I regularly review music gear for Sonic State, it’s an interesting job as I have to look in detail at a particular piece of hardware or software. Often when you are just using a piece of kit, you don’t get time to delve into all the subtleties of it and learn all its’ full capabilities. I recently had a look at the new range of Apollo audio interfaces from Universal Audio, the full video review will be coming out in due course over on the Sonic State website, but in the meantime I thought it would be interesting to post up some audio illustrating the performance differences compared to the previous generation of interfaces.
The new Apollo thunderbolt-only interfaces boast different cosmetics and some enhanced functionality, but what I was most interested in was the sonic differences due to the revised A/D and D/A signal paths. On paper the specs show improved SNR, THD and Dynamic Range. Given that the previous generation of Apollo interfaces were already very well specified in this department, I did wonder how much of an audible difference these improvements actually made.
In order to test the differences I set up a simple drum recording session: 4 mics on a 1950’s Premier drum kit (EV RE20 outside kick, AKG C414 on snare, Oktavamod Oktava MK012’s for overheads) and my good friend and ace drummer Mark Whitlam laying down some funky yet consistently repeatable grooves. We tracked first through the 4 preamps on the older generation Apollo, then immediately switched the mic cables into the first 4 preamp channels on the Apollo 8P. Mark layed down the same groove again (clicked for ease of comparison) and that was it. Admittedly, this is more a real-world test rather than a carefully controlled scientific experiment, there will always be slight differences in the playing between each take no matter how consistent the drummer, but it gives a good indication of the differences.
Here are the audio files, listen for your self and decide if you can tell the difference:
First, the old generation Apollo Quad:
And next, the new generation Apollo 8P:
Can you hear a difference?
You can download the 24bit 44.1kHz audio files yourself from this link, load them into a DAW and flip between solo’d tracks to get a more direct comparison.
To my ears, I hear a different emphasis in the mid to high range, I can hear it in the hi hats and ride cymbal. I also perceive a bigger stereo image somehow, the the whole thing sounds a little smoother, more open and less boxy compared to the old generation. These are very subtle differences, but good monitoring or headphones do show them up.
