Apogee has included their well-known and gently-effective soft limiter (selectable via the Maestro 2 software), and the two preamps are uncolored and wide-open, with a gain of up to 75 dB. Tracking with the Duet 2 is also a pleasure. I'm now able to apply EQ and other processing at home in a way that makes sense to me, and I would even posit that the Duet 2 has increased the value of my plug-in collection infinitely. But that openness doesn't just apply to the top end of the frequency spectrum I can hear well- defined mids and a clear bottom-end that were previously unattainable. But after rigorous testing, listening to my tracks in a number of different locations, I think that really what's happening is the Duet 2 is actually just letting me hear the upper frequencies in a way that I never could before. On my first few mixes done with the Duet 2, I was concerned that the converters were a touch glassy, with a noticeable boost around the 15-17 kHz area. With the Duet 2, I can now track and mix with the confidence that my audio will hold up under close scrutiny once it leaves my apartment.
But with my Mbox, I could never trust that what I was hearing at home is what I would hear when I took my tracks out into the world. I'm of the belief that one can work with just about any realistic monitoring configuration, as long as you learn how your setup translates to the real world. I do a considerable amount of work from home, and prior to my purchase of the Duet 2, my home studio was always the weakest link in my city-wide signal chain. I currently work all over NYC in a number of different studios, with projects dictated by extremely varied budgets. The Duet 2 has the same understated, simple design aesthetic of recent Apple products, and it looks quite nice on my desk at home.
The controls consist of one big, all-purpose knob, and two touchpads that are assignable to a number of functions (mute, dim, sum-to-mono, meter clear, and a headphone source toggle) via the included Maestro 2 software. The Duet 2 is housed in a handsome aluminum body, with a full-color OLED screen for metering and menu navigation. Simply put, after several years of working at home with an original Mbox, opening my first session with the Duet 2 was akin to listening to the song with brand-new ears. Building on the success of the original Duet, while taking into consideration customer feedback, Apogee has set a new standard in A/D conversion for home and project studio with the Duet 2.
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