Suddenly i am rather interested in this box due to the fact that i want to upgrade my apogee one to an apogee duet and i realised the AH is almost the same price as the duet, like within 50-70usd from the place i am planning to visit. Would be very interested in the performance as a 2 in 2 out soundcard, and if it can be used as an audio interface for an ipad as well.
i find it quite worrying that these are scheduled to be in stores within the next few weeks and there are no real hands on demos or reviews yet.
Itās not USB class compliant, so it wonāt work with your ipad.
I wish they made it class compliant, same for the AR/A4
But that aside, I really dig the AH for different reasons:
I like to use it as a soundcard: recording stuff/loops etc. which I create on my Arturiaās(Mini/Micro) + the korg Volca, creating new sounds with the various distortions circuits/filter/lfoās etc.
Color the sound of the OT; I hope it sound really good and that you can really go in to detail, but by control it with the OT midi sequencer you can go crazy as well.
Also having better (analog) filters in stead of the ones in the OT
So to me it seems it does offer a lot, but thatās still depending on what you want/need.
The A1 Moog and Roland (TB) filters sound far better IMO than any of the filters on the Lead 4, so if you are looking for the best raw sound go with the A1. Obviously the Lead 4 has a more flexible architecture if thatās your priority.
and to my ear this might be the case - to some degree at least. it sounds better, sure - but significantly better??? from the demos i heard i cant tell it - really. so the price point IS in fact a point here. and digital doesnt mean the classic CPU sound every vst plugin gives you thereās still a difference. a dedicated DSP has a completely different sound and it will be unique if programmed right. machinedrum is the best example. no one would complain that its digital because its drum sounds are fu***in amazing and very very unique. nothing a plugin could ever give you - although its still just digital
Is that true? Im not being argumentative, Iām genuinely curious. I always figured anything on a DSP could in theory be done on a computer? Isnāt it all just code?
Edit - if it is true it makes me a lot more interested in UAD pluginsā¦ Always heard good things about them but I just figured they were a different flavour of regular top quality vsts but didnāt didnāt tax your cpu etc.
ok, I must admit I dont own a machinedrum so I cant judge its sound. But if youre running a company and you have a good algorithm for emulating a synth sound. I think its much more common to program a plugin with it, because it doesnt matter for the sound if the engine runs on a dsp or x86-cpu. Yes of course for live events its more comfortable to have a dedicated machine. But soundwise in the studio a digital outboard doesnt make much sense to me, as its much easier to handle (and you can have many instances) if you go to a plug-in software. Of course, I like to turn knobs and most midi controllers are crap. but when I lay my hands down on hardware, Im looking for some special sound I cant get in a plug-in. So the decision to integrate different analog distortions in a box with a good control interface thats usable in a daw is something I can really appreciate as there are not many (or any) tools around that I know of, that offer this combination. So I like elektrons policy much more than lets say rolands who lately only repeated its good ideas it had in the 80s.
or both
I so miss the secret threadā¦ 
thereās still a difference. a dedicated DSP has a completely different sound and it will be unique if programmed right. machinedrum is the best example. no one would complain that its digital because its drum sounds are fu***in amazing and very very unique. nothing a plugin could ever give you - although its still just digital