1 Topic by DrumatiC (edited by DrumatiC 2023-07-03 17:28:25)

  • Registered: 2023-07-02
  • Posts: 3

Topic: Conversion quality against Apollo X series

Hi there,

is anyone here has compared the converters quality of the Universal Audio interfaces Apollo X series (I have currently x4 and x8p) and the ADI-2/4 ?

If so what are your toughts and what differences to expect ?

I am not sure if the improvement is that perceptible and if it justify the (big) expense.

On the UA forum, obviously they praise the converters of the Apollo and some people told me that this will be loss money (no matter what high end converters considered : Burl, Lavry, ...)

My use case will be inserting analog devices during mixing and mastering with D/A A/D loop back of the ADI, while monitoring thru the ADi on my studio monitors (so if there is a real improvement on the conversion side, I would benefit both the D/A -> A/D loopback and the monitoring).

Any feedback on this topic would be very appreciated

2 Reply by KaiS (edited by KaiS 2023-07-04 05:09:05)

  • KaiS
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2020-02-05
  • Posts: 3,525

Re: Conversion quality against Apollo X series

ADI-2’s conversion is state of the art.

There are options that do make a clear difference, specially the selectable AD- and DA-Filters, if your typical project sample rates are 44.1 or 48 kHz.
With higher than that SR’s those differences are of minor importance or become inaudible.

I‘m explicitly NOT talking about intermediate upsampling which can bring up more losses than improvements.


If you are a media producer a comparison is easily done:

• Get an ADI-2/4.

• Run your signals through both devices, recorded on separate tracks in you DAW.

• Adjust RMS, not Peak (!) levels within 1/100 dB same for both tracks. use a 1 kHz sine wave recorded along for this, don’t rely on any “Normalize” function.
RME DigiCheck is a good tool for measurement if you DAW doesn’t offer precise RMS metering.
This part is important, unmatched levels renders a comparison useless.

• Do a blind comparison using Mute+Solo on one track:
- Mouse cursor over Solo button of mutet track.
– Lift mouse from the table (to stop cursor from moving), close eyes.
- Click several times fast, until you don‘t know which track is running.
- Start comparing which track sounds better.
- Open eyes and note down the result.
– Repeat at least 50 times, then you have a statistically relevant result.

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