Hi all
Time has come for me to upgrade my sound card. I have it down to two right now the RME Fireface UFX and the UA Apollo.
I know there is a lot of love for the RME here but the Apollo is new and comes with 4 UA preamps and UA has been around for a long time.
I am running Windows 7 so I am really interested in anybody’s experience with the Apollo with Cubase in Win 7.
Incompatible Windows Systems
The Dell Precision T3500 desktop computer is incompatible with Apollo and UAD-2 Satellite.
Built-in FireWire ports on any Windows computer are unsupported with Apollo and UAD-2 Satellite (must use qualified PCIe-to-FireWire 800 adapter on PC systems).
UAD-1 devices are incompatible with Apollo and UAD-2 Satellite.
Apollo’s Thunderbolt Option Card is not supported on Windows systems.
Using Apple’s Boot Camp to run Windows 7 on Mac systems with Apollo or UAD-2 Satellite is an unqualified configuration
I had heard about these compatibility issues.
They say it is PC compliant now that the problems have been addressed.
I lifted that info directly from the UAD site!
'Tis a bit late, but still - since this appears fairly on top in Cubase / Apollo googling, and since I am running Apollo…
It is true that UA officially only supports two FW800 cards, but this is mainly because they are the only cards tested and qualified. Same goes for computer systems, where they’ve only certified a couple. Most DAWs with a TI based FW800 running Win7/8 SHOULD be able to run the Apollo. To be sure, get one of the two supported (high quality) FW800 expansion cards (check UAs site). Thunderbolt is coming, but as of now (middle feb, 2013), those drivers are not yet supported on PC.
It is correct that UAD-1 cards are not compatible with the Apollo. As for UAD-2, you can run any four cards (where the Apollo serves as one) as a UAD system - sharing all your authorizations. At this moment, if you are lucky enough to already own one of the specified plugins, there is a special offer rendering in an extra $999 dollar coupon for plugins when registering you Apollo (not sure which plugins or when this offer ends, though - was just a nice surprise to me!).
Anyway, I am running the Apollo on a home built PC w Win 7, sporting two UAD-2 solo and Sonnet Allegros FW800-E in Cubase 7. it works just great, without a hitch so far, and I am real happy with it. As always, there are some percs w setup to get used to, but overall it is great. That said - RME’s fire face is a very nice no nonsense piece of hardware. It will be a serious work horse in any studio. It comes down to taste - UA’s extra DSP power along with their amazing plugins and transparent preamps did it for me.
Happy hunting!
Petter