Designed as both testing facility and not-for-profit recording and mastering studio, iZotope looked to Chief Engineer & Education Director, Jonathan Wyner, and acoustician, Francis Manzella, for a careful balance of equipment.

Located in Cambridge, Massachussetts, critical components in the studio’s listening chain are the mic preamplifiers and the A/DD/A converters. The final choice was Merging Technologies’ Horus Networked Converters partnered with PMC monitors, Avid S3 EuCon Controllers with an IHSE Draco Tera KVM Matrix, Dangerous Audio compressors and Grace Monitor Controllers.

The inclusion of the Horus units brings Ravenna/AES67 connectivity to the studio, and offers easy integration of networked audio. This matches the need to adapt rooms to a variety of uses, including critical listening, product feature testing and DSP research, as the facility invites producers, engineers and customers to examine workflows and to gain user feedback. It also uses teaching as an effective use of its facilities, and is available to the staff for recording and other events after hours.

To complement the acoustics of iZotope Studios, Wyner and his team chose the latest in breakthrough technologies. As an example, several networked systems bring flexibility to studio usage and allow an outside-in view of what’s happening within. The audio network allows users to access audio inputs and outputs from either studio simultaneously and from multiple computers both in and out of the studio, while a KVM network allows users to control rapid switching between every computer connected to the studio system. In addition, an Avid EuCon network allows the chaining of multiple fader controllers to a single computer, or multiple computers to a single fader controller.

With its ability to pivot easily between multiple uses, the facility also aligns with iZotope’s support of education. Its spacious layout was specifically designed to support in-house teaching and community events, with infrastructure that permits high-resolution broadcast via the web. ‘We strongly believe that an educated customer is a happier customer, and our goal is to educate,’ Wyner says. ‘Our efforts are not based solely on our products, but in helping people develop their skills and expertise, no matter what tools they choose. This facility will go a long way in sharing both essential and advanced concepts with the creative community at large.’

‘iZotope has a reputation for world-class audio quality,’ adds iZotope CEO, Brian McQuoid. ‘iZotope Studios supports our continued work to that standard, and is a physical expression of that commitment to quality.’

This emphasis on quality is apparent in the choice of equipment throughout: ‘We chose the Horus due to the combination of no-compromise, best-in-class performance – including conversion up to hi-resolution DSD and the beautiful mic pres,’ Wyner says. ‘Coupled with that is the remarkable flexibility that Ravenna and AES67 offer us. We can see any channel from any room and route them accordingly at the click of a software switch. Horus is fantastic value.’