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ARSCLIST  July 2018

ARSCLIST July 2018

Subject:

Re: Help select a computer for us.

From:

Corey Bailey <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 11:35:21 -0700

Content-Type:

text/plain

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text/plain (39 lines)

I lived for about 23 years with 2 keyboards and monitors on my desk. One 
connected to a PC, the other a MAC. Over the years, I went through all 
of the upgrades for both. I've heard (and read) all of the arguments for 
both systems. After all of that time, IMHO: "They are all computers and 
they all crash." At home, my family uses PC's. Not necessarily out of 
preference but because I built my own computers for all of the reasons 
that Shai Drori mentioned. At the time (1985) Apple computers were self 
contained so, hence the choice. Lately, I've been buying used or 
refurbished (Trailing Edge). This email reply is being written on a Dell 
laptop that I bought from the Dell refurbished store. It works fine. I 
have a Dell workstation and an HP workstation that work just fine. Both 
use Intel Xeon, multi-core processors and are plenty fast. I have 
tweaked both of the workstations for optimum use with audio and video. 
So, in the end, it boils down to just how computer savvy you are and how 
willing you are to "work under the hood." If you are simply a user 
(Nothing wrong with that), you will be stuck with the vendors have to 
offer. You probably don't need all of the latest whistles and bells so 
check out the refurbished market and possibly save a buck. Pick your 
brand because one is just as good (or bad) as the other.

My $0.02

Corey

Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
www.baileyzone.net

On 7/11/2018 8:48 AM, Eli Bildirici wrote:
> Contra the gushing in this thread. It is perfectly possible to find reliable PCs, and Macs are not always reliable machines - often, but not always. For laptops, ThinkPad X/T series are still solid machines, even under Lenovo. I've been using the same one as my daily driver for seven years (not for video editing, but modern machines will have better GPUs and even the option for external ones). I usually build my own desktops, and while this could be an option for you, you'll have to do whatever troubleshooting you come across down the road on your own (or with whomever built it for you). Heck, I'd happily spec one for you, or build it, were I local. But my guess is you will want
> a more robust form of support, so I would advise you to look at PCs from the business-/enterprise- or creator-oriented lineups (Dell OptiPlex or esp. Precision, Lenovo ThinkCentre, etc).
>
> You could, of course, get a Mac. But there is some overstatement going on regarding its virtues. The hardware here is *all* off-the-shelf, except for the case. The Mac tax from a desktop hardware perspective is, today, astronomical. You might pay twice as much or more than for a similarly specced PC, and you'd have to get one in iMac all-in-one form in order to remain within the realm of the sane. While you
> have the option to upgrade PCs, nowadays Macs are no longer terribly modular, or modular at all. They are also no less prone to needing upgrades than PCs are: it's not like they magically coax more performance out of your processor, or inherently have better memory management at the platform level; the greater your software's requirements become down the road, the less your machine will be able to keep up. Their one machine that is somewhat (but not really) modular, the Mac Pro, has not been updated in 3-4 years, but still starts at $3,000. (There are rumors flying about an update now, but they won't help you given you need a computer *right now* rather than in early 2019; in any case it would likely still cost far too much.)*
>
> That said, their support is in my experience pretty good, and my guess is it's a little less likely that they break something critical in the software than Microsoft is. From a platform perspective, your software options will be more limited, but also, more likely to be polished. If you're not familiar with the Mac interface and are switching for the first time, it will take a little getting used to, particularly from a muscle memory perspective when using their keyboard for commands, but it's mostly an intuitive and well-designed system. More of a concern, I think, is potentially having to switch whatever software you're using for editing audio and video, which may entail buying a Mac license of the same software you already own, or else switching to other software and getting used to it (not to mention paying for that, too). So, while Macs are an option, we should dispense with this idea that it is the only one, or the only one you should consider. It's the gold-plated one, and not without drawbacks. You shouldn't feel compelled to pay the tax if you don't want to or cannot justify it.
>
> *(I should add - someone was extolling the virtues of Thunderbolt A/Ds. While I'm sure the A/D that was being used is impressive, the Thunderbolt interface itself probably doesn't have a lot to do with it, except insofar as the extra bandwidth it affords enables heterofore impossible ultra-high-res captures. My guess is nothing yet could saturate the 40Gbps link the latest version of Thunderbolt could provide, let alone the 10Gbps link that USB-3.1 does. Also, Thunderbolt, while popularly associated with Apple, as they are one of its co-inventors, is not unique to its computers.)
>

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