grawk

Nate, I agree. That's why we have 3 laptops and a mac mini . The kids have a dell desktop I bought for them 3 years ago, but when the time comes, it'll be macbooks for them too.

Did you include things like firewire and comparable video boards, dvd burner, etc?

Ok, you've done that enough that I just have to correct you. It's i2s. Not is2.

I used froogle, and picked good quality parts. If you skimp on the quality, then I'm not gonna argue, you can definitely build a shitty linux box for less than an imac

I just specced out a full sized desktop comparable to the imac 2.8ghz core 2 extreme, and it was about $1400. Plus labor, plus additional clutter and desk real estate. No warranty. No operating system. No keyboard, no mouse. So add $175 for vista ultimate oem, and you're at $1575. Add $50 for a decent keyboard and mouse . $1625. So you're saving about $600, which is a decent amount of savings. But you're not getting the warranty, you're not getting the integration, and you're not getting the form factor. Not to mention, you're still not getting OS X, although theoretically you could get the hacked version that would run on that system. But really, the high end is just listed on the website to show it's possible. You can get a similar configuration but with the 2.4ghz processor and 1gb of ram, and a 250gb disk refurbed for $1450. Downgrade the above home built system to those specs and you're at about $1300.

The apple website, under mac deals. I paid $480 for a mac core duo w/ 1gb ram, 80gb drive, superdrive, and 1.83ghz processor. Comparing an imac to a self built multiple chassis setup isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison. The imac is what it is, a 20" display housing a computer, where you only need to have 1 cable.

Just look at hte refurbs, that's where the deals are. I've gotten exactly 1 new mac of all the macs I've owned. The rest have been refurbs.

sound, wifi, optimized X?

You'd want a mac for needledrops anyway. Get a cheap mini if you don't already have a mac.

Fully functional and ready to run a compiler, maybe.

yup

linux is only cheap if your time has no value.

Just pick up an apogee duet, use that for the ADC, and start doing 24/96 captures

midget porn?

$ whoami grawk $ id uid=0(grawk) gid=1(wheel) $

$ apt-get microsoft\ office What? Are you KIDDING ME? Buy a mac, cheapskate $

endless argument about something that will never get resolved, but that keeps coming back.

Naw, it's a thrash now, no point.

Take any review like that with a boulder of salt. EG. imod

But apple supports 2 completely different architectures, with binary compatibility between them, and many generations of said hardware across those platforms. What they don't support is SHITTY hardware configurations.

I paid right at $1000 each for 2 macbooks. Spent another $100 upgrading the memory on my own. No other first tier vendor could beat that price for a comparable laptop. Apple prices their top config high, but drop down a bit, and they're very competitive.

Whenever you find you're agreeing with something I've said, however tangentially, please refrain from posting.

I use itunes. My lossless is in alac, and my only pc is locked to my desk at work... I don't hear a difference between usb and optical for 44/48-16 data on my minidac, so I wouldn't worry about that part, if you're using music that originated on cd. I use optical because I have some 48/24 live recordings.

macs are bit perfect by design.

I'll again recommend airfoil and an airport express.