The Home Studio Has Changed - UA Volt 876

Way back when I first started doing digital recording and production, there was really only one interface. It was called IEEE1394 or FireWire. Excellent bandwidth, no latency to speak of and great sound if the gear was good. It was also frighteningly expensive.

Then came the first USB interfaces. They were a lot less expensive, and depending on the preamps could sound great with a good microphone and were fine for analog signals from instruments. Many had a small number of concurrent inputs, not a problem if doing one or two instruments at a time, but not optimal for a more common studio layout.

Then came Thunderbolt. A much higher level of bandwidth, capable of handling multiple inputs and in some cases offloading processing of plugins to prevent killing the CPU of the computer running the DAW.

Then came faster USB interfaces with more control, more bandwidth and very good preamps for use with microphones and available with higher number of inputs and chainable to make even larger single studio instances.

It took Universal Audio some time to expand beyond their superb but oh so pricey Thunderbolt interfaces and they lost small to medium business to companies making multi-input USB interfaces for less than ⅓ the cost of the Thunderbolt interfaces and computers gained a lot of power so offloading plugin processing became less of a problem.

The Volt line was released and they were very good. A bit expensive compared to other USB offerings but having some popular functions built into the firmware. They sold and sell ok but best when the customer is informed. But if you wanted more inputs or to chain, they had nothing to offer.

Finally, they do. Sort of.

UA Volt 876

Universal Audio has introduced the Volt 876. It has 24 inputs and 28 outputs. Eight of the inputs are XLRs capable of handling professional microphones. It’s a 1U high unit and incorporates some plugins in firmware. It connects via USB and you can chain up to three units. Best of all, it is priced comparatively with the superb Scarlett 1U unit from Focusrite rather than at the stratospheric level of its Thunderbolt based brethren.

Given that it’s 2025 and I have been running a pair of the Scarletts for over two years using a MacBook Pro M1 as the DAW machine without issues, I am comfortable saying that USB based interfaces with lots of inputs are perfectly viable.

While the Volt 876 integrates directly with UA’s excellent LUNA DAW, it works with any DAW on either Macintosh or Windows operating systems. Like all interfaces for Windows, you need an ASIO driver, but in this case that is included in the UA Connect software so you don’t have to hunt for something and live with poor documentation and questionable support.

I also have UA Thunderbolt interfaces in my setup, 2 with two mic inputs and 1 with one. They work very well and are super reliable, but in all honesty, I don’t think that I’d buy another. I do have a number of UA plugins that require UA hardware, but with the advent of UA Spark, I also have them to run on any DAW with any interface, just like any other software plugins, and no UA plugin has ever let me down or choked a system, so for me an my work, it’s not an issue.

It’s fair to say that maybe you don’t need an 876 because you won’t use all those inputs simultaneously, but I have learned over time to overbuy, because I have yet to need fewer than I have and often need more inputs. At around $1400 CAD, the 876 is very well priced and UA is a professional grade company and I have never had a question or issue go unresolved. Sure, some of their support folks can be arrogant, but most are great and that is no different from other companies. Interfaces and plugins are UA’s bread and butter. They don’t slack so if you are considering a large input interface, do have a look at the Volt 876.

But here’s the sort of.

UA announced the 876 in October. I cannot speak for elsewhere but the Canadian distributor is quoting first availability at end of January 2026. If there is something that ticks me it’s product announcements where product availability is not coincident with announcement. I expect that from car makers and other manufacturers, not interface makers, but that’s my problem.