Sonic state review of UA Apollo

[Sounddesigner]

Ok boys, I got a reply back from 'notonekind' about the utube as follows :

"the implication is that it runs through the plugins from the input to the output in under 1.4ms of latency... there is no other unit that does that... simply because there is no other unit that HAS plugins in it. The closest you can get with another unit is no latency into your DAW, insert a plugin that has some latency, and then output back to your interface, which COULD be low latency, but not as low as the hardware doing it immediately... "

Any smart reply to this ? Hes saying "no other unit has plugins" - I mentioned Scope, but not XITE specifically - maybe he just doesnt know about XITE.

UA Apollo's latency stats is at 96khz. Metric Halo (was posted it does 1.5ms at 44khz), SCOPE PCI (was posted it does 1.5ms at 44khz), Pyramix Masscore (is 1.2ms at 44khz), ETC. There are other platforms that get that low of latency with plugins as Apollo (the platforms i just mentioned) and some platforms get even lower e.g. PTHD (.44ms at 96khz with the right interface and zero-latency/tiny-samples-amount plugins) and HDX (.7ms at 96khz), also Fairlight (is number 1 at .5ms at 44khz) .

He (The Reviewer of Apollo) does'nt know what he's talking about and is only repeating UA's marketing speak. Here's a quote from UA's FAQ- "UAD plug-ins on the input in real time, analog-to-analog latency at 96kHz comes in at 1.1 milliseconds. Of course, 1.1 ms is not an uncommon spec when compared to other professional audio interfaces, however it is unheard of to get that level of latency performance when tracking with plug-ins."

From what i read, ALOT of uad users and potential customers think UA has done something revolutionary with Apollo and actuallity it's only copying what's already been done (Some people not even interested in the truth). UA has a habbit of lying and stretching the truth (that's how they built their empire). Ignorance is bliss.


Below is the whole quote from UA's website:

"What is the latency performance like on Apollo?

With Apollo, latency is basically indiscernible. For example, when recording four "stacked" UAD plug-ins on the input in real time, analog-to-analog latency at 96kHz comes in at 1.1 milliseconds. Of course, 1.1 ms is not an uncommon spec when compared to other professional audio interfaces, however it is unheard of to get that level of latency performance when tracking with plug-ins. With its onboard Realtime UAD Processing, Apollo can retain its low-latency performance even in large sessions, and you can leave your computer at a buffer setting that it can handle."

[dante]

Thx reply noted & echoed...

[ehasting]

Oh! Tha was in 96khz! I thought it was in 44.1.. Then it's not that impressive anyway..

[Sounddesigner]

Apollo doesn't seem to be a completely out-of-box system, like SCOPE can be. It is designed to be part of your in-the-box daw. So I would assume that yes, you might be able to monitor a few things in Apollo without entering the box. But overall, it doesn't really work as independently of the box (audio is intended to go in & out of the box), so the comparison to SCOPE falls a bit short. There's just not a full compliment of effects to keep your audio completely out of the box, typically.

Yep. Same problem Pyramix has (not enough variety of plugins). Pyramix Masscore is the lowest latency Native Audio-host app (it bypasses Window's) and its latency is lower than many dsp platforms at 1.2ms Roundtrip at 44khz. But the problem is that Pyramix only has a handfull of effects, a very small and insufficient variety of plugins (Many categories it does not cover). The limited range of plugins keep it from being a 'Completely REALtime platform' and more semi- cause you're going to have to add to its proprietary plugins with standard VST effects and once you insert a standard vst the latency of the whole system increases (It's cumulative). SCOPE is the only REALtime platform i know that has a complete range of effects and instruments (The old pthd tdm is a distant second place). It's no problem with SCOPE to record a instrument part in REALtime while Native buffer-size is really high. SCOPE allows for "Absolute REALtime operation" due to its complete nature, and it's only growing more diverse.

EDITED

[Sounddesigner]

Oh! Tha was in 96khz! I thought it was in 44.1.. Then it's not that impressive anyway..

Yep, it's not really impressive at all. Also if you notice UA never stated wich 4 plugins they used and how many samples latency each had. There are zero-latency plugins and plugins with only two or three samples so stacking them won't bring any latency or extremely little. Simple EQ's and simple compressors etc have zero or extremely little latency. Also as the samplerate of the project increase many plugins latency becomes less (same amount of samples latency for plugins at 44khz verses 96khz but 96khz is at faster rate so they can be around 2x faster).

EDITED

[garyb]

just repeating UAD's sales info that he was given...

damn, we get no respect.