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Macs vs PCs - is there really noticeable difference in latency?

what should we do?

  • Stay with your PCs , forget the Mac

    Votes: 12 40.0%
  • Stay with your PCs, by Mac latter

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Sell PC, buy mac

    Votes: 9 30.0%
  • Buy 5 year supply of carrots.

    Votes: 9 30.0%

  • Total voters
    30
Both PC and Mac is cool, and don't discount Linux or IOS, and Android
One nice thing is that there's several options to share plugins/VST over IP to allow multiple systems to look like one big one. No longer does one need to replace the old with new, or one for another. Today they can be used in together in concert.
 
If you like buying expensive stuff for a better image get Mac.

Image has nothing to do with it for most professionals using Macs. Most of us simply like how it operates better than the Windows equivalent. Yes it's more expensive. It's all single source, more stable, requires less tweaking, no drivers, no ASIO4ALL, no... Anything! It just works straight away without the need to be the computer version of a mechanic. This excludes Linux, but I have no experience there so I won't tread into those waters.
 
If you're tech savvy then PC. If you like buying expensive stuff for a better image get Mac.
Funny that recording engineers are typically nerdy and very tech savvy but choose Macs...

Yes it's more expensive. It's all single source, more stable, requires less tweaking, no drivers, no ASIO4ALL, no... Anything! It just works straight away without the need to be the computer version of a mechanic.
Yep this is the reason you mainly see Macs in pro audio. Standardized machines with the OS and hardware made by the same company, it makes support and troubleshooting a million times easier.
 
Every person I. KNow who switched to Mac, went back to PC...

On what planet did that occur on?

Everyone I know did their homework, decided their preference, bought whatever platform they preferred, and have been recording ever since.

FWIW, four commercial studios around here are OS X Pro Tool rooms, except for one of those being a Logic Pro room.

I'm a Mac user, but I'm not hung up on the hardware. I don't laugh or point at PC users, especially if they are as productive as the Mac users. They exist in good numbers around here, too.

It's just a matter of getting over it
 
There's an old tenet in the silly PC vs Mac debate that is still true.

Mac and OS X are one system. No real hardware variations for the OS to deal with.

PCs and Windows cater to being all things to all people. Frankly, I think Windows and PCs do a remarkable job of that, all things considered. How many PC variations are out there?

In 2011, I went from PCs to Macs. I haven't looked back. Macs suit me. That's about the only half-tangible reason I can offer what that it.

I just upgraded my Mom's PC to Windows 10. She actually learned her way around 8.1 very well, a LOT better than I. But after spending an hour with 10, I think I could get along with it very well. I'm about to install it in my Parallels program on my Mac. I still use a few Windows-only programs and I was still using 7.

It still all boils down to "run whatcha brung"...
 
On what planet did that occur on?

Everyone I know did their homework, decided their preference, bought whatever platform they preferred, and have been recording ever since.

FWIW, four commercial studios around here are OS X Pro Tool rooms, except for one of those being a Logic Pro room.

I'm a Mac user, but I'm not hung up on the hardware. I don't laugh or point at PC users, especially if they are as productive as the Mac users. They exist in good numbers around here, too.

It's just a matter of getting over it
I guess it's planet Austin. But we're all backwards here, right?
 
If you're tech savvy then PC. If you like buying expensive stuff for a better image get Mac. I can build a way better PC for the price of a Mac and have it dual boot with Ubuntu if I'd want stability. (REAPER for the win)

...but good luck with the carrots! 0 latency!

Or Harrison Mixbus for Nix or Wndows systems. I straddle the two so anything cross-platform is a major plus for me. Great DAW.
 
Funny that recording engineers are typically nerdy and very tech savvy but choose Macs...
Yep this is the reason you mainly see Macs in pro audio. Standardized machines with the OS and hardware made by the same company, it makes support and troubleshooting a million times easier.
I have to agree but remember that most recording engineers are not computer experts as well. I guess I'm just an extreme free-for-all oddball with a history as network administrator / system administrator / software developer / lead designer. (not trying to brag since I'm not the absolute best in anything)

I may have been too hostile; the best product is the one that makes you feel good about your purchase and enjoy using. :cool:
 
I've been wondering about that. are macs really that better for audio in terms of system latency than PCs? I have intel i5 3570k cpu (and it's not even overclocked) with 16gb of ram and 120gb ssd and with behringer x18

To get a Mac with better specs than your PC would be very expensive. Your CPU is still good, no need to update yet.
 
To summarize the following; I switched to Mac completely last year... for me it IS better, but it comes at a price I wasn't willing to pay in the past (and is somewhat subjective at that).

A couple of years ago I was asked to add a few keyboard parts to some songs in a band I was in... they were eclectic (bagpipe, sitar, etc), so I figured I'd try a software based synth. While researching this I kept noticing that almost all the folks I saw integrating samples into their live music seemed to be using Macs... so I went ahead and went that route (Mainstage, Logic, and a Saffire Pro 24 DSP Firewire on a slightly old-in-the tooth MacBook Pro). It was an eye opener in that... I really never struggled with becoming productive. As someone mentioned previously, things just tend to work. Its not that you never have to install drivers or whatnot (Saffire required a pretty ugly piece of software), but, on the whole, its WAY less fiddly when you are trying to make something work.

Within a year I was completely on the Apple bandwagon, having switched from Android to iOS and from PC to Mac. I've decided the key to the Apple's advantage is choice... you have WAY less choice on iOS/Mac than with Windows/Android platforms. And while choice sounds great, it turns out that its hard to do as good a job being everything for everyone. Windows is amazingly complicated and successful despite that fact... I have a LOT of respect for what Microsoft has accomplished over the years, but they hump all that compatibility around with them constantly.

Of course Mac stuff demands premium prices... so honestly, if i was young and broke, I probably STILL wouldn't choose to be a Mac person - you can get the job done with a PC laptop for a lot less money. And the results aren't necessarily going to be any worse... it'll just be a little less pleasant, with a few more bumps in the road.
By comparison, the fact that Apple pretty much expects you to upgrade your hardware on THEIR schedule means that they don't have to compromise their performance. That old Mac I bought? When Logic X came out... it required an OSX version that my machine simply wouldn't install. From the perspective of limited financial resources... that's a big disadvantage for Mac. But if you can eat that cost (and convince yourself that its somehow worth it), then you'll tend to feel like Macs run smoother and faster; its not that they are inherently better tech, they just make sure they are always running a race that they will perform well in. I guess this is mostly a matter of market strategy... and so it makes sense if you think about how they market the product: They are OK with all the attitude and elitism. They WANT... they NEED for it to feel like a premium product. One that will serve you well, but at a cost.

Writing all that down makes me feel just a "teensy" bit dirty... not enough to get rid of my stuff and switch back though :)
 
windows 10 downloads drivers by itslef. i've had obsucre hardware (sound blaster xfi card i couldn't find drivers for, usb dac amplifier, no name wireless gamepad and yamaha pci express sound card thats +12 years old) that was ready to go after i booted win 10 on my pc. no driver instalation, no nothing. i only needed to instal software like behringer xair controler for xr18. not even drivers were necesary. so win10 beats that compatibility/drivers issue.
about price point;
27" IPS monitor 300$
i5 3570K (3,4 out of the box, 4,4ghz overclocked) CPU with coolermaster evo 212+ and 3 noctua 12mm fans (dead quiet) 300$
Asus motherboard (something beefy, don't know the exact model) 150$
16gb ddr3 1600mhz memory 100$
120 Samsung SSD 80$
2x1tb HDD 100$
GTX 970 G1 OC GPU 450$
really good 650W PSU 80$

that's 1260-ish USD for really good configuration. out of the box. it's good for audio recording, for gaming (yeah, that gpu+cpu config laughs in the face of every new title). and its really really quiet, i mean dead quiet under normal load (you really have to put your ear on the case to hear if it's on or off) and under heavy load (gaming) it's background noise. so all in all, it's plug and play. mostly. i belive the edge that mac has in "simplitcity" is being negated by ease of use in windows 10. if you get high quality hardware for PC, you'll have no problems. at the same time, you'll get same specs (or better) for much less price. in my config, wild card is the monitor, it's AOC, it's no flashy brand, but its really really good and can stand toe to toe with much pricier contenders.
 
Well, that underscores another fact that I didn't bother to mention (since I long ago decided I had to have a laptop). If you are able to go with a desktop solution, everything about price differential becomes even more true. The real sweet-spot for price/performance is in a desktop unit as you say... the Mac Pros (the little trashcan looking Macs) are sexy as any computer ever built... but the pricing on them is crazy (you can't even get started for less than $3K). So yeah... price/performance is always going to be a win for Windows desktops.
 
Also just realized that you talked about latency... I don't know about the current Windows machines (with USB3), but I feel like I saw an improvement in latency with my latest Mac/Audio Interface using Thunderbolt. I can't swear to you that it isn't some form of confirmation bias, but I had convinced myself I felt latency in my Firewire system and I don't under Thunderbolt. The reason I am being so iffy in the way I state this is that... I can't remember worrying about it until I read about the "advantages of Thunderbolt". So... it could easily be all in my head. I try to avoid being seduced by artificial problems dreamt up by marketing departments, but I don't always manage it :)
 
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I don't know about the current Windows machines (with USB3), but I feel like I saw an improvement in latency with my latest Mac/Audio Interface using Thunderbolt.
Therein lies the rub. There are plenty of Thunderbolt interfaces out now to satisfy people's needs. All of them are Thunderbolt2 compatible, which equates to even higher data transfer speeds. USB3, which does not sport as high of numbers as Thunderbolt2, has been out for a while, but interface manufacturers aren't really jumping on board that train for whatever reason. I believe USB2 protocol is still supported over a USB3 connection, but it's limited to USB2 data transfer speeds. There are still plenty of PCI and PCIe interfaces available, but the numbers are starting to go down and there are lots of forecasts saying it will be phased out soon enough.

So you've got Windows based computers with USB3 connections and not many, or possibly no USB3 interfaces on the market. You've got Mac based computers with Thunderbolt2 connections and several existing and many more incoming Thunderbolt2 interfaces on the market. USB3 looks great, but if it's not being supported...

The other thing to point out is that both FireWire (Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt2's aging grandfather) and USB2 are both more than capable of providing sufficient data transfer for most audio work, especially in the realm of consumer and prosumer tiers. That makes everything beyond that a game of inches with little or possibly even no appreciable and perceptible gain despite the much improved numbers.

This is all anecdotal from what I read online. My trusty 2012 Mac Mini and FireWire interface has run 16 simultaneous inputs against an already developed 24-track backing score with zero issues, so the need to upgrade is way off on the horizon for me.
 
Thunderbolt is on Windows
And I heard rumors that iPads may be getting a couple of USB ports

As I see it, Some PC's cheaped out and the ports on the cases were through USB hubs internally. Now there's a lot more USB directly on the MB. Real USB 2 performance is really good enough if the port isn't shared with multiple devices.
 
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Image has nothing to do with it for most professionals using Macs. Most of us simply like how it operates better than the Windows equivalent. Yes it's more expensive. It's all single source, more stable, requires less tweaking, no drivers, no ASIO4ALL, no... Anything! It just works straight away without the need to be the computer version of a mechanic. This excludes Linux, but I have no experience there so I won't tread into those waters.
Which is why I said tech savvy, not just for audio but for computers & software as well. Imagine having a problem with your piece of fruit; Apple Care? Because you can't open it up and fix/replace/upgrade hardware. But as I posted earlier I'm out of this thread, it's not something worth fighting over.
 
macs have really good brand image that they are simple and no-fuss hardware, while on the other hand PCs are portrayed as things that are just waiting to fall apart, complicated and cheapo quality. I'm saying it again, with windows 10, decent hardware and proper setup this is not true anymore. macs are losing their trump card "no drivers, no worries, just plug and play" since windows 10 showed up. for example, i did only need to install gpu utility and now new drivers update is on auto. no worries no nothing. and not to mention that i didn't even need to install a single driver for pc to work out of the box. win10 did it all for me.