Greg Beron of United Home Audio’s Ultima5 tape player won in 2023 and in 2025 it’s the turn of his $55,000 Ultima Apollo deck. The Absolute Sound’s Jonathan Valin writes that it sounds completely different from any of his earlier Ultima decks, with its entirely new EQ circuit and a beefed-up gain stage.
The Awards are featured in the magazine’s January issue, which also includes Valin’s full review of the Ultima Apollo. He credits Greg Beron, along with the folks at The Tape Project, as being “the godfathers of the current R2R revival”, having been among the first to get behind consumer, 15ips, quarter-inch, two-track playback – with The Tape Project delivering the tapes and Greg’s United Home Audio (UHA) supplying the decks to play them on.
Like all UHA decks, the Apollo is a ‘hybrid’ which starts life as a Tascam BR-20 (and the review delves into why Greg chooses that particular model as his base machine). “By the time you buy it, however, the entire product has been refurbished – all electronic parts, connectors, tape heads, and transport mechanisms rebuilt or replaced, all playback circuits updated, EQ precisely dialed in to the IEC standard, and the chassis itself refashioned in a sturdy, mu-metal shielded billet-aluminium,” writes Valin.
Like the Ultima5, the Apollo inherits bespoke parts and wiring from Greg’s flagship $90-100k+ SuperDeck, but unlike the Ultima5, it comes with his OPS-DC outboard power supply included (whereas this was previously an optional add-on). Valin then goes on to unpack what’s new in the Apollo compared to the Ultima5, and the impact of those changes on the sound – notably in terms of some significant enhancements in the bass and midband.
“The result is a marked increase in bass-range extension, definition and density of tine color, in overall listenability, in three-dimensional solidity top-to-bottom, and in lifelike continuousness that makes an ensemble of instruments sound as if they are playing together in the same space, without any loss of their individual contributions,” he writes.
Conclusion: “It’s the cat’s pajamas. Most highly recommended.”
You’ll find the full review in the January 2025 issue of The Absolute Sound. For more details of Greg Beron / United Home Audio’s Ultima Apollo, head to https://unitedhomeaudio.com
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