Antelope Audio Zen

[Crossing_The_Threshold]

What do you guys think of this?

Antelope Audio Zen Studio - Musikmesse 2014

[Ekstasis]

I think it is an amazing value for the price.
I am an Antelope Eclipse user, and the Zen have borrowed a lot of the technology from the Eclipse.
The same monitor controller, and the same Headphone amp,  the Eclipse is based on the Trinity Clock
while the Zen is based on the older OCX clock.

Yeah very aggressive pricing. Would be interesting to see how it compare with Prism  Titan which is a similar product.

As an eclipse user I can't really say I was very happen when I saw the Zen and also the price, it seems to me that they are giving away a lot of their technology very cheap in this box. Of course it is good for all others though. 

[Crossing_The_Threshold]

Great!

I was considering this box as my first pro audio interface. How can I expand this via adat? Any good adat breakout boxes to plug in?

I have a lot of synths I need more than the default 12 in...

Thanks!

[Crossing_The_Threshold]

As an eclipse user I can't really say I was very happen when I saw the Zen and also the price, it seems to me that they are giving away a lot of their technology very cheap in this box. Of course it is good for all others though.

Shit, you paid 5k for the eclipse box... I would be pissed 

[Ekstasis]

As an eclipse user I can't really say I was very happen when I saw the Zen and also the price, it seems to me that they are giving away a lot of their technology very cheap in this box. Of course it is good for all others though.

Shit, you paid 5k for the eclipse box... I would be pissed 

I guess that is the American price, as usual it is more expensive in EU for niche products,
I paid about 5400 Dollars but the new price in sweden is 8865 dollars, so I still got a very good deal because of the Black Friday sale.
about 40% discount, so I could simply not resist that price, otherwise I have probably have bought some of the PRISM devices.

Yes of course I am not very happy that they start giving away their technology so much cheaper.
But Eclipse is still their flagship and best sounding interface according to themselves.

but yeah Zen audio seem to have an extreme good value which crushes the competition in the budget market.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

To me its seems to be a really good product......12 mic/line pre amps. Nice.  Some of the best conversion and clocking all at a reasonable price.

My issue with it is that it cannot be racked.....I understand it is design for mobile recording and as such the big red handle is perfect.  In a studio situation?  I would look to Prism or Metric Halo and pay more money for their units.  Metric Halo have always be designed around mobile recording but their gear can be racked.

The Audio Zen seems an excellent box but I would not want it in the middle of the studio with all its possible interconnectivity run everywhere.....if this isnt an issue for you then it would be a good solution.

 

[LNerell]

Not rack mountable would be a deal breaker for me as well.

[Ekstasis]

yeah..well I hope they relase some kind of rack kit... otherwise if you really want it racked..there is always ways to do your own solutions if you really want it racked.. nothing is impossible...you just need to be little bit creative.. but it seem almost no one like the goofy handle at the side...
it is not like you are going to go on long walks carry it around all days..it is just silly and looks goofy if you ask me..

[Crossing_The_Threshold]

Maybe you can detach the handle and use something like this:

[Julio Di Benedetto]

That might work if you could get the handle off and dont mind not having access to the Adat on the side....I feel it is really a questionable design philosophy. How big is the mobile market? Rack it and their sales could / will double, triple etc.

With their current products I would of thought they could give Prism, Metric Halo, and UAD's Apollo some serious competition instead of coming out with this brilliant but not very practical concept for most.

Perhaps consider this....

Audient ASP880 - Feature Roundup

and with this  connected you would get 10 mic pres for less than the Audio Zen...just a thought

iD22 - Feature Roundup

P.S.....these guys build some very nice large format console....perhaps not as star studded as Solid State Logic but nevertheless....

[Ekstasis]

Maybe you can detach the handle and use something like this:

If you have it in the middle you can have it like this, you can buy a silver plate to put on the left so there is no empty room, which willl look a lot better..And also have something at the back so it will stay in position and do not move when you unplug/plugin cables or move the knob.

[Ekstasis]

That might work if you could get the handle off and dont mind not having access to the Adat on the side....I feel it is really a questionable design philosophy. How big is the mobile market? Rack it and their sales could / will double, triple etc.

With their current products I would of thought they could give Prism, Metric Halo, and UAD's Apollo some serious competition instead of coming out with this brilliant but not very practical concept for most.

Perhaps consider this....

Audient ASP880 - Feature Roundup



iD22 - Feature Roundup

P.S.....these guys build some very nice large format console....perhaps not as star studded as Solid State Logic but nevertheless....

It seem to be a trend in the last years with more non-19 inch format interfaces...
Personally I prefer rack format..it looks more better and is space effective...looks more robust.

One thing good about having the Zen studio at the desk is easy and fast access to the volume knob.
I think it is important to have fast access if you get very loud volumes in your DAW by misstake for instance..
If you are fast with your keyboard you can get fast access to volume in the software control panel to..
I find personally myself with my Antelope Eclipse I always use the software to control the volume,  I plan to soon move the Eclipse
on the bottom floor on my rack  to get little bit closer to the volume knob maybe I will use it more then..

But still yeah most people seem to complain about the non rack mount compatibility... they should have released a rack kit..
One reason they might not want to release it as rack is because of the very low price, they know people are ready to pay extra for the same product but in 19 inch format.. they probably think we should not "get it all" for such low price..they probably release an rack version later..

I would vote against the Audient, I think Antelope is higher level stuff, it is a non brainer if you ask me... for this price there is no competition.. the headphone amp is awesome too..  my only real big complaint is that he have no AES connection just like Orion.

Prism Titan, will in a firmware upgrade make it an Ethernet port interface, maybe that is the future for low latency audio..I am very eager to see how it  will work... I know SSL use it for some of the devices with some drawbacks..for instance you have no internet access while you are using their SSL Ethernet drivers.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

I would vote against the Audient, I think Antelope is higher level stuff, it is a non brainer if you ask me... for this price there is no competition..

I did not know this was an election......gear & politics, dangerous combination.

[LNerell]

One thing good about having the Zen studio at the desk is easy and fast access to the volume knob.
I think it is important to have fast access if you get very loud volumes in your DAW by misstake for instance..

I have a Presonus central station for that in the studio. Live I use a mixer so it wouldn't be a big sales point for me.

[Ekstasis]

One thing good about having the Zen studio at the desk is easy and fast access to the volume knob.
I think it is important to have fast access if you get very loud volumes in your DAW by misstake for instance..

I have a Presonus central station for that in the studio. Live I use a mixer so it wouldn't be a big sales point for me.

If you do not use the Monitor controller I think the price value of the product drops a lot you ask me...
if you do not use the monitor controller maybe it is better to buy another product.

[Crossing_The_Threshold]

I'm going to invest in a RME ufx, drivers seem more reliable, usb recording, more solid construction.

[Ekstasis]

I'm going to invest in a RME ufx, drivers seem more reliable, usb recording, more solid construction.

RME UFX is a solid solution, as you mention they have very solid drivers the best in the world. But regarding Performance Antelope will win big time.  RME is not known for their converters mainly their drivers, I think it also depend on are you aiming to use extremely low latency settings ? then you would for sure want RME drivers.
Regarding Performance, Antelope has their own special designed USB chip not a third party chip which take full advantage of the bandwidth. Regarding latency as usual with USB interfaces they are little bit optimistic since usually you are starting to get missounds or dropouts with lower latency settings.

If you want low latency in fact I would not recommend USB at all, you could get best of both worlds if you invest in a  RME RAYdat PCIe card for instance...to get a fast connection with your Zen studio.

Regarding specs of Antelope Zen studio, it seem a lot of missinformation has been floating around before the release, in fact the box is still under development so final specs are yet not known. It will most likely not have a relay stepped monitor controller as said before, antelope have confirmed the clock is based on trinity clock not the OCX clock as said earlier... If it did have 70 relays like Eclipse then it would be crazy..

How volume control works on Zodiac DACs

[Crossing_The_Threshold]

The RME is a better product overall. I especially like it could be used as stand alone without any computer, or with an ipad. I think these interfaces are good enough, the technology reached a pretty good standard.

Anyway, first interface. Wish me luck

[Ekstasis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaeFpP8CWiM

[Scott M2]

I haven't done any serious comparisons but I thought I'd drop in and note that I've been using an RME Fireface UCX for the last couple of years and I've been very happy with the sound quality and the way it locks up reliably with outside clocks or serves as master. Jamie & I always have our systems linked together in dreamSTATE concerts and now we can send high quality audio back and forth through ADAT lightpipes as well as our MIDI links. We also appreciate the compact size to fit our live systems. (I did immediately hear an audio improvement from our previous PreSonus units.)