Universal Audio

U
niversal Audio’s
Apollo Range has
become a major
player within the
crowded
marketplace of
audio interface
design for two reasons. Firstly, their
hardware offers a great sound, with
clean, warm preamp design and
interface options to let you match
your needs to an appropriate
hardware set. Secondly, the UAD
brand has gone from strength to
strength, with a wonderful and
for the previous incarnation of
Thunderbolt interfaces. The review
unit is the x6, a new Apollo player,
which neatly bridges the gap between
the Apollo Twin and the ‘bigger
brother’ Apollo X interfaces.
Finished, like the rest of the ‘X’
series in an Apple-like brushed space
grey colour, like the Apollo Twin, the
Apollo x6 offers two Unison-ready mic
preamps. Its I/O count goes higher,
though, as it provides an additional
four line inputs on the rear panel and
a pair of Hi-Z connectors for guitars at
the front. In terms of output, there is
a main stereo pair and six more
individual outputs, which can be
confi gured for surround sound
applications, should you wish. There
are two headphone ports on the front
panel, alongside controls which are
largely doubled by the supporting
Console software; changes you make
to front panel settings are
immediately implemented in the
software and vice versa. Accordingly,
you can engage phantom power,
enable the pad, invert phase (and so
on) on whichever control set is most
convenient. In terms of digital
connections, the x6 offers S/PDIF I/O,
two optical I/O ports and word clock
too. Much of that will be familiar to
existing Apollo users but under the
hood, much is new. Apollo x6
contains six DSP chips providing
‘HEXA Core’ processing, which in real
terms means that the Apollo X
interfaces offer 50% more processing
power than their predecessors. This is
signifi cant if you’re intending to use
more recent UAD plugins as Unison
preamps across a multichannel
recording; on my Quad-Core Apollo,
running several of these can account
for much of the total processing
ever-expanding collection of plugins
ready to be powered by the Apollo’s
onboard processors. This hardware
and software ecosystem has proven
irresistible to many a producer, but
it’s a competitive world out there and
other manufacturers’ interfaces have
stepped up recently. Not wanting the
quality of their interfaces to compare
unfavourably, Universal Audio have
returned to their rackmount Apollo
series and have now added four
models in a new ‘Apollo X’ range.
Three interfaces – the x8, the x8p
and the x16 – are direct replacements
THE PROS & CONS
+
Superlative audio
performance
Increased power
means more UAD
capability per unit
Easy confi guration
of multiple Apollo
devices within
the Console
software host
-
No Thunderbolt
cable – why?!
Cheaper interfaces
available if you’re not
interested in the
UAD plugin universe
The UAD brand
has gone from strength
to strength
Universal Audio Apollo x6 | Reviews
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