Apogee Duet 2

Apogee's Duet is the most respected portable audio interface ever.  Along with receiving many industry awards, Duet has also been instrumental in the creation of numerous Grammy winning records.  While others have been trying to emulate its sound quality, ease of use and innovative design, Apogee has been busy making an even better Duet.  Apogee Duet 2 builds on the incredible success of its predecessor by incorporating customer feedback, adding advanced new features and delivering even better sound quality than the original.

Turn your Mac into a professional recording studio
Duet 2 is the best solution for capturing your music to your Mac.  With Duet 2, make studio quality recordings of vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, and anything musical.  And because Duet 2 is portable you can take it anywhere your creativity takes you.  When it's time to mix, Duet 2's output quality lets you hear your  recordings with incredible detail and dimension allowing you to put the finishing touches on your musical project like a pro.  Duet 2 sounds so amazing you won’t want to listen to your iTunes library without it.

Features:

• Completely redesigned mic preamps and converters
• Four outputs, independent speaker and headphone outs
• Balanced outputs
• USB 2.0 high speed connectivity
• 24 bit/192kHz recording
• Full color OLED display
• Configurable touch pads
• Maestro 2 software
• Breakout box (sold separately)
• Redesigned Breakout Cable
• Soft Limit

Better sound quality. A difference you will hear.
Using the very latest technology and drawing upon the experience of developing Apogee’s new flagship audio interface, Symphony I/O, Apogee engineers rebuilt Duet to achieve a difference you can hear.

From the mic preamps to the AD/DA converters, Duet 2 offers the best of everything Apogee, allowing you to capture your audio with even more clarity and dimension than the original Duet.  This is professional sound quality you can take anywhere.

Smooth, detailed, and world class mic preamps
The Duet 2 mic preamps feature a new design, all new components and seamless click-free transitions as the gain increases and decreases throughout the incredible range of 0-75dB.  This unprecedented feature allows you to dial in the perfect level while delivering ultra-low noise and smooth, crisp detail.  Most importantly, the Duet 2 mic preamps are optimized for any sound source, so no matter what you are recording you’ll capture every detail.

Pristine, next generation AD/DA converters
Much like the mic preamps, the Duet 2 AD/DA converters are an all-new design and deliver the purest recordings and best listening experience possible.  This totally new design takes the personal studio to the next level with state-of-the-art components and next-generation conversion.

Full Color OLED Display
New to Duet 2 is a full color OLED display.  This high resolution screen is the main control center for Duet 2, delivering visual feedback for multiple functions including metering, numeric value for input and output levels, input grouping, and phase, muting, phantom power and Soft Limit indication.  With this display you know the status of any input and output at any given moment without having to refer to Maestro or your recording software.

Configurable Touch Pads
Duet 2 also introduces configurable touch pads. The 2 touch pads, located on either side of the encoder knob, allow you to quickly access output functions such as “Mute Outputs”, “Dim Outputs”, “Sum to Mono” or “Toggle Headphone Source”. Each are assignable using a drop-down menu within Apogee’s new Maestro 2. This unique feature allows you to select the function you want and access it directly from Duet 2 without having to look at software.

Redesigned Breakout Cable
Duet 2’s new breakout cable is greatly streamlined with 2 combination mic/instrument connectors (XLR and 1/4”) built into a single connector and 2 balanced 1/4” connectors for speakers.  The elegant single cable-to-junction design allows for easy cable management and the locking connection to Duet 2 is robust and stylish.

Made for the Mac, Core Audio compatible
Designed exclusively for the Mac and made for GarageBand and Logic, Duet 2 is the perfect centerpiece for any personal, Mac-based studio.  Duet 2 is also Core Audio compatible making it ideal for other music creation apps like Pro Tools, Ableton Live and Cubase.

Maestro 2
Duet 2 not only benefits from Symphony I/O’s sound quality development, it has been integrated into the completely redesigned Maestro 2 as well.   This full version update features a new look and familiar single window, multiple tab interface for quick access to all device and system settings.

It also includes touch pad assignment, Soft Limit selection, output assignments, dim and mute output selection, sample rate selection and an improved low latency mixer. Now all Duet 2 parameters and functions are packaged into a single window design for the most streamlined and user-friendly experience.

Soft Limit
An Apogee technology first introduced in 1992 on Apogee’s AD-500 converter, Soft Limit can be heard on countless platinum selling records around the world. Once a technology exclusively reserved for Apogee’s most advanced audio converters, Soft Limit is now available in Duet.   This superior analog design prevents the digital clipping that causes distortion by instantaneously rounding off transient peaks before they hit the analog-to-digital converter.  Soft Limit allows several more decibels of apparent level to be recorded while subtly providing an analog-like warmth to the sound.