Ye Macce Threade

[Hopstretch]

Ordered AirPods Pro online at 1:48 pm today, paid $9 for same-day delivery, Postmates courier dropped them at my house at 2:51 pm.

I am listening to them now and they are pretty damn good.

[TMoney]

How's the fit? I'm a little scared by the in-ear nature as I have not had great fits with IEMs in the past.

[Hopstretch]

Medium tips fit me fine. Barely notice them in.

[blessingx]

Did they confirm your medium fit?

[Hopstretch]

Yup, 

[Hopstretch]

Not to be melodramatic but does anyone else remember a couple of years ago when Tyll was still running the late, lamented Inner Fidelity and wrote that, someday, the really big game changer would be wireless, fuss-free, DSP headphones that were "good enough" for anyone but the most hardcore enthusiasts. Well we're there Hertsens, you magnificent bastard.

[HiWire]

? New 16" MacBook! This looks like a better value for money, with a new keyboard, speakers, mics, display (notice that they do not mention HDR), GPUs, up to 64GB RAM, larger 11-hour battery, and up to 8TB storage – also, it still has a headphone jack:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/apple-announces-16-inch-macbook-pro-with-new-keyboard-design/

I always thought the previous Vega 20 graphic processor (an expensive option in the 15" MacBook Pro and 21.5" iMac) was a low-midrange product, and the new AMD Radeon Pro 5500M (8GB GDDR6) looks like a huge improvement. Apple has discontinued the 15" MacBook Pros on the website, but they are still available in the refurb store (and probably for a little while longer in the brick and mortar stores).

The 16" MBP is about the same price (at the base levels) as the Early 2019 15" MacBook Pros, so it's going to make them look really bad from a value standpoint unless you can get one for a steep discount – they are still expensive.

It's interesting to see that they stuck with 802.11ac wi-fi – a lot of current high-end Windows laptops are shipping with Wi-Fi 6 now. 10 Gigabit Ethernet is an option on the Late 2018 Mac Mini and it may become standard on desktop Macs next year. It may also become available on Thunderbolt 3 adapters at some point.

Apple doesn't call attention to this, but the 16" MBP uses the same CPUs as in the previous 15" MBP. They are wedded, like everyone else, to Intel's technology roadmap. This means that it will be a while before PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 comes out (current leaks about Intel's 10th-Gen desktop processors indicate they are sticking with PCIe 3.0) and we can expect to see 10-core/20-thread i9 processors in the next iMacs. Intel's mainstream rollout of 10nm processors has been pushed back into 2020 and 2021 so there may still be more products manufactured on their 14nm+++ process or a confusing hybrid lineup like their current mobile offerings with Ice Lake at 10nm, Comet Lake at 14nm, and both named 10th Gen.

An update on newly-disclosed vulnerabilities in Intel's processors:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-reveals-taa-vulnerabilities-in-cascade-lake-chips-and-a-new-jcc-bug

This is an evolutionary upgrade that fixes some of the old design's problems and increases the MacBook Pro's capabilities, at the cost of larger size and increased weight (with a larger power supply to match).

Microsoft's new Surface X has been getting poor reviews because of it's ARM processor performance – Apple has had much more success implementing ARM designs on iOS.

Ironically, the clever lid-opening scrolling on the new MacBook Pro's features page is crashing in my Safari browser but it runs just fine in Firefox.

 

P.S. Performance tests from Barefeats validate the 16" MacBook Pro's performance potential and thermal headroom – TL;DR get more RAM, more VRAM for heavy processing:

https://barefeats.com/16-inch-macbook-pro-shootout.html

https://barefeats.com/16-inch-macbook-pro-adobe.html

Edited November 21, 2019 by HiWire

[morphsci]

Upgraded the RAM on my Office iMac.

Before

After

[shellylh]

Sweet!

[ironbut]

As an update;

I've been using my i9 iMac since July and it has been a dream come true for me.

More than twice as capable than my 2012 Cheese Grater 6 core/48G ram.

The 27 inch 5k display with the Pro Vega 48 graphics still catches me staring at high rez images just for the heck of it.

A while back I was doing some articulation template (a Logic thing) testing and I had 500 software instrument tracks open in Logic. 

The fan is super quiet so I never know when it's running.

Couldn't be happier!

[HiWire]

I visited the Apple Store and played with the new 16" MacBook Pro a bit.

It's nice to see the hardware Esc key return and touch bar seems about the same without it. The 16" MBP is only slightly larger and heavier than the 15" one, so it shouldn't throw any shoulders out of wack.

The keyboard is comfortable, but there isn't a lot of travel on the scissor-switch keys, so it's kind of a middle ground between the previous scissor-switch keyboards and the newer butterfly switch keyboards. They are quiet and well-spaced though – I doubt I'd have a problem with it as my co-workers seem to have adjusted to their butterfly-switch keyboards easily.

I ran a few apps without a hiccup on macOS 10.15.1 but it's hard to do a thorough performance test in the Apple Store. I'll do a more thorough check on the display and speakers the next time I see one.

Edited December 5, 2019 by HiWire

[HiWire]

Looks like there might be some problems with the 16" MacBook Pro speakers and displays:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20997727/apple-macbook-pro-16-inch-complaints-speaker-popping-sound-display-ghosting-keyboard

[Hopstretch]

I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR.

[TMoney]

You don't need a Mac Pro but you DO NEED the XDR display!

[Hopstretch]

Wonder if I could make a case for them as objets d'art and dip into the decor budget?

 

[TMoney]

1,600 nits peak HDR brightness and 1,000 nits sustained? Think of the things that kind of light will do for your room!

[shellylh]

I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR.

Ummm, I think you do!

I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR.

Ummm, I think you do!

[shellylh]

OK, I think it is finally time to upgrade my laptop.  Last time I bought one I only used it for travel since I had a small apartment and an iMac in the living room.  Now I find myself with my iMac on the third floor and and wishing to use a computer while on the third floor.  So thinking about the 13" or 16" Macbook Pro..  The 16" seems a bit big for travel but I usually have a large backpack with me anyways.  The screen would be nice to have.  Is there much of a speed difference between the 13" and 16"?   I would be using laTex, some python computing, some Inkspace/ Illustrator and watching movies/netflix/etc.  Yumi might use it for some AutoCad every once in a while. 

Right now I have a MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2016), 1.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core m7, 8 GB 1867 MHz LPDDR3 so anything is going to be an upgrade!

I guess I could go with the "old" (Mid 2019) 15" laptop from bhphoto:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1480941-REG/apple_mv902ll_a_15_4_macbook_pro_with.html

Edited December 12, 2019 by shellylh

[grawk]

that 16" would make auto cad nice

[Dusty Chalk]

16” because THIS IS HEAD-CASE!

[crappyjones123]

I use texmaker and a 13" screen often leaves me wanting for a bigger screen. I've gotten to the point where I don't like using my laptop when using LaTeX. I've tried reducing the font size but that rarely helps. If you are not using a pdf viewer to look at your document, the 13" will likely be fine. If it is mostly going to be used locally, go for the 16". 

Buyer beware, however - https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/the-16-inch-macbook-pro-has-a-major-quality-control-problem

[Grahame]

On 12/10/2019 at 4:15 PM, Hopstretch said:

I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR. I do not need a Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR.

 

On 12/10/2019 at 4:26 PM, TMoney said:

You don't need a Mac Pro but you DO NEED the XDR display!

 

 

 

[morphsci]

We had to add Karen's moms phone to our plan, so we checked out all of the deals and decided to brave going to the local Verizon store Monday. A couple of hours later we had her mom added to our plan and we both had new iPhone XS Maxs (a nice upgrade from our 7+). Total cost was a little over $100 and the monthly payment will actually be a few dollars cheaper. Overall a good investment for a couple of hours. Today we went to BestBuy and each picked up a pair of AirPod Pros. I think I am going to like them.

[ironbut]

Real world impressions and benchmarks for pro audio and post production audio with the new Mac Pro's are trickling in. 

It seems like audio professionals are opting for the 16 core processors and installing OWC ram so their machines are clocking in at the $8k range.

The benchmarks in Logic and Cubase are pretty astonishing compared to the 2013 dust bins.

I haven't seen any direct comparisons to the top of the line iMac Pro's but those aren't that much less and they are not user upgradeable. 

Just a handful of buyers in the virtual composer communities so far but there are quite a few doing the "wait and see" to decide on configurations they should order.

Here's a video of 850 instances of Absynth.

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by ironbut

[ironbut]

Make no mistake,..

these "unboxing" videos are porn!

Now I totally want one!!!!