The company UAD launched their first Dante interface, the Apollo x16D. Until now UAD was not on the Dante boat yet but with this new product they follow companies like RME, Focusrite and Lynx (to name a few).
The Apollo x16D is a Thunderbolt-3 to Dante interface. It supports 16 channels of Dante I/O, two analog outputs and a digital AES input/output. Makes it a total of 18 inputs and 20 outputs. Okay wait there is also a build in talkback microphone .
Besides the I/O there is DSP power onboard like in all the Apollo models. So, you can run their plugins on the interface directly. It can be shipped with two different plugin bundles Essentials or Ultimate+. With of course a price difference. The DSP can be used on 16 channels at the same time.
The DSP approach is somehow similar as the Yamaha VST rack approach, you insert plugins in your Dante channels and send them back into the Dante networks. With one big difference: on the Yamaha system you must run the plugins on your own computer where as with the UAD x16D you run the plugins in the interface.
UAD is using the Thunderbolt 3 standard this one is still backwards compatible with the current Thunderbolt 4 standard. The two analog outputs and AES I/O support 24 bit and max 192 kHz sample rate.
The Dante specifications are not mentioned in the Apollo x16D manual nor on the website. So, for now we can’t say what type of Dante interface you get and if the Apollo x16D will fit into your Dante network. That would hold me back from buying one. Maybe the marketing department of UAD can have a look at his.
*Pictures taken from the UAD press release.
