Mr816 pres vs Apollo

Steinberg Hardware
#1

I have been looking at the new UAD Apollo which looks like a nice piece of kit.
I was going to get a UAD anyways any it seems like having the integrated “no latency” inserts could be a deal changer for ITB recording.

As everyone knows the MR816 pres are excellent.
Has anyone had a chance to compare with the Apollo’s pres?

Obviously it cost twice as much for half the pres but I use a couple outboards still.
Other concern is minimum firewire latency, which Mr816 is really close to RME so hard to beat.

#2

I wouldn’t worry too much about the difference between the preamps in the two. Personally both are fairly clean, smooth and detailed. Not too much color on either. Personally I like the preamps in the MR816 for their smooth flavor, they’ve got great low end and great detail in the top end without harshness, they also take EQ well. They’re basically my favorite preamp for an all around sound of the ones I own.

#3

I have to contribute my experience here.

On Monday I took an Apollo on trial basis for that same reason of No latency monitoring. That aspect in itself works well. However!, I was horrified at the latency figures with the Apollo. Way higher than my current MR816CSX.

e.g.

At 88.2 Khz and 128 Buffer

MR816 - IN 2.540 / OUT 1.814
Apollo - IN 7.937 / OUT 3.685

At 88.2 Khz and 32 Buffer

MR816 - IN 1.451 / OUT 0.726
Apollo - IN 6.848 / OUT 2.596

Although as you can imagine running at 32 buffers really chokes most systems.

Now these are still low but when you are trigger an E drum kit and VSTi superior drummer you notice that delay difference, just.

In my opinion, although I will end up buying an Apollo however, the time to buy one isn’t there yet as they have not provided the quality low latency drivers that are needed for todays VSTi’s. Not to mention the fact that they are ripping people off with their bundled plugins. A device costing this much ought to come with so much more included in that respect.

#4

Yea thanks for the input… those latencies put a damper on things especially when the whole concept of the Apollo is ITB.

Thanks for feedback.

#5

Sorry that the reality in use, for me anyway wasn’t better. To put a further damper on Apollo, the plugs only really come into true figures when used with Thunderbolt. FW400/800 just does not have sufficient bandwidth to take full advantage of everything the Apollo has to offer in terms of power under the bonnet. In fact, the Apollo has a control panel that lets you visually see the plugin count available to you, married with the system it’s running on, under Firewire that is. However, running via Thunderbolt is such a night and day difference in that the ‘visual plugin count’ feature isn’t even there in the control panel - it’s irrelevant as Thunderbolt allows every plugin count UA say will work in their marketing promo. So you see Thunderbolt is the way forward for this interface (and there goes another £400!!).

MR816 is still the best hand in glove interface I have used with Cubase, despite it’s daisy chain limitations.

Hope this was useful.

Al