Universal Audio Ox

spantini

COO of me, inc.
I was just checking this out - Sweetwater's got a nice demo video running on their product page : Universal Audio OX Reactive Amp Attenuator with Speaker Modeling | Sweetwater

First off, for the home studio this ain't cheap at $1299, but there's always the payment plan. This is priced at 10x what many decent sims might be, but it appears to do at least 10x as much - and does it way better. I've been looking at sims (recently, the IK Multimedia Fender pkg) and this OX box is just so much better, but it's a bring-your-own-amp deal, so that might be another $800-$1500 if you're just starting and don't have a good amp. Still awaiting my winning LOTTO ticket :p

Does anyone here have any experience with this product?
 
I don't think highly of the quality of their hardware.
I got an LA610, broken compressor. Returned, new one broke it's meter with less than 20 hours use.
The unit went from MKI to MKII rather quickly. Their plugins are on MKII.
So there is a lot of marketing Hype that you have to take with a grain of salt.
(in that case, "it's as good as the hardware" well, no, but it is impressive compared to anyone else for some emulations.
I own 45 of their plugins, currently have an Apollo 8 and the Twin I had was good quality (ran hot tho) and the 8 requires an open rack space above it.
Which to me is stupid. The POINT of a rack is it's supposed to fit IN 1 rack space, not require 2 due to overheading. Create a 2U if you need that.

I've only heard good things about this, but I'd be wary of buying one until you don't hear complaints about the hardware quality or features over the next year.
Keep it on the radar, unless you got a pile of cash and are willing to be the guinea pig for everyone else.

Last bit, I have a Kemper, played Fractal FXII and own an FX8, and the UA guitar amp plugins are "meh.." IMO. But they are 3rd party. IF the software in the OX is their own, it's probably good.
If it's 3rd party, look to reviews vs other similar emulation offerings on the market to see how it fits in. To me, the Kemper is the bomb of guitar amp/cab emulations and can be paired with a real cabinet, too.

Last bit: Universal Audio is the APPLE of the Audio world. Great products, some terrible products, all overly-priced. They are a very greedy company for sure.
Customer service has been great, terrible, great over time. Last I tried, 2 times in the past month, their customer service got back within a day and helped me solve the problem. So lately for me: Great!
 
I don't have any information about the company, their quality of service etc but the Ox get a very good report in the current issue of Sound on Sound.

The price seems reasonable considering what is on offer? The Motherload power soaks are in the same ball park $wise and they don't have the software.

Dave.
 
Had another skim through the review yesterday. It runs to EIGHT sides! That sort of content is normally reserved for one of the interminable synth reviews! The latest MOTU interface only rates 2 and bit IIRC.

So, cracking bit of kit by all accounts but, maybe a deal breaker? No Windows support and no mention of it coming anytime soon. It does have S/PDIF out on coax and optical so once setup I suppose it can feed any similarly equipped AI?

Dave.
 
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