Audient EVO 4 vs Audient iD4 MkII

Both are audio interfaces, $129 against $199. This page puts them side by side on the only three things a maker can be held to — power, output impedance and noise — and then asks the question that actually matters: which headphones do they treat differently?

The Audient iD4 MkII reaches 100 dB on 561 of the 567 models here, the Audient EVO 4 on 543.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationAudient EVO 4Audient iD4 MkII
Power into 32Ω22 mW112 mW
Power into 150Ω14 mW75 mW
Power into 300Ω11 mW55 mW
Power into 600Ω10 mW50 mW
Output impedance50 Ωnot published
Output noisenot publishednot published
Price$129$199
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
543561

A figure marked not published is missing from the maker’s own material, which is not the same as being good or bad. Where one of these two publishes a number and the other does not, the comparison on that axis cannot be made at all — and saying so is more useful than guessing.

Where each power figure comes from

LoadAudient EVO 4Audient iD4 MkII
32 ΩDerivedDerived
150 ΩDerivedDerived
300 ΩDerivedDerived
600 ΩRecomputedRecomputed

Neither column is a maker’s power rating at these loads. Of the 280 sources here, 209 publish a figure at at least one load; these two do not, so every row above is derived — between or beyond the loads each maker did publish, holding output voltage as the maker’s own figures imply. The method understates rather than flatters, but it is still arithmetic rather than a rating.

What each of these labels means, and why a derived figure is still worth printing, is set out in how this data was built.

The headphones that tell them apart

18 headphones reach 100 dB on the Audient iD4 MkII but not on the Audient EVO 4 — Dan Clark Audio AEON 2 Closed, Dan Clark Audio AEON 2 Noire, Dan Clark Audio AEON 2 Open, 15 more.

543 of the 567 models here reach 100 dB on both. That is a power count and nothing more; whether either source suits a given headphone also depends on the two lines above.

Headroom and hiss on 8 models, both sources

The counts above say how many models the two treat differently. This says by how much. The same 8 headphones appear on every page of this kind, ordered from the easiest to drive to the hardest, so a row can be read across pages as well as across columns. Headroom is at a 100 dB SPL peak.

The widest gap on the list is the Audeze LCD-2 Classic: Audient iD4 MkII has +22 dB of headroom there against +15 dB. 7 dB is about 5.4 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Audient EVO 4 and Audient iD4 MkII because neither maker publishes no output noise figure. That is a gap in the specification, not a quiet amplifier, and it is left blank here rather than filled with a plausible number.

HeadphoneImpedanceNeedsAudient EVO 4 headroomAudient iD4 MkII headroomAudient EVO 4 hissAudient iD4 MkII hiss
Shure SE8469 Ω0.04 mW+22 dB damping+29 dBnot publishednot published
Campfire Audio Andromeda 20209 Ω4.0 mW+2 dB damping+9 dBnot publishednot published
Audeze LCD-2 Classic70 Ω0.79 mW+15 dB damping+22 dBnot publishednot published
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)250 Ω0.63 mW+13 dB damping+20 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN HE400se25 Ω7.9 mW+4 dB damping+11 dBnot publishednot published
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X470 Ω1.6 mW+8 dB+15 dBnot publishednot published
Sennheiser HD 600300 Ω6.6 mW+2 dB damping+9 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN Susvara60 Ω50 mW-3 dB damping+4 dBnot publishednot published

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

The Audient iD4 MkII costs $70 more than the Audient EVO 4. Out of the 567 models here, that difference buys 18 more models driven to 100 dB.

Nothing runs the other way: there is no axis here on which the cheaper of the two does better.

Everything in this paragraph counts only figures the two makers published. An advantage on an axis one of them leaves blank cannot be counted, and is not counted — how often that happens is its own page.

Both pages in full

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: Audient EVO 4 and Audient iD4 MkII. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.

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