MOTU Expands AVB Interface Range with 24-Channel Units

In July 2014, Mark of The Unicorn (MOTU) surprised the industry announcing a range of USB/Thunderbolt audio interfaces complemented with Audio Video Bridging (IEEE 802.1 AVB) network technology. Since AVB requires the use of dedicated (AVB-certified) routers and switchers, MOTU also announced its own AVB Switch. Now, MOTU reinforced the range with two new AVB 24-channel interfaces.

Apogee Electronics is using the 137th AES Convention in Los Angeles - close to its headquarters in Santa Monica, California - to introduce the new Ensemble recording interface. The sucessor of the original Apogee Ensemble, released in 2007, is now a powerful 30x34 Thunderbolt 2 audio interface which Apogee says, at only 1.1ms, is the lowest round-trip latency performance available in any all-in-one audio interface.

The new MOTU 1248, 8M and 16A audio interfaces provide Thunderbolt or high-speed USB 2.0 (compatible with USB 3.0), on-board DSP with mixing and effects, supporting a flexible 48-input digital mixer with dynamics modeled from British consoles. The new MOTU audio recording interfaces are also the first to use AVB audio networking for large multichannel configurations.

If there is someone still in need of an USB recording interface, in a time when Thunderbolt is conquering the market, it better be really good and very affordable. That’s exactly what Antelope Audio designed in the Zen Studio portable audio interface, featuring 12 studio-grade microphone preamps and 20 analog inputs.