Universal Audio Apollo X16 Thunderbolt 3 Audio Interface

Love. Upgraded from solo. Works great

I’ve had an Apollo Twin for 10 years, and it’s still working great, but after expanding my outboard collection I just needed more inputs. TBH I should have bought the x8, but after including a patch bay this one is just great! Not to mention I use a ton of UAD plugins, so chaining my old Twin gives me 8 cores of DSP for big mix sessions!

We have been testing out this unit and the plug-ins and so far we are very impressed. It integrates with ProTools seamlessly. Setup was easy. It has handled multiple plug-ins with ease with its processors. So far, I have nothing bad to say about it.

I got this as an upgrade to my 9 year old MBox3 and thought it would be a huge step up. Turns out it's a step down.1) The mic pre amps are not half as good as they should be. When I a/b'd them with the MBox3, the same mic with the same amount of gain had significantly more hiss on the Apollo x6. Enough hiss that some mics that worked great with the MBox3 are unusable with the Apollo x6.2) The hardware build is very low quality for the cost. The knobs are plastic and buttons have a lot of wiggle that feels cheap.3) The software is buggy. The MBox3 never failed, ever. With the Apollo x6, about 2 or 3 times a day I get audio out, but no audio in. Even though the meters on the x6 show audio coming in, I don't see anything in the console app or in my DAW. The only way I know how to fix this is to cycle the hardware on and off.4) The included plug-ins are all old vintage stuff and not a mix of new and old. Vintage processing is nice for certain situations, but modern/clean processing is also very useful. Unfortunately you have to pay extra for that.

Perfect

👍🏻

I cannot fathom any negative comments on this product. This is my second Apollo product.I am a Mac user so have no problems with it, it worked straight away no installation problems, no software issues!It is a little more complicated I believe for Windows users ( because Windows is complicated ) but contact Universal direct instead of the third party who sold it to you and universal support or the Forum will fix it!This machine is for consumers who are interested in the best sounding plugins , I wouldn't recommend it for beginners or hobbies as its expensive and you'd probably not understand it's sonic value., but as a sound guy and music producer Audio post mixer this is the best.Nothing comers near it. And it is worth every cent. So if you're ready to spend more to really sound better you cannot go wrong

Supposed to work with Windows 10 on a PC. Does not. I have tried for 6 weeks top make this work; 1 week when it first got here, sent back to UA for a firmware update (need a mac to do a firmware update? Yup..) now after a week and a half of trying EVERYTHING to get this thing to work it is going back. Luckily Chicago Music Exchange has graciously agreed to a return/refund even past the 30 day point (after an initial "after 30 days, sorry" email.. I called and spoke with a person and fixed that) so 10 points Chicago Music Exchange, 1 point Universal Audio (mechanically it fit in the rack, so 1 point for that)Short version, unless you are on a mac, stay away.