Mac Mini for Music - Advice

[rob_lee]

These adapters range from dirt cheap to crazy prices:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from= ... 00+adapter

Rob

[discoDSP]

Cables are also worth looking, maybe you don't like the dongle pushing down the fw800 connection.

It should be 9-pin (FW800) to 6-pin (FW400) by the way.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=f ... m270.l1313

[discoDSP]

This one looks good

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIREWIRE-800- ... 961wt_1180

[rob_lee]

Lol i might be this with the change

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/kurzweil-k200 ... 692wt_1397


Rob

[discoDSP]

[UltraJv]

Nope, it's a quad core, with HT it shows up as 8 cores

Wow, OK, I wasn't aware they made MacBook Pros with "real" quad core intels.

Theres something up with your Windows vs OSX claims there. IMHO, people who mess with Windows often make thing worse in ways they dont understand.

I don't like what you're suggesting.

I'm not a 14 year old kiddie who thinks Stardock tools would make Windows any faster or better or more reliable. I have been screwing around with every Windows version since 3.1, exploring and gutting and streamlining them to best fit my performance needs.
By writing "trimmed for Audio/ASIO performance", I meant that all the components I used to build it were carefully selected after doing a lot of reading and digging up background info.

After building what I found to be the best intel/Windows machine for my needs at the time, I spent hours and days switching-off-this and uninstalling-that and comparing the performance gain/loss by using one "reference project". Turning hyper-threading on and off, disabling unused ports and wireless adapters, switching to AHCI, switching between internal IEEE1394 and a PCIE TI board, switching on and off visual designs, optimizing for background services or programs, disabling and enabling the strangest system processes, and loads of other stuff like that.
Constantly observing and comparing the effect these changes had on my system's performance.

I agree, there are ways to f*ck up Windows' performance completely, but I am aware of these and I know from experience that my system was optimized to reach the limits of whats possible with it without endangering its function by (for example) overclocking it or using other possibly desctructive or at least counter-productive "tweaks".

I am also not a "system litterer" who downloads and installs uncountable gigabytes of useless sh*t from the web just because it's there, I don't even like installing demo versions but would rather buy and install the full version right away, all in order to keep my Windows installation as clean and performant as possible.

So thank you for the assumption, not, but I have to decline. I know my way around Windows, and I have done so for roughly 20 years.

When I unboxed my Mac Mini, installed all the programs and plugins and loaded the "reference project", which I know like the back of my hand because I had used it to optimize my last two i7/Win machines, I got loads more power out of the Mac as it was, without tweaking or changing any settings. That was also before swapping any hardware.
Turned out that the Mac Mini, which I had initially bought as a "test Mac" to see whether I could wrap my head around the way OSX works or whether it will remain an overhyped shiny box for me, actually overshot all of my expectations and has now become my audio production workhorse.

I agree, "you can get a lot more power out of a well-built PC in the price range of a Mac Mini", but that's just overall "power" and not audio related performance.

After being a PC/Microsoft guy for over 20 years, I finally had to admit that to myself last year.
I've been using the Mac Mini on an everyday basis for 8 months now, my conclusion hasn't changed as of yet and I don't expect it to.

You should join in on this thread. I dont expect your opinion to change either, despite the facts. Youll find out why your results for OSX are in error :

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 96#4886796