From my point of view: UAD making great products, thats why I am using it. But not all their products are so great. For example: LA2A plugin was beaten by Cake's PC2A emulation and I can say it after intensive testing of these two {I think PC2A is currently best sounding LA2A emulation on market and yes I tried every brand}. Roland D Dim from UAD is joke compared to Emptyroomsystems emulation for 49 bucks. I think Cakewalk as a Roland division can also make D Dim and SpaceEcho emulations and it can be much better. Neve stuff from UAD sounds like joke compared to CDsoundmaster N-TEN-AT4 {80 bucks} which is KILLER, again I am saying this after intensive testing SSL stuff I think after comparing Waves Duende UAD and Sonar pro channel the clear winner is Duende, of course they use their own codes so no surprise, but I think if Cake work on this kind of SSL channel strip and buss compressor, they can bring at least comparable product to UAD or Waves. For now it is not very usable because lack of transparency {especially PC4K compressor} UAD 1176 emulation is clear winner, but again Cake can do something with it as there is some kind of emulation in pro channel {but not even comparable to Waves 1176}... So for me the biggest UAD advantage is in special processing tools and reverbs. I cannot imagine mixing without two of them - Studer and EMT 250, by far best of UAD plugins

Pragi, the UAD-1 will not run most of the newer UAD plug-in's and will not be supported when Universal Audio eventually evolves to 64 bit. You will need a UAD-2 card to keep up with the latest emulations and the coming improvements.

+1 on the UAD2 being special.  UAD1 support has already been dropped from the software upgrades, so the plugs that are x64 won't be available for the UAD1.  A UAD2 SOLO card is still pretty cheap and has 4 times the power of a UAD1.

The UAD2 plugs run fine in SONAR x64 under a bit bridge and the hardware driver for the UAD2 cards have been x64 for a few years now (only the plugs are 32 bit).

Just my 2 cents.

Jim

Pragi,
I've owned a UAD-1 card for many years.  I believe most of their plugin emulations are superior to the competition (including cakewalk's plugs), particularly the compressors, however this could be taste as well. 

As others have said above, UAD has ended support for their UAD-1 cards, so if you're looking to purchase something now, you should go with a UAD-2.  I've run 32-bit UAD-1 plugs within x64 Sonar without issues, but again, as others have said above, UAD is intending to ship 64bit versions of their plugs in the coming months.  Regarding performance - CPU power has increased so much over the last few years, I don't think purchasing a UAD card simply to offload processing from your host CPU is really the primary objective any longer, as it may have been 10 years ago. 

Ultimately I think it comes down to if you prefer their plugins and want to invest in hardware.  Personally I wish UAD would stop using their hardware card, as I'd love to keep using their plugs without having to upgrade hardware.  If you know someone with a UAD a card and can compare their plugs with competitors before purchasing, that would be best - so you don't throw down several hundred for a UAD card and some plugs, only to find you don't feel the UAD plugs are much better than what you already have.

Personally, while I prefer the UAD plugs, I've decided to stop investing in their hardware (I'm not upgrading to a UAD-2 card), as I found Cakewalk plugs very usable and 'good enough' as well.   I'm not a professional and the Cake plugins are probably more than what I'll ever need.  I haven't found a replacement for UAD's realverb pro, but maybe someday I'll break down and try Valhalla. 

Hope this helps.
Russ

If I was starting over, I'd rethink my UAD investment because you are tied to hardware. I have over $1k in plugins, and if a card dies then they can't be used.

Plus their cards are underpowered. I'm paying $300 for a reverb I have limited instances of. Seems lame. I love their plugins, but they are so damn expensive when you take instance-limiting into consideration. They should give us the ability to run natively and use the card as an iLok type device.

Also, the cards themselves aren't cheap. You can buy Waves Mercury and WUP for the same price as one of the higher-end cards if I'm not mistaken. That'd probably be the route I'd go if I was to start again.

There is a huge thread on Gearslutz dealing with all this. Many trolls, but a lot of great points by people like me, who love the plugs but don't see how underpowered expensive cards can justify using them. I haven't boughten a plugin in a long long time. Actually, I waited till one came on sale, used a $50 voucher, and bought one for $40 haha.

However, I must say that UA is a great company and is always always always quick to help. My old UAD-1 died (that I bought from Cakewalk with S7 I think) as the UAD-2 was launched, so they sent me a UAD-2 free due to the issues I was having with contacting the proper people (I bought it from Cakewalk, and was told by both companies to contact the other, etc etc etc). So in the end, UA made their best effort to keep me happy.
UA is a fine fine company service and quality wise... just have to rethink how they are going to go forward with today's powerful PCs/Macs IMHO.

If you find a 1 card with a good assortment of plugs, could be a good deal.

Just make sure they have an account and will transfer ownership of all their plugs on that card/account.

You can always add a 2 card.

The older drivers are available but the new plugins won't work on the 1 card, lot of them are hogs and eat up the 2 cards.

Still a lot of plugs do work on the 1 card, but it is hard to work with just a 1 card. You want/need more, but it is a way to get into it slowly.

Just so you know, I just had a chat before reading this post with a mate of mine who recently bought the UAD Apollo I/O. He's the kind of guy that throws new high-end cables out if he doesn't like their sound, plus he has an LA2A and LA610 hardware unit. He reckons the UAD stuff is just beyond brilliant if you have the moola.

Just so you  know :O)

I'm happy with my UAD-2 Solo card that came as a bonus when I bought my UA 710 preamp.

I don't worry too much about overloading the card with realtime plugins because once I've made a decision how I am going to process a track, I am satisfied to freeze the track and leave it alone knowing that I can always come back to it.