After seven years on the market, Universal Audio has finally perfected the heir apparent to their UAD-1 DSP hardware with plugin software. The Universal Audio UAD-2, which has been on the drawing board for years, has finally been tweaked to acceptance, and Universal Audio's pit crew is pumped that it's even exceeding their initial expectations.

Not much is known about the mysterious UAD-2, and technical specs have not been released. However, much to-do has been to-done over the SHARC (Super Harvard Architecture Single-Chip Computer) DSP processing. With more power, (equivalent to, I don't know, say a gallon of steroids? these guns are au naturel) the UAD-2 will allow for use of more -- and more complex -- plugins without sucking up CPU.

Stay tuned to Gearwire for more coverage as more information becomes available.