iMac 27: Your thoughts please

[Hidden Driveways]

9. Is getting AppleCare really necessary? Have you had to use it and if so for what?

Getting or not getting Applecare is a gamble. My first Mac (and still my main production computer) is a dual 1.8 G5 tower. I didn't get Applecare for it, and I never needed it in the first 3 years I used the computer. A friend of mine bought an identical computer around the same time (early 2004), and he had tons of problems with his. He had Applecare and it was worth every penny for him. It would have been a waste of money for me.

I bought a second Mac in 2005 (1.5 G4 PowerBook laptop). This time I bought Applecare. I ended up getting the display replaced for free. I brought the laptop to work with me everyday for 2 years, and I think it just got mushed too much in my backpack. The display started getting a weird square shape around where the illuminated Apple was on the back. Was it worth it? Yeah. I think so. If I had had motherboard troubles, definitely.

In the end, I would make the safe bet and spend the extra $$ on Applecare. All electronics are susceptible to error. Macs are no exception.

[SubFunk]

^^^ yup it is a gamble,

i owned an apple IIc, had it for i think about 5 years (was the first portable computer ever made, with a 9'' screen and a special bag for the comp and screen) sold it to a ridiculous high price, it was never anything wrong with it...

owned a G4 tower, had a total HD failure after 6 month, which was solved by my retailer i bought at that time my entire studio gear from, including the comp.

had it for about 6 years, then my girlfriend used it for office work until she bought her macbook and i still sold it for a ridiculous high price. never anything else apart from the HD crash went wrong with the machine.

bought a MBP, fell badly onto a floor after about 2 month, onto the DVD drive corner, it is bent like a banana ever since... a beer flow into it, during a gig, and glass chunks from a smashed glass flew ones into my screen which has a little scratch now, it is daily in use, flew, and has been dragged around like mad, into a case out of the case, a real workhorse. everything works fine, including the DVD drive.

that is my experience with apple products (counts for the iPhone and my IPod as well, both fell a hundred times onto the floor) and i would never get applecare.

besides being a mad OSX lover (again for similar reasons, stability and reliability), it is exactly this experience with apple that made a fan out of me over the years, not just the pretty sight, even i am a very style / visually conscious person.

p.s. my girlfriend handles her over 3 years old MB way rougher then me, and it is also a running workhorse, with no failure yet.

[UncleAge]

I did a bit of reading about some of the issues Apple is having with the iMac 27" i7's and it seems as though there is a fix in place. And if not, it probably won't be any worse than the hardware/firmware/software conflicts I've had over the years on the pc. Looks like I'll be placing my order this evening once I get off work. Hopefully they'll be able to deliver that thing in a week or two.

Thanks again to those that gave feedback to my questions and the rest who gave me some food for thought as well.

[SubFunk]

i think there is always a risk involved no matter what you do or how you decide...

my MBP model is also considered having heat issues, and yes he gets hot i can fry eggs on him... and still he is running smooth like a cat since about 4 years now... and i treat him real hard.

others had them going of in flames... you know.

[ekwipt]

9. - I highly recommend Apple Care for ANY Apple product. IT's like any insurance, except that with Apple it saves you A LOT of money of you ever need it. Given how much a new mainboard or display panel is should something go wrong after the first year, I think it's well worth it.

Apple care is a joke, yes they do help you out if things go bad, but after forking out for a MacPro or a Macbook Pro or iMac for that matter why don't they offer 3 years standard warranty R.I.P.O.F.F.

[zalo]

5. If you have a FireWire setup, what type of round-trip latency are you seeing(please state what soundcard you use as well)

TC electronic konnekt 48 when i'm mixing , about 14 MS round trip @ 44.1 24 bit.. recording i can use it comfortably at 256 samples at around 6 ms

Wow, 6ms! That's pretty amazing for round-trip latency. I don't think I could touch that on a pc without an RME interface. And even then I think things would have to be down around 64-128 samples. The best I've been able to achieve on my pc with a Saffire Pro 40 is around 16-18ms.

6ms isnt round trip

[red33mer]

Best piece of gear i´ve ever owned, besides my Moog.
That thing is simply amazing, you will never give it away...

[UncleAge]

5. If you have a FireWire setup, what type of round-trip latency are you seeing(please state what soundcard you use as well)

TC electronic konnekt 48 when i'm mixing , about 14 MS round trip @ 44.1 24 bit.. recording i can use it comfortably at 256 samples at around 6 ms

Wow, 6ms! That's pretty amazing for round-trip latency. I don't think I could touch that on a pc without an RME interface. And even then I think things would have to be down around 64-128 samples. The best I've been able to achieve on my pc with a Saffire Pro 40 is around 16-18ms.

6ms isnt round trip

...would be pretty amazing if it was though...

[UncleAge]

Once again thanks for the help everybody. I decided to buy it this morning. I went with the i7 w/4gb for right now. I'll post to the performance thread once I get things setup.

[Tarekith]

Congrats, looking forward to seeing your results.

[hps909]

5. If you have a FireWire setup, what type of round-trip latency are you seeing(please state what soundcard you use as well)

TC electronic konnekt 48 when i'm mixing , about 14 MS round trip @ 44.1 24 bit.. recording i can use it comfortably at 256 samples at around 6 ms

Wow, 6ms! That's pretty amazing for round-trip latency. I don't think I could touch that on a pc without an RME interface. And even then I think things would have to be down around 64-128 samples. The best I've been able to achieve on my pc with a Saffire Pro 40 is around 16-18ms.

6ms isnt round trip

yeah sorry 6ms input.... i can get 6ms round trip but the dreaded crackles start to happen and the cpu goes crazy

[zalo]

using the internal soundcard in my MBP i can get the round trip down to 4ish ms (50 samples) with no crackles at 80%

i have a 2.8ghz imac that i havent tested the internal sound card on, but my RME FF400 can get down to 80 samples (6ish roundtrip) no crackles at 80% running 8 in 8 out

[rickmansworth]

did some pretty extensive homework on the quad core imac 27" vs the Mac Pro 8 core... From every benchmark test that I've read and every message board thread that I've gone through, I have noticed the same stuff..

the imac seems to run right with the 8 core mac pro, despite the price being much lower. the "turbo mode" on these quadcore chips lets the unused cores add power to whichever core is being utilized, which makes for some bad ass (3.2ghz+) performance. the sexy 27" screen isn't a bad kicker either.

it appears as if most of the people who hype the mac pro over the imac seem to be only doing so because they are owners with a biased opinion... as for me, i went ahead and made the choice to get the i7 imac 27". once it arrives in the mail and i get everything all set up, ill see how it can handle 10+ tracks at once all running vsts+plugs and let everyone know.

[UncleAge]

...it appears as if most of the people who hype the mac pro over the imac seem to be only doing so because they are owners with a biased opinion... as for me, i went ahead and made the choice to get the i7 imac 27"...

I gave the MacPro serious consideration. And who knows, I may still pick it up a little later. There are some advantages to having the room for expansion and what not. However, I had to balance the cost of ownership versus the revenue. I can't justify the MacPro cost for the small projects I do. And if I do go down that path my girlfriend already has dibbs on the machine I just bought. Which, btw, just arrived today via Fedex from Shanghai

Gotta get home, set things up and start getting used to a whole new OS. First order of business will be finding an imaging program for the Mac that works as well as True Image does for me on the pc. After I get a good image then I'll start the lengthy process of installing all those VI's (I'm not looking forward to this part), and formatting an external drive, or two.

[Tarekith]

OSX comes with Disk Utility for making disc images, works great, simple to use.