NAMM 2020: Apogee Symphony Desktop is the most affordable Symphony interface ever
NAMM 2020: Apogee takes the sound quality from the esteemed rackmount Symphony I/O Mk II and applies it to Symphony Desktop, a 10×14 portable audio interface. Symphony Desktop also boasts ultra-low latency and vintage mic preamp emulation. Apogee’s new audio interface maintains the brand’s mission to “design the finest performing audio interfaces using cutting edge […]
NAMM 2020: Apogee takes the sound quality from the esteemed rackmount Symphony I/O Mk II and applies it to Symphony Desktop, a 10×14 portable audio interface. Symphony Desktop also boasts ultra-low latency and vintage mic preamp emulation.
Apogee’s new audio interface maintains the brand’s mission to “design the finest performing audio interfaces using cutting edge analogue and digital components”. Symphony Desktop features an A/D converter that provides low distortion, high-slew rate and fully analogue op-amps. The D/A stage incorporates new technology from Apogee to bring the usual high quality of Symphony’s DAC performance into a smaller package.
Offering up to 75dB of gain, the two mic preamps at the heart of Symphony Desktop use Apogee’s Advanced Stepped Gain Architecture for ultra-low noise and distortion regardless of the input signal.
Preamp emulations include British Solid State & 50s American Tube to offer the tone of long-loved analogue preamps. Symphony Desktop recreates aspects of the analogue models such as input impedance, transient profile and distortion characteristics. This is, in effect, Apogee’s answer to Universal Audio’s Unison preamp technology.
Apogee’s new interface will give you the DSP processing power to use Apogee FX Rack plug-ins, as well as continuing to offer the premium plug-ins natively on your computer. This means you can access endorsed emulations of vintage hardware accurately. Included in the plug-in library is the Symphony ECS Channel Strip Tuned by Bob Clearmountain, with EQ, Compression and Saturation.
The interface itself sports a touch screen display that is designed to provide “comprehensive hardware control”, according to Apogee. Two assignable headphone outputs are featured, one ¼-inch, the other ⅛ inch, with ADAT (Toslink) input and outputs, which when combined with other I/O allows 10×14 simultaneous channels of audio. MIDI is also available over USB, and the interface is compatible with Mac OS, Windows and iPad Pro.
Symphony Desktop is available at $1299, while Symphony Desktop FX Complete comes in at $1399. Both will be available from Q1, 2020. Find out more at apogeedigital.com
