Audient

When you say "Audient," you think "British console quality within everyone's reach." And that's exactly the company's mission — because Audient has spent over 25 years proving that professional sound doesn't have to cost a fortune. The story of Audient actually begins long before 1997. Its founder, David Dearden, started his career in 1968, and by the 1970s was already building custom mixing consoles for legends: a private recording studio for John Lennon at Ascot, and consoles for George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and producer Gus Dudgeon. A man who built consoles for the Beatles knew exactly what great audio engineering required. Dearden met Gareth Davies at Soundcraft, and in 1980 the two co-founded DDA (Dearden-Davies Associates) — a brand that spent a decade setting the standard for studio console design. After DDA was acquired by Klark Teknik, Dearden went on to design for Midas, before both he and Davies decided to start fresh in 1997 — and so Audient was born. The company's first product, assembled literally in Dearden's garage, was the ASP8024 — a large-format analog recording console that hit the market in 1998 and immediately disrupted the mid-range segment. For over 20 years, the company essentially lived on a single product, which is a remarkable phenomenon in the industry. The preamp in the ASP8024 — warm, open, with that characteristic English "sweetness" in the high frequencies — became the defining sound of Audient. The real breakthrough came in 2013, when Audient entered the audio interface market with the iD22, followed by the full iD family (iD4, iD14, iD44). It was a perfect move: the same preamps as in the consoles, but in a compact enclosure at a fraction of the price. In 2020, the company went further and created the sub-brand EVO — interfaces featuring Smartgain technology (automatic level-setting), aimed at beginners and streamers. And at the top of the range sits the ORIA — an immersive audio monitor controller supporting Dolby Atmos and 9.1.6 formats. Audient consoles can be found at Abbey Road Studios and Pete Townshend's (The Who) private studio. Audient is the choice for those who want genuine British console DNA — whether for €200 or €20,000.