This might be the end of digital for me

[Sascha Franck]

Sorry ... but I could'nt resist .... and yes ... I know it has nothing to do with this thread but its good for a laugh / cry ...... in case anyone ever wanted any evidence that Apple has zero care or interest in their consumers ... I present to you the following ... and no these are not a joke:-

=> the $999 Mac Pro Stand

=> the $699 Mac Pro Wheels

=> $1200 for 2 x 32 Gig Sticks of DDR 4 RAM

Yeah well. These absolutely represent what I LOATHE about Apple and at least some of their users (because there's actually folks buying that ridiculously priced crap).

 

[Sascha Franck]

That is actually not true. CoreAudio makes more calls to the kernel, resulting in higher latency than Windows in general:

True. Even since ages already.
Yet, in real life, it's often that people are not writing proper ASIO drivers. And Core Audio most often is a better rescueing tool than ASIO4All.

but there is nothing inherently superior to using a Mac for recording, unless you are really addicted to using Logic X.

Try to create something such as an aggregate device under Windows. Yeah ASIO4All again allows you doing so, but in 90% of all cases it'll become a desaster, whereas it's just working under macOS. And while nothing you'd use every day, I have actually been using it here and there over the years (see example above).

 

[Orvillain]

True. Even since ages already.
Yet, in real life, it's often that people are not writing proper ASIO drivers. And Core Audio most often is a better rescueing tool than ASIO4All.

A lot of interfaces are using off the shelf Thesycon drivers, which is a pretty terrible driver. You can't lay that at the foot of the operating system.

It is undeniable that MacOS is inherently more latent than Windows, due to the architecture of ASIO versus CoreAudio. But if you want to talk stability, then that is a totally different conversation.

Try to create something such as an aggregate device under Windows. Yeah ASIO4All again allows you doing so, but in 90% of all cases it'll become a desaster, whereas it's just working under macOS. And while nothing you'd use every day, I have actually been using it here and there over the years (see example above).

ASIO4ALL is for n00bs.

Aggregate devices are a terrible solution, on any platform. SPDIF connections, word-clock connectivity, AES/EBU, and ADAT connectivity, are all still way preferred solutions for linking devices, rather than trusting it to any software solution. Even on MacOS.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Aggregate devices are a terrible solution, on any platform. SPDIF connections, word-clock connectivity, AES/EBU, and ADAT connectivity, are all still way preferred solutions for linking devices, rather than trusting it to any software solution. Even on MacOS.

Well, if it works, it works. No matter whether it's terrible on paper (which I even agree with).

 

[laxu]

Uh... don't. Even! GET. MEEEE. STAAAAARTED!!!

Seriously, while I could even understand that there might be reasons for Apple to have different frames to connect the SSDs to their mainboards, while I could even force myself into accepting some reasons (even if their BS) why SSDs have to be soldered in (WHAT.THE... okok, I won't go into that), something that is just not acceptable is their upgrade prices. To take you from 512GB to 2TB internal SSD space, Apple is asking you SIX-HUNDRED-AND-NINETY Euros!!!
What the heck? Did they, unknown to the rest of the world, all of a sudden reinvent the SSD?
No. From all that is know, the ones Apple is using are of pretty decent quality but nothing outstanding. Possibly comparable to a Samsung 990 Pro M2. They're somewhat less than €200. So, where's those additional €500 coming from? Well, we don't know. But I know for sure where they're going to. Straight into Apple's ever so greedy maw.
My 2008 Macbook has 2TB worth of SSD space in it (on 2 1TB drives - something possible back in the day, another thing I defenitely miss) already. Since several years even, and I did't have to rob a bank. They're Samsung EVOs and were around 150 each back then when I bought the second one.

If you want to get even more mad, did you know the M2/M3 base spec SSDs are about half the speed of the higher spec models or M1 base drive models? While they are still fast enough to not be really noticeable in normal use, it's another case of bean counters running Apple and secretly altering the deal. If a retail M.2 2TB drive cost a few hundred, imagine how little it costs to Apple themselves.

The Razer laptop I complained about is a very similar size and overall design to the Macbook Pros, yet somehow manages to easily fit a removable M.2 drive. There is no excuse for Apple's solution.

What will be interesting to see is how Apple and 3rd party folks will be dealing with support.
Given compatibility, at least according to Apples fullmouthed advertisements, ARM should add a new meaning to "future proof". So, in theory, they wouldn't have to break backwards compatibility as if there was no tomorrow anymore. Which is exactly what they're doing right now every other bunch of years.
Cutting of backwards compatibility is something good to add huge amounts of hidden costs for Apple users. Want to keep running your NI Komplete package on an up to date macOS? Well, get your wallet out every 1-3 years.

You can look at iOS devices which have been ARM all along. They are already gating some features from older iPad Pros, which were supposed to be "the most powerful ever" yet nothing seems to make use of that power. And somehow a freakin' window manager like Apple's Stage Manager does not run on those devices.

 

[laxu]

That is actually not true. CoreAudio makes more calls to the kernel, resulting in higher latency than Windows in general:

What delivers lower latency - Core Audio or ASIO? - Gearspace

I'm debating on whether to get a Mac Studio Ultra or a PC Mid-Tower from Fundamental AV (www.fundamentalav.com) based on the Intel i9 12900K chip (16 cores - 8 performance and 8 efficiency). I haven't had much luck with PC's for audio in the past. Constan

gearspace.com

Audio Interface - Low Latency Performance Data Base - Page 152 - Gearspace

Damn! This AIO PRO is lookin super interesting! I have been using the regular AIO for a while, with the expansion boards! One thing that always been bugging me is the noise in headphones and analogue out. Hopefully that will be taken care of with this pro-version? Also I read that the old...

gearspace.com

Did not know that. However, Core Audio will outperform Windows' default audio system which might be used by some audio interfaces without dedicated drivers (or with really crappy ASIO drivers).

While you can't find a lot of those even in the budget audio interfaces anymore, Core Audio will still work better when a better dedicated driver is not available.

If you need to make aggregate devices for any reason, MacOS works way better than hacky solutions like ASIO4ALL. While not ideal, it's at least an option.

 

[Sascha Franck]

If you want to get even more mad, did you know the M2/M3 base spec SSDs are about half the speed of the higher spec models or M1 base drive models?

Uh. I didn't know that. Is that for real?

 

[Sascha Franck]

You can look at iOS devices which have been ARM all along. They are already gating some features from older iPad Pros, which were supposed to be "the most powerful ever" yet nothing seems to make use of that power. And somehow a freakin' window manager like Apple's Stage Manager does not run on those devices.

Yeah, you're right, there's plenty of precendences in iOS land. Battery gate anyone? They even had to take that back, which was like officially admitting they deliberately shafted their (iPhone 6, IIRC) users by artificially taxing oder model's batteries harder.

 

[James Freeman]

Seriously, who reads a 10,000 word post?

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, another advance of macOS over Windows that I really made use of quite sometimes (even if Apple is by now at least sort of sacrificing that feature): You could start/run any Mac from any drive with a suitable version of macOS on it, regardless which different Mac that drive was in before.

Example: I had my Macbook at home and wherever, the Mac Pro was sitting in my (internet-free) rehearsal/demo-studio room. Whenever there was a bigger OS update, I would just do that at home, create an image on an external drive (another built in feature of macOS) and then just connect the drive to the MacPro and copy the image. That way, both machines were also always running exactly the same software.

Another example: I recorded some stuff in my little space and we wanted to add real drums and what not in a bigger studio of a mate. My Macbook wasn't suitable to connect to the studio's PCI hardware and there was no Logic installed, either. But as the machine was a Mac as well, I simply used an image of my Macbook, booted up the Mac Pro from there and recorded everything straight into my Logic projects. Most excellent, really.

And yet another example (not possible that way these days anymore, big *grrrrr* at Apple...): The fan of my Macbook broke. No way to get one in a short amount of time (Apple didn't support it any longer, worth another *grrrrrrrrrrrrr*), had to order from China and wait for 3 weeks (which turned out to become 9 weeks...). Fortunately, a mate of mine borrowed me an older Macbook Pro (different model than mine...) he wasn't using any longer. Slapped in my Macbook's SSD, done. That was quite a live saviour.

No way to ever do such things under Windows.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Seriously, who reads a 10,000 word post?

Seriously, who counts post words?

 

[James Freeman]

Personally, I can't take these reccuring "I'm done" posts by chronic gear flippers seriously.

 

[Orvillain]

Did not know that. However, Core Audio will outperform Windows' default audio system which might be used by some audio interfaces without dedicated drivers (or with really crappy ASIO drivers).

While you can't find a lot of those even in the budget audio interfaces anymore, Core Audio will still work better when a better dedicated driver is not available.

If you need to make aggregate devices for any reason, MacOS works way better than hacky solutions like ASIO4ALL. While not ideal, it's at least an option.

Right, but as I implied to Sascha, your specific point was about latency. If you want to talk about stability, that is a whole other kettle of fish.

I don't have any faith in aggregate devices as a software solution. Doing it as close to the AD/DA clocking stages in the hardware as you can physically get, will always be superior.

I'm actually fairly happy with my setup at the moment, all told. I have an M1 Macbook Pro which I use for live performance, and I have an AMD 5950X based machine for all my audio, video, and 3D work. I sometimes do video editing on the laptop actually, come to think of it.

My audio interfaces are a Presonus Quantum and an Antelope Audio Discrete 8 Pro. They're word-clocked together and connected via ADAT. I get really good stability and latency performance, regardless of which machine I'm connected to.

If I had one criticism it would be with the line inputs on the Quantum. They're not as clean as the Discrete 8 is, and I'd be quite tempted to switch it out for another Discrete 8 at some point in the future.

 

[Orvillain]

Personally, I can't take these reccuring "I'm done" posts by chronic gear flippers seriously.

Well... I feel attacked.

 

[laxu]

Uh. I didn't know that. Is that for real?

I'm afraid so. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/macbook-pro-m2-pro-mac-mini-ssd-downgrade

For most users it's not an issue and the higher capacity models are still as fast as ever. But it still sucks that a premium product gets downgraded because it saves Apple money.

I've got some rather old SSD 2.5" drives still in use on desktop PC and honestly in most tasks it's not noticeable vs massively faster NVME M.2 drives.

 

[EOengineer]

I’ve worked on Macs for 20+ years both in professional multimedia and in software engineering roles. I’ve had brief stints with windows and am currently partnering with a startup that uses Ubuntu because their system has grown large and complex enough that the file system issues between docker and MacOS make it nearly impossible to handle development. Ubuntu is nightmare city - whatever you do…don’t go that route.

I don’t love every design or decision Apple makes, but out of the 3 Macs in my house, 2 are 12+ years old and run like a top. They’ve been absolutely flawless and have afforded me thousands of hours of trouble free productivity. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most to me in a computer.

Last year I scooped up an m1 Mac Mini and continue to be shocked at what an absolute powerhouse that little machine has become. I’m running 120 track sessions with Superior Drummer 3, Tonex and Helix Native all over - walk in the park.

 

[laxu]

I don’t love every design or decision Apple makes, but out of the 3 Macs in my house, 2 are 12+ years old and run like a top. They’ve been absolutely flawless and have afforded me thousands of hours of trouble free productivity. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most to me in a computer.

Last year I scooped up an m1 Mac Mini and continue to be shocked at what an absolute powerhouse that little machine has become. I’m running 120 track sessions with Superior Drummer 3, Tonex and Helix Native all over - walk in the park.

For me, it hasn't been so rosy.

A 2006 or so Macbook non-Pro had so bad viewing angles on the display I had to return it. Its colors would shift just by moving a bit in a chair.
A 2013 Macbook Pro was great, loved it.
A 2016 Macbook Pro had one of the worst keyboards I've ever used. Many of my coworkers broke these.
A 2019 MBP became noisy doing nothing except connecting a 4K display to it and it would also regularly get bogged down when doing anything more demanding. And this was a computer with 64 GB of RAM, it would just seem to throttle the CPU and GPU.
My M2 Max Macbook Pro is mostly great but still does a bit weird stuff with external displays, like HDR not working at particular scaling levels and the display connected to the HDMI port starting and turning off randomly when the computer should be asleep, while an identical display connected via USB-C to Displayport doesn't do this.

 

[Mongillo19]

Well dang thanks @laxu @Orvillain and @Sascha Franck for the info on Macs v PCs! That was quite the read!

 

[Sascha Franck]

I don't have any faith in aggregate devices as a software solution. Doing it as close to the AD/DA clocking stages in the hardware as you can physically get, will always be superior.

As said, I would even agree - but in my example, that wasn't possible. I had two stereo I/O interfaces at my disposal and that was it. And they worked just great paired as an aggregate device. I even went so far as do to record the same click into inputs of either device, to see whether that'd cause an offset, but it didn't. I defenitely wouldn't spread, say, overheads over the inputs of these two devices, but otherwise I was absolutely happy.
On another occasion, I needed to route out a separate click track in addition to the stereo sum, same story, same 2 interfaces teamed up as an aggregate device and "presto", there we went.
On both occasions, there's been exactly zero hiccups or anything. Things just worked.

 

[Rock Chalk]

And to be fair, it's very good and offers a ton for the money.

So does Reaper.......