UAD Apollo Windows Connection: Was the USB Cable the Problem?

A client’s first-generation Apollo Twin USB was only half connected to his Windows laptop, and at the end of our first session I was fairly sure the USB cable was the reason.

He found me after three weeks of going back and forth with Universal Audio’s support, trying to get the interface recognised by Windows. Part of it was working. The DSP side of the Apollo had connected and we could see it in Device Manager, and UA Console recognised the unit too. We could use Identify to make it flash and get into its settings menu. But the Apollo would not show up as an audio device in Windows, so he still couldn’t use it.

The cable theory

The big clue came when he mentioned an error message he’d been getting.

The message said the Apollo wasn’t connected with a SuperSpeed (USB 3) cable.

So we had a conversation about how it was cabled up. UA had recommended a particular type of USB-B 3.0 to USB-A cable, one of those with the bump on the B end, and he was using it. On the computer end, though, it went through a USB-A to USB-C adapter with no branding on it, so he had no idea of its pedigree.

I suggested the most likely diagnosis was the cable. We went through Amazon together and picked a USB 3.2 SuperSpeed cable, due to arrive in the next few days, and I asked him to swap it in and tell me if that solved it. My gut feeling was that it would, and I was looking forward to updating this case with a triumphant diagnosis.

What happened next

The new cable didn’t turn out to be the answer. When we reconnected, it got Windows as far as trying to install a driver, but the Apollo still didn’t appear as a sound device, and nothing else we tried fixed it either. I’ve written up everything else we tried on the Apollo Twin and Windows 11, and why the job ended unsolved. In the end he moved to a Focusrite Scarlett Solo, which worked straight away.

If your Apollo says it isn’t on a SuperSpeed cable, try a properly rated USB 3 cable first. If the Apollo still won’t appear as a sound device, the problem may go deeper than the cable.

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The cable theory

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