Universal Audio Reviews 

So much blabla about this company...

Black Friday and another occasion for a free plugin ?! Would be stup|d not to try this company once in my life...

What an error.

Have to give so much click, data, profiles to register on iLock (?!), UAD connect (?!), uad site, etc ...
..and in the end to get the uad connect thing not working and "this coupon has already been claimed". W. the F. ???
And so much ads and no real button or windows about what is installed where etc.
The worst user experience till now.
Though kontakt was. You get it further, guys, wahou...

Summarize :

No easy test for just a product = no way to say it could maybe be good.

Accordingly :

ANY OTHER PRODUCT YOU CAN REALLY TEST ARE DE FACTO BETTER.

And far better than those adds and adds and adds and no plugin downloadable (ad lib).
If you are using your PC without connection, bloatwares, security ressources suc.er and so on, this kind of marketing will never bring money to those so smart people.

To UAD : you can satisfy catching new born pigeons from time to time.

Pigeons always learn to fly. And in 2025 they speak all together.
WavesAudio = +800 avis / average note above 4,4/5 (on this site where mainly people complain!!) and sooooo many good plugins and faaar better priced....
So, honestly... UAD you lost my time, but it's okay for saving my money, thx !

Some of the reviews on here are proof positive some people shouldn’t be let anywhere near a computer.

Universal Audio make some of the premiere top tier plug ins and audio gear I use every day. Their eco system is such that you get to use powerful industry standard, tried and tested plug ins and hardware. Their customer service relies on their support site and they do get back to you, are super helpful and encouraging. I’ve had little problem with UA.

Stay away from UAD. Bought UAD complete 3 and UAD Complete 4 released about 9 - 10 days after purchasing UAD Complete 3. No grace periods they didnt upgrade me for free. Instead they are asking for 149 USD to upgrade. Ridiculous. UAD doesnt care about its customers. Support companies like Steniberg who gave me a free upgrade to CUBASE 15 pro with an amazing 5 weeks grace period. UAD will burn your pocket and not care about you.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to do a side by side comparison of audio interfaces by different manufacturers. I was a little shocked at how much better the Apollo interfaces sounded compared to competitors.
I now own an Apollo Twin Mk2 and Apollo x6. Both are fantastic.
I had a recent experience with their customer support, which was pretty good overall - especially after the case was forwarded to a senior specialist.
Plugin quality is pretty outstanding.
But - while they sound great, are stable, and work well, the installer always installs all plugins - including the ones you have not purchased - in all formats, which literally wastes gigabytes of disk space, and requires tedious manual clean up after every install and update.

A dinosaur company that will not survive much longer. customer assistance is a scam, apps and plugins are now no better than most of their competitors. The experience is like out of the 90s at best. Outclassed now. Nothing they offer can't be done with reliable products like Isotope, FabFilters or even stock plugs from Logic these days. No wonder UA dump their products like milk pat the sell by date. But the graphics are still good, congrats!!

2 stars ONLY because my Apollo drags the UAD customer experience rating out of the toilet.

Seriously, CS at this company is a joke. I am not even going into specifics but query response wait time is laughable. It's as though they have, like, 3 reps to field hundreds of queries a day or something. One would figure paying a premium for their great equipment might ensure a decent if not exemplary care for their customers. Not so. It's as though they figured a major price drop (during sales) in their plugins would suffice. This "Let them eat cake" attitude is surely biting them on the *ss as so many are complaining. They really ought to get this part of their game in order.

I have never experienced a more ridiculously cumbersome and time sucking experience then trying to setup my Apollo Solo on a Mac Mini. I have literally had to uninstall and reinstall a gazillion times and factory reset my Mac and re download the operating system and on and on and on. I guess the UAudio devices were not meant to be operated with MAC? Otherwise the worst experience EVER!!!!

Dumped a bunch of money into UA audio interfaces and was part of the customer based that helped build their brand and then they dumped Tech Support. They essentially abandoned the customer base that helped build their brand. Stay away from this company. Good luck good luck getting anywhere if you decide to go with them, you will be lost in the sauce with no support. There supposed online support is an absolute joke

Some of the worst customer service I’ve ever seen.
To even call customer service is an overstatement.
The download process for plug-ins is painstakingly ridiculous.
Then the download I finally got would not open and you cannot get anyone on the phone as they do not accept phone service.
Try to get a refund and they said they do not issue refunds so I’m having to dispute the charge on my credit card.

I own a UAD-2 Satellite and paid for the UAD Spark subscription.

My experience is disappointing:

Spark doesn’t solve latency - any modern CPU can handle audio just fine.

The installer dumps the entire UAD catalog into my system and DAW, even plugins I don’t own.

My FX browser is full of useless “buy me / 14-day demo” entries.

This wastes disk space, bandwidth, and clutters my workflow.

I am paying for quality, but what I get is demo spam, license headaches, and a terrible user experience.

Verdict: I cannot recommend UAD.

I'll just say that I wanted the UAD PCI card many years ago then came the Apollo line. So I eventually built a PC specifically to be TB3-compatible for an Apollo. I paired it was an Apollo Twin X Heritage Edition.

The Apollo would work perfectly fine with Pro Tools, but system audio was completely broken and silent. I reached out to get support, but they have a small window of maybe 2 hours a couple days a week for phone support, and the young guy I spoke with didn't even have any experience with PCs. He didn't even set up the ticket that he said he would.

In the end, I had to troubleshoot everything myself and discovered by accident that the Microsoft microphone privacy settings were blocking the audio. Once I disabled that, it worked for both DAWs and desktop audio, but there still were occasional pops.

Then I finally gave in and bought a MacBook M1 Pro and it worked perfectly.

All this aside, I wanted the plugins they offered, and I got them, and my mixes never sounded better. I love the plugins, but I hate how poorly they support PCs.

Things aren't all roses on Macs either, as UA Connect will eventually freeze and seem to no longer work when you try to open it. This leads many to reinstall UA Connect over and over again, but actually what is needed is to kill the task in the Activity Monitor and then it loads up again.

There is so much that I hate when it comes to the issues revolving around UAD, but in the end, once you have all these quirks figured out, the sound is top-notch. You can't really get much better. For this reason alone, I give it 4 stars. If there were different rating tiers for the hardware and ecosystem, it would be:

Quality: ★★★★★
Value: ★★★★☆
Ease of use: ★☆☆☆☆
Support: ★☆☆☆☆
Compatibility: ★★★☆☆

Again, when it delivers, it's tops, so my rating is biased toward the actual use. I've got everything figured out now and know how to troubleshoot if there is an issue.

The problem is that you might have to jump through hoops to get it working with your setup and their guides and support might lead no where forcing you to find answers elsewhere like on Reddit.

They tie the native and uad plugins together ur selling a apollo and assume ur transferring just the uad 2 plugins no ur transferring all and then they claim its ur fault imagine now they have the native disclaimer lmao this is a year after everyone got screwed uad is only worth connect and barely then

I bought a lot of their plugins... and it was a big mistake.

I love my new UAD its the best for singing live with effects and don't need CPU from my Macbook so good!

I have had Luna Apollo twin my since it started with my Mac and it was great and then I bought many effects to use and it was great.Then I bought a Mac M1 studio and the problems started.I have had a terrible time with Luna since and I CANT use anything I still have Cubase 14 SO Do NoT BUY Luna I AM DONE There is an AI. Help. DO NOT BUY IT is terrible I have spent a lot of money and I am done

Was very excited to try the Polymax Synth that was offered in a promotion. But the UA Connect app wouldn't load or work and just kept crashing. There was no way to bypass this and just get a link for the plug-in to be downloaded. Very inconvenient. Tried multiple times to troubleshoot and ways to get the UA Connect app to work with no luck. Contacted via email for support but no response.

I must say that UA is by far one of the best when it comes to plug-ins. Very easy to use and very professional sound. I am glad that you guys got rid of the ILok for licenses which makes it so much easier to work offline. I love that you buy their products and basically gets to keep and own the licenses and still are able to update without paying subscription.

Why did I give 4 stars and not 5 well some of the plugins are very power sensitive when putting them together with other brands. I don’t know why that is?!

I purchased UA Complete on line. I adjusted my Apple to recognise it. Pro tools loaded it but ... it's inactive, unless I buy Apollo hardware. Now they tell you! In no way is this made clear pre-purchse. And there's no refund for online purchases. What's the difference between this purchase and an online SCAM? ... not much. NEVER AGAIN UA!

no idea why the reviews for universal audio Customer Service are so low.
I actually wanted to post a five star review to Jason specifically. He literally went above and beyond to help me. And I’m talking above and beyond. All week long I was nagging him and I feel like I’m the most annoying customer on the planet. But they never showed any disrespect and or super professional. Their hardware and softwareis one of the best in the world. I truly want to see them keep on succeeding. Thank you guys.