I’ve noticed through some posts on here, and on the likes of Roon forum that posters have both Windows PC’s (or laptops), as well as Macbooks. I’ve always been a Windows man but lots of spare time and curiosity mean I might branch out and add a Mac into the equation to mix it up a bit.
I’d only be using the Mac as a music server, at this stage I’ve no wish to migrate away from Windows for every day use. So my question would be does anybody who has both Windows and IOS have a preference for one over the other when it comes to the music experience, and do they tend to switch from one to the other with any regularity?
I’d also be grateful if any Mac enthusiasts could provide some buying tips. I’d not be looking at spending a lot of money for what could just be an experiment, so I’ve noticed that Amazon UK seem to have a selection refurbished Macbooks between £300 and £500, some of them perhaps 8-10 years old. Mostly 4GB with only 250 or 500GB storage. Do Macbooks of this vintage and spec hold their own, and would this be enough for running the likes of Audirvana and Roon and Itunes? I’m guessing you can add an external USB drive for additional storage the way you can with Windows?
Also what is the situation with AS licenses? I assume you can have a mix of both? Currently I have 3.5 on a PC and on a laptop. Going forward, if I purchased AS and bought a Mac I guess I could only use one of the two Windows device and the Mac?
Be interested to hear peoples views, thanks in advance.
IMHO such an old MacBook may be ok for a very short time or as a learning platform. But it will be quite slow so might as well spend a little bit more and get something with 8 or better 16GB or ram and an ssd.
Up until about 10 years ago I was a Windows only user and a software engineer for many many years. So I was super comfortable with the whole MSFT stack.
Then one day I decided to buy a basic 13” MacBook Pro and quickly realized that this platform is a lot more versatile and never looked back. I still have one or two PCs just to keep up.
But for daily use for both professional and personal use it’s all Macs.
AS licensed per user. But you can only use it on one computer at a time.
Unfortunately it’s a bit cumbersome to use the website to deactivate your current computer.
Cheers have changed title to macOS. As you can tell I’m a total Apple virgin lol.
Are you saying a lower spec Mac will be slow even if I basically just use it as a music server and only load the likes of AS, Roon and iTunes?
Yeah a 4GB version may not be practical. You’ll hate the experience as it will be a learning curve on top of using a slow Mac.
Besides Roon seems to like more power.
AS also seems to pin the cpu occasionally which I never see with 3.5.
Thanks, must admit I’d never go for 4GB on Windows, minimum of 8GB, so guess I will do the same if I buy a Mac. I’ll just keep my eyes peeled for potential bargains.
Cheers, looks pretty decent spec, but much as I’d love to fork out that amount this is basically an experiment and £500 is probably my max, maybe slightly more.
As far as audiophile use macOS does not support native DSD via USB. Only using DoP.
But for me this was never an issue or a limiting factor. Considering everything that is usually wrong with a windows machine
Fair enough. Maybe you can score some bargain somewhere.
Another option for an experiment would be a Mac mini.
Then you’d save on the screen and keyboard.
Interesting, I know nothing about Mac mini’s. Is this Apples equivalent of a NUC, which I also have pretty much zero knowledge of beyond the basic use either lol? I’d then need to fork out on some kind of Apple device as a controller I presume?
My daughter has left home, and she left behind an old iPad, unfortunately any search for it is currently fruitless.
I don’t fully understand what you meant by controller.
Mac Mini is a small form factor computer.
And the M1 version is the new one that runs apple own brand new CPU based on arm64 architecture.
These computers are ridiculously fast.
But since this new crop doesn’t use Intel CPUs you can’t really run windows on them. That’s about the only downside.
Well it can be.
But to set it up and use it initially you will need a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
My suggestion was based on perhaps wrong assumption that you own those accessories.
The problem is that, unlike PCs, Macs keep their value on the second-hand market, because they remain very capable computers. So, even if you look to buy a second-hand Mac, it will still require a significant budget to start from.
There are of course the budget limits that you set for such purchase. But from the perspective of what’s worth it as a longstanding investment, I will advise you to buy a new M1 Mac mini. It will cost you maybe 200 Pounds more than a given second-hand Mac, but you will be sure to have a computer that will remain useful for at least the next 10 years.
And this model has an amazing computing power. It does better than $2.500-3.000 intel and Nvidia based computers.
For 9 years I have been working professionally on Mac and Windows and my feelings are completely the opposite. Mac OS is basically a “toy” and has very limited capabilities compared to Windows. Windows is a versatile professional system and, above all, MUCH cheaper.
In case it isn’t clear I am a total Apple virgin, and I’m possibly not grasping the Mac book mini set up properly, but given I have no other Apple equipment how do I view it if it is headless? Will this not be more expense if I need to add a monitor, or can it be accessed via an iPad which is still more expense?
