Audient has officially entered the high-end professional studio sector with the launch of Horizon, a new flagship Thunderbolt 3 audio interface range. According to LSi Online, the lineup includes the Horizon 8P, 16, and 32 models, all featuring 32-bit mastering-grade conversion and sub-millisecond round-trip latency. The manufacturer designed the architecture to scale from a single unit up to a 200-by-200 input-output facility using four daisy-chained devices on one macOS driver.
Andrew Allen, chief product officer at Audient, told LSi Online that this release represents the company’s most significant research and development investment to date, spanning five years. The interfaces utilize a high-bandwidth Thunderbolt 3 connection to achieve 0.99ms latency at 192kHz, enabling engineers to track through native plugins without proprietary DSP chips. Allen stated that as host processing power increases, the value proposition of the DSP walled-garden model continues to diminish, positioning Horizon as a credible alternative for modern workflows. He explained that the system was built specifically for this shift. Additionally, Allen noted that the interface should get out of the way so engineers can focus on performance rather than routing. The shared core platform offers digital recall for all input gains, ADAT expansion, and BNC Word Clock I/O. By focusing on a native architecture that keeps hardware invisible during sessions, the design ensures the workflow stays fast while allowing users to shape microphones at the analogue stage or stream entire consoles through the larger units effectively.
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