Recording - May 2018 - 37

to get used to wireless remote control of
preamp gain and monitor status! Having
remote meters was handy, too.
The Quantum comes with a large bundle
of software plug-ins and PreSonus' Studio
One Artist DAW software. If you use Studio
One, many of UC Surface's remote controls
for the Quantum (particularly the preamps)
are made available right in the DAW's mixer, and you can also easily create and route
monitor mixes to the hardware right inside
the DAW. It makes for a relatively seamless
workflow, with the interface becoming a
simple extension of the software itself.
Up to four Quantum boxes can be networked via the dual Thunderbolt ports on
the rear panel, with BNC word clock I/O
allowing sample-accurate sync between
them. That gives up to a 96-in/96-out I/O
network if you need that much. (Yikes.)

Performance and latency

The converters in the Quantum are
excellent, supporting sample rates up to
192 kHz (although some of the I/O is
disabled at those high speeds). PreSonus
claims a dynamic range of up to 120
dB, and I have to say that everything
sounded beautifully clear and noisefree in my rig while using the Quantum.
I have always been a big fan of the
XMAX preamps, and their 60 dB of gain
gave me good strong signals from even
my lowest-gain dynamic mics; some
passive ribbons might want more level,
but it's easy enough to run them through
something like a Cloud Microphones
Cloudlifter and then let the XMAX preamps do the prettying-up of the signals.
Software integration was very smooth,
and I didn't run into any major glitches
running the Quantum on either of my test

Macs: a dual-core i7 MacBook Air
and a quad-core i7 MacBook Pro.
I have to admit, though, that even
knowing how lean and mean the
Quantum was designed to be, its
latency performance surprised me.
By juggling buffer size and sample
rate (e.g. 32 samples at 44.1 kHz
or 64 samples at 96 kHz in Ableton
Live 10), I was able to easily get
round-trip latency under 3 milliseconds
without pops or crackles, and under
2 milliseconds if I kept the plug-in
chain simple. Headphone monitoring
of guitar parts with basic effects
added was feasible without any distracting
delay in my headphones, which I frankly
never believed I could achieve with my
old Macs. But then, that's why Thunderbolt exists, so maybe I shouldn't have
been so shocked.

A Quantum leap

Working with the Quantum was a
fascinating experience. It was easy to
get used to low-latency audio routing in
and out of a DAW; the CPU speed on
my older Macs, which are among the first
to offer Thunderbolt, wasn't as much of a
bottleneck as I had feared, and the entire
experience of hooking up the Quantum
and integrating it with DAWs like Studio
One and Live was pretty much plug-andplay. I found ways to trade off channel
count, input and output enabling, etc., to
get consistently low latency whether mixing
down with a fair number of plug-ins or
tracking instruments with phones on.
I've reviewed Thunderbolt audio interfaces before, and been more impressed
by some than by others. That said, the
Quantum really was a wake-up call,
with its tons of I/O, pristine audio quality,
and of course its blinding speed. I must
admit, though, that its raw simplicity
was really appealing as well. No frills,
no tricks... just speed and more speed,
from the audio interface equivalent of a
stripped-down rocket car going Mach 1
across the salt flats. Heady stuff!

PRICES: Quantum
(as reviewed), $999.95;
Quantum 2, $699.95
MORE FROM:
PreSonus, www.presonus.com
RECORDING May 2018

37
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