Antelope Audio Orion 32+ Gen 3 Thunderbolt/USB Interface

Product Reviews

this thing sounds amazing and has been PRETTY damn reliable and dependable

By Nicholas S on March 14, 2023

I was reluctant to buy Antelope after all the horror stories but the Orion and drivers have been rock solid. Every bit as good or better than my apogee. The sound quality is better than my ensemble. The only reason I have 4 stars is their routing software needs someone other than a software engineer to help them redesign it to make it more user friendly. Yes it’s like old consoles which I’m used to but it’s all backwards. They would be better off with a simple from/to topology. It took some time to learn the way they think to be able to quickly route things with their software and that included a phone call to them. Now that I’ve learned it it’s not that hard but it’s just not intuitive and simply put it’s backwards. I am using every single I/o on this too. So other than that I love it and am happy to be an antelope customer after avoiding them for years.

By Todd U on November 28, 2022

Loving my Orion 32 plus.
Just what I was looking for in an audio interface.

By Waldo M on March 23, 2022

The Orion replaced my Apollo as my interface. The ability to have 32 channels of outstanding converters in a single rack space is amazing, and the sound quality is second to none!

By Ric P on July 21, 2021

Easy to use. Customer service is excellent. Sounds great!

By John S on March 25, 2021

I'm extremely happy with my Antelope Orion 32+ Gen 3! it sounds fantastic and the endless routing options are so simple and easy to use within the Antelope software. I'm running this on a new Mac pro (2019 version) via thunderbolt and I haven't encountered any issues. The AD/DA is definitely a step up from my MOTU 896mk3 firewire. This unit is definitely worth the investment!

By Justin R on March 11, 2021

This unit is unbelievable! It's like a dream come true...I am glad, I pulled a trigger on this one...one of my best investment I made.
Sound crisp, easily manageable, simple to learn how to operate, takes minutes to set it up.
I am a modular synth addict and I needed a lots of independent channels, so I can do some post production work on my comp. I use to managed my workflow through different mixers....ending up losing music quality or not having the desired quality at all. Those times are over and I am not going back. Having 32 independent channels....what a different view to my ears.
For little over 2 grand is a steal. Ok. $2500.00 Fantastic investment! Not much to hesitate, just get it. Life is short...have some liable quality. You won't regret it. Now: is studio time!

By Zoltan B on February 20, 2021

I'm impressed by the headroom and clarity this interfase has. I'm using it with a Mac Book Pro via TB2 to feed my 16 channel summing mixer for mixdown and for 16 analog inserts in pro tools via the Analog Ins/Outs plus 16 more analog inserts via extrenal ADAT converters. This unit shines in the conversion quality. and it has tons of level. I can hit the summing mixer really hard with the Analog Outs, make the summing bus ssaturate real nice and capture the final mix back with the pristine AD conversion of the Orion 32+ Gen 3. And the Monitoring output is on another level. The clarity and stereo definition are impressive.

I focus mostly on mixing other people's projects and I'm telling

No problems with conectivity. Installation was a breeze. I've already setup 2 Control Panel Presets.

Great Job Antelope.

By Berny on December 31, 2020

Its an Awesome AD/DA Converter. I Highly recommend studios owners Home or Pro level to invest in the Antelope System.

By Mark U on December 24, 2020

This is an outstanding value on a great sounding unit. I've a/b'ed this unit as well as the Gen 3 against the current Avid interfaces as well as UAD and have seen rooms of people instantly agree on the Antelope for its detailed top end and overall fidelity.

I've recently shot out the alleged mastering grade monitor outputs against some 2 channel dacs from both Chord and Apogee that cost the price of this unit and she stands right up.

By toddburke on November 3, 2020

I love my 32+ best bang for your buck interface on the market. Especially for a semi pro studio.

By Eric c on July 13, 2020

I really am torn a bit between 5 star and 4 stars. This product is really great but I couldn't quite give it 100%. I still have trouble with the thunderbolt recognizing the device after reboot and will have to unplug and plug it back in once or twice for it to pull up on the launcher. It will be listed in my devices just the launcher won't detect it properly. With that being said, I am coming from a Motu setup for many years and similar problems could happen there as well except it wouldn't be detected in the system at all. Also, every now and again drivers crash, its the name of the game with computers, with my motu setup (16A, 8M, ultralite AVB, AVB switch) if I tried to unplug or resolve a driver issue my whole computer would blue screen. Antelope as done a beautiful job on separating the device from the rest of the system and I do not get system crashing from it at all. I would say stay one version behind because I have had to do reinstalls of the driver/bundle due to installing the latest driver/bundle from Antelope and the system no longer recognizing the orion ( had to clean out the launcher and reinstall it a few times). The control panel, mixer, router are much more intuitive for me than Motu. Everything is on one screen that I do not have to scroll through. I wish the monitor outs were handled separately through the routing because it messes with the numbering but still easy to understand. I do wish the plugins were not a separate buy and wish the daw plugin option was available for windows (hopefully that comes soon). The latency in a practical sense seems to be slightly better than my old 16A with Thunderbolt. Both under 5ms not direct monitored in ableton.
Now for the hardware. As you noticed what I had before was a lot of different pieces This 1 piece of gear replaced all those. Freed up more space, more heat (it runs so much cooler), and in my opinion looks better in the rack. Syncs perfectly with my Ferrorfish pulse 16MX as well. The sound of this thing is amazing to my ears (very appealing/pleasing). I sense more detail in the highs and a bit more weight in the bottom end compared to my old Motu's. Soundwise pairs nicely with Ferrofish converters. This is much more lively sounding and I don't get as much ear fatigue when working. I wish there was more options for expandability (potentially daisy chaining with thunderbolt) but if I purchase another orion or get a ferrofosh A32 that is 64 ins and outs at the highest clocking which is really awesome.

By Chris on June 14, 2020

Purchased in August of 2019. Immediate thunderbolt plug and play with Mojave IOS at the time (it runs on Catalina now).

Upgraded from a MacBook to a Mac mini and had a few issues on set up. Antelope support helped me right away, just needed a little guidance getting my fresh out of the box computer optimized for the Orion 32+.

I purchased this converter because I knew I could expand the hardware in my studio and it will keep up.

My clients have been very happy with the mixes I have sent them. They love how clean and professional they sound, and so do I!

By Gavin on January 8, 2020

Recently purchased this interface and could not be happier! Sound quality and connectivity is fantastic and user friendly. I have had a few issues with updates however the tech support was extremely helpful and have not had a problem since! I would highly recommend this interface!

By Shaw1276 on November 28, 2019

Comming from apogee symphony the sound of the new orion 32 was a huge improvement. I love the way it sounds. Really few issues (i have to restart the server in order to panel control recognize the orion). Other than that the sounds is pristine. Recently i bought some plugins from their website...wow...i love the way it sounds and how it works on my system. Great!!!!!

By Kb on September 12, 2019

Sounds bananas. Paring it up with my dangerous 2bus+ and the soundscape is just phenomenal.

By Oshonthemix on July 20, 2019

Immediate connection with USB to MacPro OSX 10.13 (the recommended Mac OS at time of purchase) with Cubase 9.5. No problem with Control Panel routing. Very pleased with reliable DAW connection after years of unpredictable and random connection issues with PreSonus Firestudio interfaces.

Since the unit does not have a volume knob, you'll probably want to use a monitoring controller. You can adjust monitor volume from the software control panel. SPDIF and monitor output works perfectly with Dangerous D-Box.

I expected to notice a glaring improvement in AD/DA conversion over the Firestudio and Firestudio Project, but did not. I'm tempted to do a direct comparison, but will not because I've wasted enough of my life on PreSonus.

Soldered my own DB25-TRS and SPDIF-XLR cables using Redco and Neutrik components. Takes about an hour per DB25-TRS, but 1/4 the cost of pre-made cables.

In Cubase, if I do not use real-time export at mixdown, sync with the 32+ flickers and slows down the export. Response from Antelope chat support was poor. When I have more time, I hope to get a better answer from Antelope.

By JamisonS on May 16, 2019

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