Apollo X Series Gen 2 Release Tomorrow

UA/Drew has never let a contradiction with things they've said/done in the past prevent them from saying/doing whatever suits them now.

I kind of suspect that they're just re-focusing what the onboard DSP should be branded as. It's good for live tracking, via the Apollo/Console/maybe Luna someday (if it matures). Now that they've ported most everything to native, they don't need to try to prop up the branding proposition that external DSP is a smart option for mixing (that's been a hard sell for like 10+ years). They can just sell the ecosystem, including realtime/live DSP for tracking, and then sell native plugs for cheap like everybody else.

Look at how many other interfaces have actually moved into onboard DSP for live tracking.  It's a pretty attractive option for lots of folks. 

I've never thought the Apollos, any of 'em, sound bad.  It was a hugely popular, disruptive thing when the Apollo came out, and I think people kinda just like to take shots at whoever is in that position.  There is better stuff out there, sure.  But Apollos are a huge bang for the buck package and have sounded good enough from the get go to not be the reason anyone's record isn't getting listened to.  

“each model now has improved D/A converters, monitor outputs, and headphone outputs for improved critical listening. This also provides even lower THD than before and increased digital noise reduction.”

Using sound id consumes 1 sharc chip: not good, why wouldn’t that be native?

Running SoundID via DSP is a much better solution. Sonarworks System App is horrible and using the plugin inside the DAW is a workflow mess.

I think DSP should be used for this. Nowadays you can do all the tracking and mixing native with a very good performance.

Well, they are 20 years old chips.

Calculators nowadays have more powerful processors.

Year’s ago yes.

I understand about turning SW on and off, didn’t find it that a big deal, but losing 1 of 6-8 chips seems a high dsp price to pay: really happening cus UA just won’t update the sharc used and design, which seems short sighted to me. Perhaps, the situation is as Ragan described above.

To each their own, hopefully peeps like the newish apollos.

I’m interested to hear how much of an upgrade the converters are.

The reason I'm not so sure anymore is because, though we've been repeatedly told by UA (Drew) that DSP "will continue to be the backbone of UAD for years to come", there is mounting evidence to the contrary.

There hasn't been a UA developed plugin for DSP for the last two years. There has, however, been quite a few plugins released exclusively for native during that same time period. UA has offered up a number of different self contradicting excuses for why none of these native-only plugins were also developed for DSP, but it's easy enough to read between the lines and see that it's at least partly because the Sharc DSP simply can't handle these latest plugins. They're too big. Also, only roughly 50 of the over 200 previously DSP-only plugins have been ported over to native. The majority of the pre-2022 library remains as DSP only, especially those plugins which are less popular or older.

I was willing to accept, at least temporarily, that these newer plugins couldn't run on the old Sharcs, but I also assumed that UA would eventually release new DSP which WAS capable of hosting these newer larger plugins. DSP was the "backbone" afterall, right? Also, the proof of concept was already in place with the UAFX pedals using ARM processors to host DSP hungry plugins.

So, when these new Apollos were released, and UA didn't upgrade the DSP at all, that kind of changed things. To me, that sends a message that DSP is not in fact the "backbone" because, if it was, UA would have released new Apollos which could actually handle the newer plugins instead of effectively drawing a line in the sand for any further development of DSP, by releasing a new crop of Apollos which haven't advanced the DSP at all.

If UA is going to tell me that DSP is the "backbone" or the "premium" option, then I expect that to include continuing development. That's a big part of the reason I've stayed a customer. If DSP won't be developed any further, at least to any significant degree, then DSP customers are not really getting what they were promised. If so, why should DSP customers continue to buy Apollos and Satellites if they're just going to be left behind for native?

So DSP may not be going away today, per se, hence why I called it a "slow walk". I'm sure UA is happy to keep milking this for as long as they can, without having to upgrade the DSP or release any new DSP plugins. But will they advance DSP any further? I think the writing is starting to show up on the proverbial wall, unfortunately.

Are the guitar pedal plug ins, actually new, ie just released ?

What about the “ new” ssl channel strip and buss comp, the old ones just native?

I know this is a UAD thread, just the most relevant exemplar in the market for me personally.

Wait…the Ruby, Dream et al can’t be used on the chips? Doesn’t that kinda defeat the purpose?

If it ran on the DSP, I could sell my Axefx...maybe. Or not.