Apogee Upgrades The Symphony System with The Symphony 64 PCIe Card

Today at AES, Apogee Electronics (booth #916) unveiled Symphony 64, a 64 channel, 24bit/192kHz PCI Express card made to interface Apogee's X-Series and Rosetta Series converters directly to Apple's Mac Pro.

Next Generation Workstation

The Symphony System( http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/symphony.php ) excels on several levels, the award-winning sound quality of Apogee's AD&DA Converters, the groundbreaking power of Apple's Mac Pro, and the stability and ultra low latency performance of the Symphony 64 card. This combination provides a flexible, stable, high-end solution for customers seeking a workstation compatible with any Core Audio application. And, because Symphony utilizes the power of the Mac Pro for plug-in processing, customers are spared the expense of a high priced DSP card.

Extended Audio Routing: Symphony's SBus and Vbus

Symphony 64 features Extended Audio Routing with VBus and SBus technology. VBus allows users to route demanding, stand-alone software instruments, directly between Core Audio based applications, instead of running them as plug-ins. Symphony's SBus doubles the DSP power of The Symphony System by facilitating the communication of digital audio between Symphony equipped Macs with a single cable. Now it is possible to route audio to a second computer and back again for plug-in processing, sample libraries, soft-synth players, and session transfers from one Core Audio application to another.

"The combination of Symphony 64, Apogee converters and Apple's Mac Pro marks a powerful turning point in digital audio production and is directly challenging the paradigm of the costly card-based DSP system. And, with 64 channels per card and the introduction of SBus technology, Symphony 64 has truly raised the bar for the Native audio workstation. Not only is the quality and performance of the Symphony System unprecedented, so is the value. Never have our customers had access to such an advanced solution for so little cost." says Betty Bennett Co-Founder and CEO of Apogee.

Symphony 64 at a glance:

• 64 channels of 24-bit 192kHz Digital I/O per card
• Up to 128 channels of I/O per Mac Pro
• Near zero latency performance
• Connects directly to Apogee's X-Series and Rosetta Series converters via the X
• Symphony option card
• Apogee's VBus
• virtual routing within a Core Audio application or between multiple applications.
• Apogee's SBus
• 32 channel, 192kHz digital audio network between two Mac computers
• Apogee's Maestro Software for advanced control and routing
• Compatibility with any Core Audio application

Symphony 64 PCIe Card, Availability: October 2008, MSRP: $995*

*Upgrade Program

Apogee is offering an upgrade program to customers who have purchased a Symphony 32 card 60 days prior to the release of Symphony 64 on October 3, 2008. All that qualify for the program can upgrade directly thru Apogee for $295.