Audient Nero

Rugged, reliable, and transparent; the Audient Nero offers seamless switching between systems with no audible coloration. I initially purchased the Nero as a means to quickly switch between nearfield and midfield monitors. Being able to instantly switch in/out a sub on either monitoring set up has proved very useful. The four independent headphone sends are a godsend when recording an ensemble.
I initially thought the built-in talkback was a bonus feature but I now rely on it during every live session to communicate with musicians/singers tracking in the next room.
Every studio tool needs to prove its worthiness. The Audient Nero has helped both my productivity (no more switching speaker leads) and my ability to communicate (no more shouting through the wall).

I had very high hopes for this unit, but those were quickly crushed upon use. It feels and looks very nice, but does not perform.
1st - within two weeks the HP1 amp stopped working (working on figuring out if this can be fixed)
When you turn on the unit there is a large spike that shoots through the headphones and monitors. I use a delay so that the monitors turn on after the unit, but even still I get some of the spike from the unit powering on (meters red line).
The output is very low, I have to have the unit 75% of the way for my usual monitoring level, this is ridiculous.
The headphone amps are lackluster, and are very noisy, can hear static/hiss even at low levels.
My Behringer unit that I used for 4+ years has never had these issues.
How Audient can release such a low quality product at this price is beyond me.