The Apogee Groove Anniversary Edition USB-C interface might be just the upgrade to your computer sound quality that you are looking for. Apogee Digital, long known for their superior high-end audio interfaces used in recording studios around the world, has designed this small, portable and efficient interface made expressly to maximize your music listening experience.
Groove comes with a USB-C cable and is also designed to work seamlessly with iOS devices that have USB-C ports built-in. Just connect it directly and it will automatically be recognized and work. If the iPad or iPhone has a Lightning port, you need to use Apple’s Lightning to USB3 camera adapter with an external power supply.
Groove will not work with USB on-the-go devices as Groove is a high-performance headphone amplifier and DAC designed to power the most demanding premium headphones. On-the-go devices simply do not provide enough power for high quality headphone drivers.
The Apogee Groove can get warm during use. This is normal and it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with it. Apogee states, “Audio quality with very low noise and low distortion requires using more current and this creates heat dissipation. In order to get the high-end audio performance it does, Groove requires a decent amount of current, and because of this, it will definitely get warm.
If you connect your Groove to your computer and it is recognized by the computer, plays back audio, and starts to feel warm to the touch after a while, this means it is working as expected. If there were a hardware issue with a Groove, it would either not power up at all (which means it wouldn’t get warm), or it would power up, but not play audio.”
I compared music from three sources using Beyer DT770 Pro X headphones. The sources were Apogee Groove, Mac built in headphone out, and the headphone out on a popular audio interface. The Apogee Groove was hands down the winner, with more depth, clarity, detail, excitement and power in every area. It sounded great on all but sounded amazing on the Apogee Groove. The Groove has nice audio level metering and is easy to use.
List price: $349
