Recording - February 2012 - 74

& Apogee Duet 2
New Features, new look... and even better audio
by Mike Metlay

...where we bring you follow-up articles with application hints and upgrade news about gear already reviewed in Recording

Audio Interface

We first reviewed the Apogee Duet in our August 2008 issue. In that review, Nick Casares was very favorably impressed by the Duet, which at the time represented Apogee’s first foray into audio interfacing and conversion solutions that were both portable and affordable. Since that time, while Apogee has maintained its strong selection of high-end converters and interfaces, the Duet has stood at the top of a growing lineup of entry-level devices, including the GiO guitar input/foot controller (reviewed January 2010) and the ONE ultra-portable USB mic/interface (reviewed December 2010). The Duet 2 represents a significant change to the original Duet design, adding a lot and changing a lot... well worth another look. The box Like its predecessor, the Duet 2 is intended to be a no-compromise audio interface system for small Mac-based studios. It offers audio inputs and outputs married to Apogee’s famous A/D and D/A converters, all in a compact tabletop box with a solid metal casing, about the size of a small paperback book and comfortingly heavy for its size. The original Duet was a 2-in/2-out device with up to 24-bit/96 kHz audio quality supported; the Duet 2 raises the ante in both cases, with true 2-in/4-out operation and 24-bit/192 kHz support. Having 4 distinct outputs is a big deal; it’s now possible to send different mixes to the speakers (balanced TRS outs) and headphones, for cue mixes or click track routing, etc., as well as mute or dim one output without affecting the other. For some folks, having 24/192 support will be total overkill, and for others, it will be a welcome upgrade. The first external difference one sees with respect to the original Duet is that the two multistep level meters have been replaced by a small but very clear color OLED data display; there’s a lot of information now available at a quick glance right on the Duet 2. The large clickencoder wheel is still there, and it controls levels and switches between various inputs and outputs as it always has; new to the Duet 2 are two small touch-sensitive buttons on the surface of the case, with a
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myself wondering if moving to USB 2.0 offers the option of eventual Windows 7 support, but Apogee is tightly partnered with Apple these days and such guesses are purely my own imagination running away with me. So far.) The Duet 2 now ships with a wall-mount AC power supply, complete with interchangeable plugs for US, UK, and European use. Apogee notes that while the Duet 2 does operate on USB power, there may be circumstances where the unit’s current requirements aren’t quite met—for example, using two condenser mics that each want a lot of phantom-power current—and the power supply should be used when the Duet 2 itself flashes a low-power warning on its OLED display. I never had any issues with the Duet 2 running on bus power from my test system (a 2 GHz MacBook running OS X 10.6.8), but one place where I did find the AC supply handy was in assuring a reliable update of the unit’s firmware. The Duet 2’s breakout cable is also a different design than the original’s. There are now four cables rather than six, with the instrument and mic inputs combined in Amphenol combination XLR–1/4" TRS jacks. The Duet’s unbalanced outputs have been replaced with 1/4" TRS balanced outs. The software The Duet 2 doesn’t come with a software CD. Apogee directs buyers to its website so that an installer with the very newest firmware and software must be downloaded before the Duet 2 can be used. While there’s a certain gut-level appeal to having a driver CD in the box so you can get started right away, every sensible user knows to go online and get the latest versions of everything before getting down to serious work; Apogee just makes you do that up front. The current version of Apogee’s Maestro 2 software requires either Mac OS X 10.6.8 or 10.7, and the installer is bundled with a firmware update for the Duet 2 that installs automatically before Maestro 2 goes onto your Mac. Maestro has been a very popular and well-liked interface-control application; it allows a variety of different Apogee interfaces to be controlled from a single window, with its capabilities changing as the user selects different interfaces. With this system, you can not only have multiple different Apogee interfaces all connected to your Mac at once and simultaneously available—that capability has been in Mac OS X for years and years—but you can control each interface from a single program. Check out the screenshots for the various pages of Maestro 2’s Duet 2 support;

variety of assignable functions depending on need. There’s still a 1/4" TRS jack for headphones on the front edge of the case, so the Duet 2 can function as a high-quality headphone amplifier even with no other connections in place. The Duet 2’s rear panel bears little resemblance to the original’s. Between the old and new models, the decision was made to move from FireWire to USB 2.0. This is a sensible choice, given that FireWire has been removed from all of the smaller MacBook models that would be ideal partners for the Duet 2, and that Thunderbolt is still a relatively young standard. (I found

Recording - February 2012

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