi i/o is dated

Being in the minority is your opinion (unless you simply mean on this site, then I agree) and MIDI I/Os being "dated" is a dicey claim since many keyboards still have it and it's often still needed.

Hi,

I see the above discussion is almost closing, but I'd like to share my annoying experience over iD4 for the past two months. I intended to use it as a portable iD22; the reality was cruel :-) I hope someone could help me out.

As many reviewers on the 'net agree, the sound quality is simply great. But the FATAL problem is the badly-designed volume control. Unlike iD22 that I've been using for 3 years, iD4 takes a rotary encoder as a volume knob, not a traditional potentiometer. The tragic consequences are:

(1) The volume setting is volatile: you have to re-adjust it every time you turn it on.

(2) You cannot reproduce the exact setting. As a recent article on Sweetwater explains (How Loud Should You Mix? | Sweetwater), the volume setting is critical in the mixing process. (Maybe you guys know much better than I :-) But the encoder freely rotates, and there is no digital indication of the present volume position anywhere (on either the iD4 body or the driver window), so it is practically impossible to go back to the same volume.

(3) The volume adjustment is way too crude. There is a 5-LED level on the body and that's it. When I complained to the Audient support, they said that actually the levels are not 5 but 9 (counting in-between ones) and that I can reproduce my favorite position by memorizing the number of encoder clicks from the nearest level.

That trick was a nice try (if not a joke), but it didn't work. For example, with my headphone (AKG K240mk2), the lowest 2 LEDs mean silence, and the highest 2 (yellow & red) mean hurting loudness; so my adjustment is actually constrained within 2(!) clicks in the middle. (I'm serious :-)

What's the worse is -- don't laugh -- that there is a hysteresis in the encoder: if you go down and up each by one click, you don't go back to the same place!!! Whoa!!!

Now I'm asking for help: how can people out there manage this situation and use iD4 comfortably for their everyday task? Is there a way to escape from all these? Or do they calibrate with a SPL meter every morning?

Any suggestion is welcome. Thanks a bunch!

I'm curious to know the solution to this problem.

I've been using my Audient ID14 for several months now and struggled with the volume issue at first. My perhaps oversimplified solution (works for me) is to, before any hitting "play", slowly turn the volume knob clockwise until the first red peak indicator light comes on, then back down one notch. That's my usual baseline.

@ Ray Of Light , @ foxwaves :

Thank you for your reply! I don't have iD14, but according to the web info, the situation looks a lot better than iD4.

Its driver has a mixer interface, in which there seems a numerical indication of the volume level (-18 etc?) in the monitor section. But, somehow, iD4 does not have a mixer interface; its driver only shows the ASIO buffer and sample rate.

I truly hope Audient will make a similar interface for iD4 in near future!

You're welcome. I bought the ID4 and before I even used it decided I needed another input and then bought the ID14. The ID4 is still in the box, and I really can't afford that sort of thing, but somehow did it. Maybe I can sell it, discounted a bit.

As far as the ID app, I suppose I should use it more. It has meters and sliders and a lot of options...but I still just use the big knob the way I mentioned. If I had time to learn how best to utilize the app I'd probably use it. I don't think not having the app is a huge minus.

Good luck with your music!