Apogee AD-500
Not much is documented about the Apogee AD-500, but the period record pins it down. It was an 18-bit A/D converter aimed at professional digital mastering in the early 1990s. Studio Sound (December 1992, p.54) covered the unit's clocking in detail. It described a flywheel effect that cut clock jitter while holding synchronization. The review said the converter could lock to external signals from below 32kHz up to 54kHz, which allowed ±12% varispeed at either 44.1 or 48kHz sampling rates.
Specs from that Studio Sound coverage:
- Quantisation: 18 bits/sample
- Operating levels: +4dBu nominal; +28dBu max (balanced), +24dBu max (unbalanced)
- Frequency response: 20Hz–10kHz ±0.025dB; 10kHz–20kHz +0.025dB/−0.1dB
Apogee's promotional material in Mix (October 1992, p.83) quoted Bernie Grundman and engineers Chris Bellman and Brian Gardner. In their tests, the Apogee converter kept more of the source's ambience and definition, and the difference was still audible in the finished CD. The AD-500 also turns up in an early-90s mastering engineer's recollections on a studio forum, where it sat alongside a Sonic Solutions rig, a Manley Vari-mu, a Focusrite ISA-215, a TC Electronic M5000, and a Sony DAT.
A later Mix advertisement (January 1997, p.250) offered a brand-new "AD-500E" - described there as an 18-bit A/D converter with power supply - for $1,695. The sources at hand don't document how the AD-500 and AD-500E relate, though the name suggests a variant or successor. After that the record goes quiet. No production years, original pricing for the AD-500 proper, dimensions, or service literature have surfaced.
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