Audient iD14 MKII

The most "popular" review on this site is a disgruntled customer who may have received a unit that got past inspection in poor order or else was damaged in transport. This does every other positive an injustice. My experience of this unit after two weeks has been excellent so far.
Pros:
DA Conversion: Superb - I have interfaces from Zoom (R8), Tascam (US 16-08), Behringer (404HD and UMC 1820, ADA8200 Pre's), Native Instruments, Maschine Mk 3 and ocassionally I use the Digitakt as a DAC when operating in a DAW. I can safely say my unit has by a very audible margin the best output audio quality of any of the aforementioned. The Behringers may beat it in output volume (the 404HD in particular) but the claritiy of the audio with the ID14 is exceptional.
2) Loopback: This features allows you to flawlessly record incoming audio from any source within your computer directly into your DAW. A particularly nice feature for podcasters and OBS users as well.
3) Build is excellent, but I expect that from a "premium" product.
4) 8 x 48K ADAT inputs. This means I can offload the UMC 1820 and the Tascam and upgrade my monitors :)

Cons: wish it had a 5 pin din in/out like all the other units I have.

Highly recommended especially for the additional features.

Nice quality metal chassis. Great sounding input and output preamps.
Enough gain on mic inputs to drive sure sm57 without additional amplification. Gain control could be a bit better. First 90% of gain gives smooth slow change. On last 10% every movement gives much more pronounced changes. Also the last 10% starts to get quite noisy - escpecially so with the phantom power engaged.
Headphone output is great with higher impedence headphones. Unfortunatelly with low impedence headphones it losses its flat response.
The instrument input on the front is great for both low and high output guitars and basses (had some software glitch at first which made high output guitar clip even on lowest gain setting, after reset it handles the output with enough headroom). However using the instrument input takes over one mic input so You can only record two tracks at once, but I think that most interface in this price range behave that way.
My biggest gripe is latency. At buffer size of 32 I am getting about 7 ms round trip latency on 2020 Macbook M1 (tested with rtl utility and cable looping back output to input). It's about the same that my 12 year old Komplete Audio interface. It's not that bad for tracking guitar (depending of course on additional latency introduced by plugins used) but tracking vocals with this latency gets quite annoying.
The software mixer that comes with the interface is very nice. You can create seperate mixes and easily control the routing of inputs to ouputs. Internal loopback is a nice addition, though it would be nice to be able to assign virtual loopbacks input to different mixer inputs. Now the loopback is on inputs 11 and 12, in some applications (like zoom, teams, discord etc.) you cannot choose which input is being used - they just pass whats on input 1 and 2 by default.
All in all very nice interface. Superb audio quality for the price. If you don't plan on using high gain guitars and don't mind the round trip latency, this is the best audio interface to buy at this price point

I was very pumped about the iD14 mkII. Bus power, LED meters, a massive history in audio industry - everything I knew about Audient and its products brought me to purchase the new iD14. I was disappointed to say the least.

Pros:
- build quality is nice, aesthetically good
- controls on the top panel allow for lots of negative space around them with a smaller form factor than the competitors
- LED meters

Cons:
- drivers implementation is absolute garbage. See issues below
- at times, the interface would be initialised at max volume after connecting it to a Mac or Win computer, thus potentially harming my equipment and ears if I don't remember to touch the big volume knob upon starting the interface. Moving the knob will snap the volume at the correct value, but if you forget to do that, expect to jump on your chair at the first notification you get
- the interface produces a loud pop when powered up, making it fit for mobile setups, not so much for desktop or non-mobile setups where users will want to start their whole gear up with one single action
- when connected to a computer in sleep mode, the iD14 keeps requesting power from the bus source, thus staying on when connected to a sleeping device. This drains the computer's battery very quickly, and it's painful especially with mobile setups
- these issues would be acceptable on Behringer and similar low-budget brands, and none of the above is happening anyway on those products. An Audient product at that price point simply cannot show such problems, and this puts this product way below the competition
- all the issues above were reported to Audient's support centre, which proven inadequate as far as helping fixing them. Long response times, useless suggestions, no reporting of the issue to engineers that could fix it. I was basically asked to do QA on those issues for free. That can't happen.

Very, very disappointed with the product and the brand in general.

Sound quality is top notch. Bulid quality great too. Visually appealing as well.
In terms of features, you get a more or less simple set, compared to what other brands offer, in the same price range. But aside from that, everything you get is high quality. It feels like an apple or porsche product.
The preamps and digital converters are the same ones you will find in a professional grade mixer, so you can expect high quality recordings.

The downsides for me are:

1- Lack of own software to control EQ and input and output levels. If you're using a daw, you can do that, but for example if you're playing videos from youtube, or other source online, you won't be able to control the sound parameters, other than volume and maybe pan.

2 - it is good that the unit is directly powered by the computer, via USB-C, but I miss a separate port/input for power. This because if I want to play sound from my phone via the audio interface (this unit), it won't work because the phone won't have enough power capacity to feed it. I would have to use some additional equipment to make it work (and still not sure if it will work). Perhaps a powered usb hub? Not sure.

3 - a lack of Bluetooth is nowadays a fault. You need to use cables if you want to work with great audio quality. But for simple playback, the bluetooth is for sure convenient. Anyway, not a big issue. You can always overcome this by connecting a Bluetooth transmitter in the audio output.

This interface not only has high quality converters and clean class A preamps, but even a solid metal chassis and sturdy controls both for the preamps and for the volume knob/iD control, which I love for a product that's meant to live many years.
The multiple features are hard (if not impossible) to find in other interface of the same price/level, like the 2 different earphones output (with different DAC) or the combined ADAT-S/PDIF input or even the 4 line outputs, allowing you to build a pro quality home studio and to use different setups at a very affordable price.
Thanks to Thomann for the impeccable delivery (and price!) and to Audient for a fantastic and gorgeous piece of art!

Small form factor, swift knobs and clicky buttons; it feels like a tool; but you can also forget about it and let it do it's thing with no worry.

Functionality wise, it's perfect when used with the drivers/software, the iD button can be used for a number of things out of the box such as the volume dial controlling digital dials in DAW in replacement of the scroll wheel; gimmicky but useful with fine tuning and you definitely feel more like you're in a real studio.

Note however, unlike the scarlet there is no innate 1 Channel/Mono option for the microphone in the driver settings, it can only be set in DAW or whatever communication application you're using has to mix down to mono otherwise your recorded sound will only play on the left-output.

All in all, I prefer it to my Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 3rd Gen and MOTU M4.

Had dirty pans on the focusrite so there was some crackling when turning up the volume on my LP6's and IN8's, however these are perfect; extra credit for the lights on the interface showing me the exact dbFS volume when I dial it in.

The gain is also clean enough to drive an SM7b without a pre-amp; and personally it sounds much warmer or less harsh than with a focusrite.

I recommend the purchase.

This audio interface boasts a robust build quality, exceptional XLR sound clarity, and a rich JFET TRS sound. With its versatile 6 outputs and virtual audio jack, it offers unparalleled value for under $300, making it a standout choice in the market.

UPDATED:
In a fairly short time of use, I have discovered two problems that really irritate me, and which were absent on Scarlett.
1. The device does not remember the volume settings, and after each restart of the computer you have to tweak them again.
2. When I put my Windows into sleep mode and bring it out of it, the sound from the audio interface simply falls off (the volume mixer on the Windows 10 taskbar does not see it). You have to restart the device, unplugging and re-plugging the cable into it.

I'm not a pro but have played and recorded in professional studios before with bands, and have recorded bands in the past. I bought this to get back into home recording for myself as a songwriter.

Years ago I worked with two different models of Presonus interfaces. They did the job, but they were totally outdated and I needed to upgrade and for modern compatibility with my M1 MacBook. I found them fiddly to use and they always seemed to produce a lot of self-noise.

All I want in an interface is something easy to setup and use, and get a nice clean signal into my DAW. The iD14 MKII does it really well. My favourite feature is that it's powered by my Mac via USB-C. As somebody who values being able to lay down tracks quickly, and from any part of my home, I can basically grab a mic, the interface, and plug it straight in to begin recording.

I'm also really impressed by how quiet it is. Compared to the old Presonus interfaces it's night and day. That's not to say the other brand is bad, only that things have come along way in terms of quality over the past few years.

The build quality seems fairly good, however the large knob on the right hand side seems to wobble a little compared to the other two gain controls which are excellent and sturdy. My only concern is that it leads to faults, but I am going to reach out to Audient to understand better.

Overall, I'm please with everything so far. It's a good solid interface for the home.

Where to even begin i dare to say that this is probably the best audio interface for the price point, it will probably also beat a lot of the competion in the 350€> price range. Amazing for any starter/intermediate home recording studio.
Starting with the built quality: it is amazing with an all arround metal case to protect the inside components that make this awesome interface, you can't ask for much more. Is hard to see this level of excellence in the build quality.
Then moving on to the preamps, again i've tested the pres on other interfaces for this price range, like the scarlett and the motu m2 and i've gotta say (although the motum2 was close) they are amazing and well capable of driving any condenser mic for the same price range and with a extremely low noise floor.
Finally the headphone amps, im running a 250 ohm beyerdynamic 990 DT Pro into the interface, and although the interface is usbc powered, it is well capable of driving this headphones. But the thing i probably love most about this interface, just because it is different from the others is the extra headphone output. A really nice feature that i never seen in other interfaces of the same price range.