Audient Horizon 8P: power output and what it will drive

The Audient Horizon 8P is an audio interface at $3500. It delivers 986 mW into 32Ω and 140 mW into 300Ω, which ranks it 87 of 280 for raw power among the sources in this database.

Measured at 100 dB SPL it has comfortable headroom on 561 of the 567 dynamic and planar headphones catalogued here, enough but not generous on 5 and not enough power for 1. Power is published at 30Ω, 60Ω, 600Ω; the rest of the table is derived from those figures. Output noise is not published, so the hiss estimate cannot be run. Audient prints a peak voltage, an RMS voltage and a power on the same line, and the power is about twice what its own RMS voltage gives. The figures here are the ones Audient printed; the <a href="/amp-spec-audit/">amplifier audit</a> works through the discrepancy.

The manufacturer publishes 1.0 W into 30Ω, 691 mW into 60Ω, 71 mW into 600Ω. The rest of the table is worked out from those.

Derived rows hold output voltage steady, as an amplifier does (method).

Source: audient.com.

Easiest to hardest to drive, with headroom at a 100 dB SPL peak.

The manufacturer does not publish an output noise figure for this source, so there is no hiss estimate here. If you have a measured figure, the hiss calculator takes it.

At 10Ω output impedance, the one-eighth rule says this source suits headphones of 80.0Ω and above. 510 of the 567 models here fall below that. That is most of the database, not a niche — 222 of them multi-driver in-ears, and the mismatch tilts the frequency response audibly rather than subtly.

Check any pair.

Of the 280 sources here, 86 do everything the Audient Horizon 8P does as a headphone output: reach 100 dB on every headphone it reaches and stay inside the one-eighth rule wherever it does. The cheapest of them is the FiiO KA11 at $29, against this one’s $3500 — $3471 less, and a USB dongle rather than an audio interface.

The cheaper one also publishes a noise figure, which the Audient Horizon 8P does not — so on the paperwork it is ahead, not merely level.

This counts the headphone output only; inputs, converters, the volume control and the build are outside it.

Compared with its closest rivals: vs Audient EVO 16 · vs Audient EVO 4 · vs Audient EVO 8 · vs Audient iD14 MkII · vs Audient iD24 · vs Audient iD4 MkII · vs Audient iD44 MkII · vs Audient iD48 · vs Audient NERO · vs Audient ORIA · vs Lynx Aurora(n) · vs Merging Anubis · vs RME ADI-2 Pro EX · vs RME ADI-2 Pro FS R · vs RME Fireface UFX II · vs RME Fireface UFX III.

Compare any two or match your own headphones. Every Audient source here.