Apogee just recently unveiled its latest home and on-the-road interface solution known as the Jam X. As a follow-up to previous iterations in the Jam lineup, Apogee is once again applying its nearly 40 years of expertise in the digital audio space and wrapping it up into a pocket-size solution at a far more affordable price than world-class, pro-grade interfaces used in professional environments all over the world. We have had a chance to give the new Apogee Jam X a run for its money over the last couple of weeks, and it’s time to weigh in as part of our ongoing Tested with 9to5Toys series.
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Hands-on with the new Apogee Jam X guitar interface
The Apogee Jam X sports 24-bit/96kHz digital converters (about as good as it gets for a product of this nature) alongside a 1/4-inch instrument input, a MicroUSB connector (that breaks out to USB-C/USB-A via the included cables), and a 1/8-inch stereo output for your headphones or powered speakers.
Whether you’re monitoring as you play and record with your favorite app, or streaming music, the stereo output on Jam X dramatically improves the playback quality of your audio. With high-resolution sample rates up to 96k and ample headroom, Jam X delivers incredible clarity and plenty of volume to your headphones or powered speakers.
The whole thing is wrapped up in the solid metal housing we have come to love from the brand with a new almost rose gold hue.
It is compatible with macOS 10.14 and later, Windows 10 or later, and iOS/iPad. (All iPads with a USB-C port are compatible with Jam X, but you’ll need a Lightning to a micro USB cable to work with iOS gear and other Apple tablets.) It also ships with Ableton Live Lite free and an extended 60-day trial of Archetype: Tim Henson by Neural DSP guitar FX unit.
Here’s a closer look at the spec sheet:
- Apogee’s PureDIGITAL connection for pristine sound quality
- Built-In Analog Compressor with 3 Presets
- Up to 24-bit / 96kHz recording
- Works with guitar, bass, keyboards, synths, or acoustic instruments with pickups
- 1x 1/4-inch instrument input
- 1x 1/8-inch output connects to headphones or powered speakers.
- Rugged metal body
- Blend Mode: Record with zero latency
9to5Toys’ Take
Apogee is no joke in the interface business. There are loads of companies making interfaces these days – with the popularity of the streaming product category now stretching well beyond the bounds of recording brands – but not very many are as storied and well respected as Apogee. The nearly 40-year-old company not only makes some of the best models on the market that are used the world over in professional recording studios and by serious artists in-home demo setups, but it was also largely responsible for making some of the very first models at the dawn of digital audio that were actually good enough to use for high-fidelity records. And while none of this really matters all that much when it comes to a $199 guitar interface like the Jam X, it does go to show the pedigree of the engineers and minds behind its more budget-friendly products and, for me, is almost certainly a better option than some of the others out there in the same price range because of it.
Even without some of the bells and whistles the Jam X impressively adds to the package this time around (built-in compression, I’m looking at you here), Apogee is a converter quality-first company, and that’s what really counts in a product like this. It’s the sort of thing you don’t know you’re missing until you put it up against a brand that can’t keep up with Apogee in this department, and, to my ears, the Jam X nails it.
Alongside the solid digital-to-analog (and analog-to-digital, for that matter) conversion here, the built-in compression settings are a real highlight. Good compression can easily be the difference between amateur- and professional-sounding recordings, and most home studio folks aren’t going to have FX they can print to tape – in other words, FX to apply to an incoming audio signal as opposed to just adding them after. This can really set the tone, so to speak, for what your result sounds like, delivering smooth, even dynamics that make post-processing (adding FX after the fact) an easier and more enjoyable process. This time around, the brand has added three input compression options, including Smooth Leveler (the lowest amount of compression), Purple Squeeze (medium compression), and Vintage Blue Stomp for when you want to get really aggressive with it. For me, the Smooth Leveler is the kind of setting I might use all the time (in all but the most intimate performances played by a serious professional), even when I don’t want any compression – again, just to slightly level out some of the variable volume issues that might arise during certain parts of a passage, riff, or progression. The other two sound just as good to my ears and seemed to really work well with harder guitar parts, heavy chugging gallops, and soaring chord treatments.
I don’t normally include these marketing videos in my reviews, but hate it or love it, Henson really makes this thing sing here:
It almost goes without saying when it comes to a brand like Apogee, but the rest of the usual fixings on a product like this – blend mode monitoring (hearing a mixture of the recorded signal coming back through your computer or the direct signal hitting the interface), onboard volume control for the lot, and the other onboard controls (input gain, compression preset selection process, and blend mode options) all work flawlessly and as expected.
The only real gripe I might be able to reach for here is that it’s just another rock-solid guitar interface from the brand without many major advancements. But with the added compression options in a product category that rarely sees much innovation simply due to the inherent nature of what it is used for – even that seems like a stretch.
The new Apogee Jam X comes in at a more than reasonable $199 here as well. There are more affordable options out there, even some that look nearly identical, but anything less pricey almost certainly won’t sound as good, be as well built, or come from a brand that basically wrote the book on digital audio conversion. The others will work just fine, but they aren’t an Apogee. Your call.
Buy the Apogee Jam X guitar interface
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