LA-based recording engineer Barry Rudolph has been living very happily with Audient Zen for a month in order to write a thorough review for US Mix Magazine. Here are a few snippets taken from the piece:
"I am constantly amazed at the difference the Zen console has made in the sound quality and precision of my mixes - it is not subtle. Individual track elements are more present, firmly locked in their panned positions, and my mixes seem sonically 3-D in the way they ‘leap out’ of my monitor speakers,” says Rudolph.
The Zen is a dual-input design with 16 100mm Alps faders; it accommodates up to 32 channels to the stereo mix bus by using the DAW input and the Alternate Input path on each channel strip. It has 16 mic preamps and comes with/without HUI-based automation and 100mm motorized faders replacing the stock faders.
The 16 mic pre-amps, with switchable 75Hz hi-pass filters and direct XLR outputs, have up to 66dB of gain plus an additional 15dB available within the channel strip. They are the same Class-A preamps with discrete transistor input stages that are used in Audient's ASP8024 console and the ASP008 8-channel mic preamp unit.
An onboard VCA-based stereo compressor/limiter is normaled across the stereo mix bus, but you can repatch it across any channel(s) or buses. Looking like the famed SSL bus compressor, this compressor is similar to those used in Audient's ASP8024 and Sumo products.
Rudolph continues, “I'm enjoying the advanced technology of DAW music mixing with complete recall and plug-in processing, using vintage analog processing and getting that indescribable "mojo" that happens when analog audio signals sum and mix within superb electronics."
Read the full review in Mix Magazine website or at Barry Rudolph’s own website http://www.barryrudolph.com/mix/audientzen.html.