Prism Sound, a manufacturer professional digital to analogue converters and manufacturer of the Callia, a domestic DAC, pre-amplifier and headphone amp, has added award-winning producer, artist and songwriter Iain Archer to its growing list of professional users.

Archer, who has won two Ivor Novello Awards – for songwriting on Snow Patrol’s Final Straw album and James Bay’s Hold Back The River – spends a lot of time travelling around the world and wants the ability to write wherever he is. The Lyra 2 audio interface, the professional version of the Callia DAC, fits into his mobile recording set up because it allows him to record audio anywhere.

“The Lyra 2 is a massive benefit here because I know I’m getting the highest quality results within a mobile package,” he explains. “When I come back to my studios in London and Brighton to produce the track, I know the audio I have in the tank is production quality. It’s not unusual that I’ll build tracks and they’ll end up being mixed by a world class mix engineer, and ultimately played on the radio, so it’s all about knowing that wherever I am, the audio is of a standard that meets these very high demands.”

Prism Sound produces a range of audio interfaces and for Iain Archer they recommended the Lyra range. Based on the company’s Orpheus interface, Lyra allows music recording professionals to access the Orpheus audio path and clock circuitry, but in a smaller package and at a much-improved price point.

The company’s first hi-fi product, the Callia, uses the same refined DAC circuits as those found in the company’s Lyra 2 recording interface. Callia is a compact unit for use in home audio systems. It offers flexibility with an array of high resolution inputs including USB (UAC2 over USB 2 or later), Coaxial RCA Phono (supporting S/PDIF and AES3-id or AES3 with suitable adaptor) and S/PDIF OPTICAL equipped digital devices. For analogue audio outputs, Callia offers both balanced XLR as well as unbalanced RCA phono connectors on the rear panel. The output volume can be set via the volume control in order to use the Callia as a pre-amp straight into a power amp, or optionally fixed for use with integrated and pre/power combos. Headphone users are also catered for with a headphone amplifier with its own separate volume control potentiometer. Flexibility of headphone choice is assured, thanks to the low impedance of the headphone output, making it suitable for use with virtually all headphone types.

Alongside his Ivor Novello Awards, Archer was nominated for a 2016 Grammy for Hold Back The River and nominated for an Ivor Novello for Two Fingers, which he wrote with Jake Bugg. His production credits include Jake’s Bugg’s eponymous album (including the singles Lightning Bolt, Taste It and Trouble Town), and has also recently worked with Sigrid, Frank Turner, Shells, Steve Mason and Fink. In each case his Prism Sound Lyra 2 interface has come in ‘mighty handy’.