Audient has announced its Horizon Thunderbolt 3 audio interface range, comprising three the Horizon 8P, Horizon 16 and Horizon 32 for the professional studio market. The company’s new flagship, the range offers 32-bit mastering-grade conversion, sub-millisecond round-trip latency and a scalable architecture that grows from a single unit to a 200 × 200 I/O facility on a single macOS driver.
Horizon is built around a high-bandwidth Thunderbolt 3 architecture that delivers 0.99ms round-trip latency at 192kHz – able to track through native plug-ins with no perceptible delay, no proprietary DSP chips and no locked ecosystem. Every Horizon unit shares the same core platform, engineered around a specific studio workflow.
‘Horizon has been five years in the making; the most significant R&D investment we’ve ever put into a product range,’ says Chief Product Officer, Andrew Allen. ‘We spared no compromise at component level, and the result is best-on-the-market audio and latency performance. This is a modern system built for modern workflows.
‘As Apple Silicon and modern host processing get more capable, the value proposition of the DSP walled-garden model continues to diminish,’ he explains. ‘Engineers no longer need to lock themselves into proprietary plug-in ecosystems to get pro-level performance. Horizon’s native architecture is built exactly for this shift, and we expect it to land well with customers who’ve been waiting for a credible alternative.’
Designed for the tracking studio, Horizon 8P is a 24-input/32-output interface built around eight Audient console mic preamps with Orbit Control variable impedance – the same discrete class-A preamp found in Audient’s flagship ASP8024-HE console. The single-height rack unit is intended for studios recording bands, drum kits, vocal sessions or orchestral ensembles with ‘analogue character’.
For the hybrid studio, Horizon 16 is 34-input/34-output interface built around 32 channels of mastering-grade conversion via four industry-standard DB25 connectors, plus a dedicated stereo mix-bus path. For engineers whose analogue character lives in the outboard rack – boutique preamps, stereo processors, summing workflows.
Horizon 32 is aimed at large-format hybrid facilities, offering a 50-input/50-output interface with 64 channels of analogue I/O across eight DB25 connectors. Anticipated uptake is from commercial studios and large project studios where the requirement is connecting multiple outboard racks, summing consoles or multi-room set-ups.
‘In a session, the interface should get out of the way,’ says Allen. ‘We designed Horizon so engineers can focus on the performance, not the routing, and we redesigned the software from the ground up, paying close attention to the user experience. Whether that’s using Orbit Control on the 8P to shape a ribbon mic at the analogue stage, or streaming an entire console through the Horizon 32, the hardware stays invisible and the workflow stays fast.’
The Horizon architecture supports up to four units daisy-chained on a single macOS driver, with a system maximum of 200 × 200 I/O when configured with four Horizon 32 units. Every model shares the same core specification, including digital recall of all input gains and system settings, Adat expansion, BNC Word Clock I/O and selectable reference levels for calibrating I/O to outboard analogue equipment.
Every Horizon is housed in a 1U all-metal chassis with fan-less thermal design for silent operation in critical spaces, and backed by a three-year warranty.
More: https://audient.com/products/audio-interfaces/horizon-range