Apogee Duet - problem with phantom power

I have the same issue. With my first Duet first the phantom off channel 1 gave up. And everytime I plugged in a condesor it gave a real loud noise (brownish). Then my second channel broke down on phantom. If I switched to instrument or line it was fine. I brought it back to the store and I got a replacement. Now the first channel broke down again. So this is a whole new unit and it does the same
thing. My guess is it has something to do with leaving the phantom on (longer than you eactually need it) and it burns something in the circuit. Let me know if you have found an answer or something, cause I'm going crazy by now!

Cheers,

Gabriel Vezzola

Hey, I have pretty much the same problem. The power on Channel 2 is fine, but channel 1 is either silent or fuzzy/distorted.

I've tried resetting Duet, uninstall/reinstall of Maestro, and using a different computer, all in the hope that I don't have to send this unit back.

It may be a case of denial, but I will give it a few days and see if anyone has a magic fix.

Hello Clay and Gabriel and Shane,

I am sorry to hear about the issues you have been having. We have thoroughly tested Duet's phantom power when used with the unibody Mac Book Pro and have found no anomalies. That being said, you are obviously all experiencing similar issues. Please call Apogee technical support at your earliest convenience so that we can help resolve this issue and get you all running asap.

Again, apologies for the inconvenience. We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Tony Cariddi
Apogee Electronics
tony@apogeedigital.com

Did anyone get this resolved? I'd be interested to know what the resolution was, since I'm having the same issue...

Well frankly when I started having problems with my Duet and found this discussion thread I thought I'd invested in a very expensive paperweight. Then I realized what the problem was:

1) I'd bought the unit last November and installed the software on my PowerBook G4 where I used it with Soundtrack
2) I swapped over to my MacBook Pro in the spring
3) The Duet played happily with Logic Pro and my dynamic mic on my new laptop
4) Yesterday I tried hooking up a cardioid mic, and the phantom power simply didn't work. I got terrible noise and no signal on input 1 and less noise and no signal on input 2.
5) I searched on-line and wasted time on hold with Apogee and Sweetwater, and then gave up, plugging in a friend's pre-amp to the Duet input instead.

6) This morning I remembered I had not installed the software on my new Mac.......the nice FW800 cable they sent worked a treat, but it was I that forgot to make the migration complete with the drivers (it's been a long time since I had the pain of using Windoze)
7) I just installed the software, and the Duet now works like a charm with a lengthy piece of XLR. The phantom power on/off switch in Logic now controls the red LEDs on the unit and the sound is great. The installer software is on the Apogee site too, if you've lost your disc.

I'd describe myself as a Mac user first, musician and video editor second and third, and, particularly after this embarrassment, NEVER as an audio guy.

The Duet is a beautiful piece of kit, and this user at least has egg on his face and is glad he didn't get through to the tech guys at Apogee. Hope this helps people out there who may have also read the other post with the guy busting a gut and threatening class action!

To follow up on this -- I hate finding unresolved threads... Apogee's tech support responded in about 1 business day with an RMA. I had my device back in about two weeks, now works great!!

I love the interface, and am very grateful that they carry that same quality to their support staff.