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New Duet interface announced from Apogee


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I wondered why the Duet 2 disappeared so quietly, too… I thought Apogee had abandoned this price point to compete with UA on the interface w/ DSP front. Happy to have been wrong.

 

Also, I know it's only a 2x4, and I told myself my next interface (to replace my FireWire Duet) would have 4 pres, but I'm still a student, so I think this is a day one purchase for me. Even the release timing seems serendipitous.

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Hmmmm….my experience with the original FW Duet was ok at first, but past a certain LP9 and OS update, it stopped working normally. I would be told the drivers were up to date, but it just got worse. I had to unplug and replug it in just to play iTunes with no awful distortion. So, I'm wary of Apogee, now. If it were my choice, I'd go with an RME Babyface.
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I've owned both...the Duet (previous model not the new one soon to be released) and the Babyface. You can't beat RME's stable drivers and support for their older products. I must admit though that the Duet sounded better than the Babyface. The Duet has some sort of high end sheen to its sound whereas the Babyface is dead neutral. Subjective call I guess.
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When you said the Duet has high end sheen did you mean the playback/output or the recording/line in/preamp?

 

If it's the output, I'd prefer mine to be flat/neutral/not coloured though. But awesome if its the line in/preamp.

 

Output. I was using the Duet as a DAC as well just for listening to music and it sounded phenomenal.

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I know for my money, I've had the FW Duet, and a first-gen Scarlett 2i4. Bought the latter when I was having some trouble on a gig using MainStage; as an effort to troubleshoot I thought I'd try a different interface (turned out the software was just struggling with MP3s). Still, I kept that Scarlett to use in the field so that I wouldn't have to disassemble my studio rig every time I had a rehearsal. I would have click/pop/dropout issues with the Duet in the later years, which could have been driver/new OS issues or could have had to do with my used Mac Pro having some wonky I/O connections that I never figured out. The Scarlett is my main interface for the time being since that's the only one I can easily connect to my new MacBook Pro, but I've gotten used to it. In a pinch on a couple occasions I have used my Mackie Big Knob Studio as an interface, but I try to save that for troubleshooting issues or ease of use if my girlfriend needs to connect her laptop to my system to do some work. The Big Knob definitely seems to color the sound, but I personally think it's a little more exaggerated when doing double duty as the interface.

 

All that to say, since I'm a grad student in screen scoring now, I think it's time to get a new interface. A lot of UA out there for my classmates, but I don't think I can spend that much yet… especially for just two preamps (see also Apogee's Symphony Desktop and the Babyface Pro)—at that price point, I'd rather try out Arturia's AudioFuse Studio so I can record my stage piano and mics simultaneously, though that would also make my Big Knob a little redundant, but not so redundant that I could get rid of it. So all those things considered, I think the Duet is the ideal unit for my situation. I suppose I can take comfort in knowing that I'd be getting in on the ground floor with it, so I should in theory get sufficient years of support and compatibility out of it.

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