42
I
n my experience, no matter what audio interface
you buy, there are still compromises to be had.
Get one with a PCIe card for ultra low latency?
Can’t use it with a laptop. Get one with ultra high
quality converters? Doesn’t have enough inputs and
outputs. Get one for your Pro Tools HD system? Can’t use
it to its full potential with Nuendo. Apogee has a deserved
reputation for high quality interfaces and, with its AD/DA
x units, full compatibility with Pro Tools HD. Its latest
interface, the Symphony I/O, appears to be an attempt
to consolidate the company’s long
experience in interface design to
produce a product that appears to be
the ideal candidate as a central hub
of a modern digital studio – but is it,
as first appears, all things to all pros?
Overview
The Symphony I/O is an Apple Mac-
only expandable interface capable
of capturing audio at up to kHz at
-bit resolution (USB connections
are limited to kHz). It can be used
either with Apogee’s own Symphony
PCIe cards (a small format PCIe
card with two multi-pin outputs,
each providing channels of audio
for Symphony I/O racks), Avid’s
Pro Tools HD cards (Mac and PC versions supported), in
Standalone mode just as a A/D D/A converter or using
the USB connection – all switchable from the front panel
via what Apogee calls the Audio Interface Mode (AIM)
technology. There are versatile and user selectable input
and output configurations, and multiple Symphony I/O
units can be connected to increase the physical input,
and output counts. The Symphony I/O benefits from
Apogee’s C clock technology and the company says it’s
the best sounding converter it has ever made – which is
quite a claim from a company renowned for its
audio quality!
The Hardware
Housed in an elegant U rack mountable box,
the Symphony I/O’s front panel is uncluttered.
Two push-to-click soft knobs select and control
the parameters displayed on the OLED panel,
which is itself situated underneath a panel
containing a bank of clear, programmable,
-segment LED bargraph meters and a large
sample rate display. A power switch and two
independent headphone sockets complete
the picture. You may be wondering what
headphone sockets are doing on an interface that’s so
obviously meant to be tucked away in a rack or machine
room? Well, that’s part of the unit’s flexibility, as we’ll
see later.
The rear panel sports a multi voltage IEC mains
connector, wordclock connections, and USB and Ethernet
sockets – the latter, intriguingly, not in use at the time
of writing. The Symphony ‘Main’ multi-pin socket is for
connection to Symphony PCIe, Symphony Mobile
Express/ cards or Avid HD PCIe cards, while the ‘Thru’
socket is there for you to add another
Symphony I/O for extra physical ins
and outs. The unit has fan assisted
cooling which, though much quieter
than the one on my Avid I/O, is
obviously noisier than something
that relies on convection cooling –
but it is temperature controlled and
therefore shouldn’t cause much of an
issue (and didn’t during the review
period). The rest of the rear panel is
dedicated to the feature that gives
the interface its name – the I/O
module slots. I/O obviously stands
for Input and Output – and there’s
plenty of choice, available.
The I/O Modules
Currently, Apogee has four I/O modules available, two of
which can be installed at the same time. They have the
following configurations: eight channels of analogue
I/O with eight channels of AES I/O, eight channels of
analogue I/O with up to eight channels of Optical I/O,
channels of analogue outputs with up to channels
of digital inputs, and channels of analogue inputs
with up to channels of digital output. A microphone
pre-amp module has also been announced that, sadly,
wasn’t available at the time of review. It provides eight
THE REVIEWER
STEPHEN BENNETT has been
involved in music production
for over 25 years. Now based in
Norwich he splits his time between
writing books and articles on
music technology, running his
own Chaos studios and working in
the Electroacoustic Studios in the
School of Music at the University of
East Anglia. He’s also a filmmaker
with several music videos and
short films to his credit. www.
stephenjamesbennett.co.uk
multi-channel
audio interface
>
There’s always a compromise
to be had when it comes to
interfaces, says
STEPHEN BENNETT, but could
Apogee have come close to
compromise-free perfection
with its Symphony I/O?
audio media september 2011
“The Symphony I/O
benefits from Apogee’s
C777 clock technology and
the company says it’s the
best sounding converter
it has ever made – which
is quite a claim from a
company renowned for its
audio quality!”
(60 pages)
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