Audio Pro in Hollywood returns the Mac Studio

[trs96]

Here's why the 2019 Mac Pro is still relevant today and why Apple should maintain Intel support for the longer term.
Some "real world" professionals, that are not full time Youtubers, must have an Intel Mac Pro to do their work.

If your business, in this case audio production, depends on 100% compatibility of the software, an M1 Mac may not be the best choice. Youtube reviewers run so-called real world tests and conclude that it's the most powerful Mac ever. If the high GeekBench scores don't help you get work done and make money, it's just an expensive paper weight that fits in your suitcase.

 

[brousseau6933]

Benches are one thing, real performance and stability is another.

There is a lot of « wow » on an audio forum I frequent: « most powerful machine, x times faster than my old Mac/PC , etc… ».

However, no real comparison/data as to what is a must for a lot of audio guys/gals: low Round Trip Latency performance/audio interface drivers efficiency under real life.

The manufacturers had to write new drivers for their interfaces and for now, we are in the transition period where there are a lot of compatibility problems.

I much prefer my tried and true « old » Gigabyte Z390 Designare (iMac Pro Geekbench performance) to a new Mx Silicon machine.

The things will probably settle in in the next years…

 

[pastrychef]

Here's why the 2019 Mac Pro is still relevant today and why Apple should maintain Intel support for the longer term.
Some "real world" professionals, that are not full time Youtubers, must have an Intel Mac Pro to do their work.

If your business, in this case audio production, depends on 100% compatibility of the software, an M1 Mac may not be the best choice. Youtube reviewers run so-called real world tests and conclude that it's the most powerful Mac ever. If the high GeekBench scores don't help you get work done and make money, it's just an expensive paper weight that fits in your suitcase.

Sounds like he's hitting compatibility issues with plug-ins. In an instance like this, I think it's more beneficial to kill support for Intel ASAP to force developers to move to Universal 2 Binaries faster. Divert all resources to improving and perfecting Apple Silicon and stop wasting resources on soon to be discontinued products.

Keeping the Intel stuff around longer and they fall in to the trap that Microsoft fell in to where they had to support tons of ancient hardware.

 

[c-o-pr]

"Audio Pro in Hollywood returns the Mac Studio"

Doctor, it hurts when I do this!

My views are anecdotal and my opinions below are my own:

Mac audio nerds, as a class of user, tend to reside several-to-many years back from the bleeding edge of Apple products for reasons of SW incompatibility issues, never mind shifts in the entire system architecture. They are known for lamenting their workloads for which no existing Mac is sufficient, and also for lamenting that more powerful Macs make it impossible to do their work. This is Mac audio culture.

And there's profound truth to what they suffer. Everyone who has faced incompatibility knows that a non-working system offers the apocalyptic hazard of an infinite performance loss compared to a working system. But somehow this epic disadvantage of not-working never stops the advance of incompatible systems. Quite the contrary, people can be seen running into the apocalypse.

It should make us wonder... Why would a "Hollywood audio Pro" even bother to obtain a Mac Studio when he already has a fit system? Why isn't he just getting his work done?

Of course there are 10 ways to fill in the blanks, which can be summarized as nothing is ever as simple as you wish it was.

So what's going on with this news.

20 years ago, when everyone was dumbfounded by the emergence of overwhelmingly powerful new tools, it was appropriate to raise the rhetorical question: what about stability, economy, and craft?! It was appropriate because an entire era of media know-how was being upended and tossed into the dumpsters of history. It was shocking.

But we've been through all that. We've seen how it plays out.

Today, merely raise the specter of Mac system (in)compatibility that results from Apple's product evolution here on a hackintosh forum is an intellectual short-circuit that might cause a electrical fire except the entire world is made out of insulation: hackintosh is obviously the most incompatible Mac you can get.

But paradoxically it's precisely in the nature of this incompatibility that it is most desired.

I will re-read the title of this thread as the truism "Dear hypemeisters, bragging rights over latest kit are irrelevant to getting work done"

Yet no matter how irrelevant pure performance is to task, even the most die-hard nay-sayers of Apple's advances for Apple's sake are once again looking at Apple and taking notice!

I've seen over 40 years nerding that when these sorts of denialist headlines appear, it's a sure sign a sea change of practice is occuring.

"Mac audio nerds once again struggle to keep up with industry advances that obliterate their profession. Even cosseted Hollywood creative professionals feel the heat from the kitchen"

Live with this stuff for a long while and astounding contradictions manifest as a great paradox:

progress => death

Which is at complete odds with common sense.

I enjoy computer technology for exposing through seeming rationality that my ideas of world order are irrational. I keep returning to the inconvenient observation that I've got to change. But we can all see where that's going!

Long live the iconoclasts, misfits and dabblers.