Apollo Twin USB

Great sound when it works

I received the Apollo Twin USB about 6 days ago. I have been saving up for it for quite a while and was really looking forward to it. The installation was ok, I was surprised how many extra posts I had to read and work through to get it to work with windows. In the end it worked and the sound was great. Short. If you listen closely you can hear small pop and glitch noises in the sound. After a long search I found the safe guard function, so it sounds a little better again.
But: I use it in abelton. As soon as I switch it to ASIO and listen to anything else in Windows, like the UAD Apollo setup tutorial, the sound distorts and gets noisy. Other users and UAD posts suggest that there is a problem between the UAD Asio driver and windows WDM. All last weekend I spent several hours each time searching the UAD forum and web for solutions and trying them out. Nothing has made it better.
So I was looking forward to Monday. There should be UAD phone support available. Unfortunately not. No one in all of Europe can be reached by phone from UAD. It took me half of Monday to find a solution and send a message to UAD support including my windows system log by email. Until today (Thursday afternoon) I waited for an answer and waited with the review. Unfortunately, still no one has contacted me. Therefore, I see the 1 star rating now as justified.
My old far cheaper scarlett interface worked straight, by the way, there were no problems with the drivers, no noise, no page-long instructions, what you have to do, that the interface works and the support was also available.
Very sad. Very sad. I hope that maybe through the rating someone can be found who can and will help me because I would still appreciate the sound and the plugins very much.

Great sound, with ease

Sold some hardware pultec and La-2a clones to get into this unit. Would say the included plugins sound almost as good and made the switch well worth. Plus I got many more plugins on top of those too! The 1176 sounds better than most hardware versions. And the unison stuff is phenomenal! Hat off.
Only downside is that it's missing optical out for expanding with more out channels. And that the Luna software is not yet supported (or even planned) for windows users.

Apollo twin USB version is awfull

Do NOT recommend USB version for windows, full of bugs lags etc.... Maybe it can work for some kind of lattency problem but after all user experience is just awful everthing is not designed for windows at all i dont want to list all the problems that i've faced this year with apollo twin usb but trust me A LOT, i put 2 start just for rly good plugins emulations suddenly they also works now rly well on windows

Great sound but what DAC?....

Excellent audio interface, intuitive software, low latency on Windows 10, but I'd like to know if it has the same converters as the TWIN X (ES9016S)

Great interface

I upgraded from Presonus Studio 26c for Studio one 5. It is not BUS powered and the sound is much better. I’m really happy that I upgraded for my studio.

Just great

I saw lots of people complain about apollo being so complicated. I think its super simple, you can even use it to play through with your computer turned of. Sounds just great as well as the plugins i have so far. Also I have the USB version and have had no problems so far.

Great product

I swicth to Apollo Twin USB and everything works better without changing anything in the configuration. I recommend this purchase, I'm very happy with my Apollo Twin USB so I recommend it

Amazing Interface

This Apollo Audio interface is simply stunning. Runs smooth with USB 3.0 on Windows and delivers great performance. Integrated DSP for nearly no latency when recording with UA Plugins.
Highly recommend this one.
(Using it with Ableton live)

Está bien pero... Es Ridiculo no poder utilizarla fuera de los DAW

Teniendo en cuenta que la Apollo Twin es un estandar a nivel internacional, tiene una excelente calidad de sonido, PERO, no puedo entender por qué motivo no se puede utilizar la entrada de la placa en los exploradores, el micrófono únicamente funciona con los DAW, si quieres utilizar la placa para conectarte a SourceNexcus o Session Link Pro, por ejemplo, la Apollo no es compatible, esto me resulta increíble, es muy molesto, hasta las placas que cuestan 100 dolares pueden hacer eso. Es ridículo.

Finally I have an Apollo that works for me.

I have a purpose built PC for recording and wanted to use Thunderbolt. I had many issues with Apollo Twin Thunderbolt (which i discovered too late was Thunderbolt 2) and Windows Thunderbolt version 4. I returned the Apollo and paid the differencre to get the Twin USB model and it worked perfectly, immedialtely. Now all i have to do is learn all the ins and outs of recording guitars and i am finding the UA 5 minute video's, very informative. Thanks :)

Review

Workflow much better than with my old focusrite before if I compare. Good quality hardware and looks good. I just was surprised in the beginning with the power supply cable, first it didn't switched on, but than I checked the cable inside the apollo and there was a hidden action to do for me, slightly turning the cable inside and then it was connected right.

Pro sound in a modest homestudio

Small room space and low budget PC needs some careful planning. After a few decent audio interfaces I finally decided to ditch them and go Pro -level. After comparing lot of options over 2 months I finally got Twin USB. Now I can trust my interface and it has improved my sonic experience a lot. No more latency issues while recording using plugins was what I was after too and it does it really well. Interface is top notch in build quality and simplicity, but also gives control for all my needs. Console was surprisingly fast to learn and I could find basic functions without reading a user manual. Of course there is much more than that and I need to devote my time to read manual fully for advanced functions. Only gripe is plugin organization, since I can't easily see where everything I own is located on plugin list. We need at least some "star-based" indication included in plugin names to easily see one I need from the rest of them.

Unbelievable Quality and Results

Pro studio vet of 35+ years. Started in the 1980s. To my ears, using the preamps with Unison technology, this is indistinguishable from the original hardware. I spent over 10 years looking for something I could work 'in the box' with, and this is it. Beautiful results with a 'wow' factor. Just like the UAD descriptions say, you do indeed make rich 3D mixes with this and the associated plugins. Simply unbelievable quality and results.

Bin total begeistert. Funktioniert genauso wie es soll. Die Plugins sind spitze.

Quality

A solid piece of gear and, although quite expensive, the plugins sound amazing

Yay!

After my old XP computer gave up its life my  UAD-1 pci cards became unusable with any new windows 10 machine. I have been UAD-less for a few years. 
I finally purchased an Apollo Twin USB to go along with my windows 10 machine and am happy to be back in the UAD camp again. Yay!                                                  

Finally

Finally able to use the UAD plugins all my other artists friends have been bragging about
It would be nice if there could be a way to exceed the DSP by using the computer CPU though

Bad

Hate it

a reliable unit

love it for what i needed,wanted the uad processing power & usb ,couldn't be happier with my purchase

Du matériel Premium

J'ai longtemps hésité - notamment à cause du prix de la gamme Appollo - mais après un mois d utilisation je suis comblé. Le son des préamplis est excellent, la technologie unison sans latence est simplement bluffante : le systeme Appollo est une révolution de mon process de tracking.
J'utilise quasi systématiquement Unison et deux aux. Ce sur ce point, j'irai même jusque à dire que le fair d avoir 2 DSP seulement m'impose de fonctionner "comme en studio" et de beaucoup "print" ce qui en soi est également un avantage en terme de productivité: plus de décisions, moins de tergiversations.

Mais la où le tableau brille peut être le plus à mes yeux, c est le sens du détail: Sorties et entrees unisson sur relais, verrou sur la fiche d alimentation, bouton rotatif aisément disposable pour nettoyage, la série à clairement été pensée et conçue par et pour des pros. La séquence de démarrage inclut un autotest rapide (et safe) grâce aux relais qui permet de rapidement juger de l'état de santé de l'appareil.

Les quelques petites choses qui me dérangent, s'il en fallait : les vumetres sont petits et mériteraient plus de barres, il manque un auto-MUTE sur les sorties MON pour éviter les feedback dangereux pour les enceintes lorsque l on patche dans le DAW, et le micro de talkback intégré de la Twin X :).

Une chose quand même me laisse un goût amer, c'est le prix prohibitif des plugins de l'ecosysteme UAD/Unisson qui me semble élevé vu le niveau de maintenance / évolutions auxquel ils sont soumis par ailleurs.

Au global, je suis très satisfait de l'objet qui est un bon technologique qualitatif pour mon studio, reste à voir si c'est financièrement soutenable sur le long terme vu le prix des plugins.