Apogee’s Element 24, 46 and 88 are Thunderbolt audio I/O boxes for Mac. The Element Series takes the best of cutting-edge Apogee gear like Symphony I/O Mk II, Ensemble Thunderbolt and Groove and puts it into simple form factors. With streamlined hardware features and advanced software control, the Element series delivers ultimate recording quality and performance at unprecedented prices. Word Clock IN/OUT via BNC connections for syncing with other digital audio gear
Product Features
- 12 in x 14 Out Thunderbolt audio I/O Box
- 4 analog inputs with world-class mic preamps and selectable 48V phantom power for connecting microphones, instruments or line-level devices
- Single port Thunderbolt connectivity to Mac for ultra-low latency performance. 1.41Ms round-trip at 96kHz with a 32 buffer setting
- Element control software for Mac provides all control of hardware parameters including input gain, output level and low latency monitoring
- Multi-unit Thunderbolt support – connect any two element audio I/O boxes directly to Thunderbolt Ports on your computer
Five Stars So far sounds impeccable.
Sturdy. Sounds perfect Sturdy. Sounds perfect. Looks good, if that matters to you. A great interface. My only slight gripes is the lack of a physical volume control and that the volume control via the keyboard control can only be assigned to headphones OR speakers, but not both simultaneously.
Strange mixing and limited I/O I really struggle to make this work in my studio. It’s got three fixed internal mixers with the unfortunate feature that they only output to 2 channel analog. Compare to the Focusrite RED series which has 8 internal mixers that can output to any combination of analog or digital. Further the inputs to the mixers are only either hardware inputs (digital or analog) or a select set of DAW playback channels. This means that if you output to ADAT out on the DAW you cannot mix that in the internal mixers, it’s a simple out channel.So a simple two channel out, not even 2.1 or certainly not 7.1, with very limited I/O otherwise (a few pre’s and ADAT.) Apogee Control is buggy, metering stops after a few days, and it also will lose it’s clocking mind and has to be reset. This is better suited to some on-site gigging rather than studio work – I use it just for the output of my DAW for YouTube and such, and got a better interface for real work.Two stars for having good mic…