PC vs MAC laptop as music server

According to Steve Nugent at Empirical, playback from a Mac with iTunes is indeed a little less good than with Foobar. He does say that it is still excellent, though.

I switched computer platforms way back at DOS 3.3. I can handle Windows if I have to. Now that Macs have Intel processors and run both systems, I may one day try EAC and Foobar in order to hear for myself what the degree of difference is.

Steve Nugent's claim for the quality of EAC and Foobar is IMO the best and really the only argument for choosing a Windows platform for music, if your level of experience is the same with both operating systems. If you want to assemble your computer yourself from parts, that's another hobby and a different set of concerns.

So there ya go Smoffatt...have fun building that PC.

Steve Nugent has 26 years of digital experience. He has forgotten more about digital than I could probably hope to ever learn.

Assembling a computer is not that hard.
First one would take a weekend or so.
There are also so many options for PCs to make them quiet. Now that is a hobby unto itself: building a quiet PC. I used to be obsessed with it. No longer though because I have my music server in another room and run all the cables through the wall and use a blue tooth keyboard with integrated touchpad (Logitech).

Keith

I went Mac Mini. Couldn't be happier.

tok2000 - if you want better error correction for ripping cds on a mac use xld or others. you are biased toward pc's, its obvious. but if you don't now how a mac works or how the GUI performs, then you shouldn't say anything about the mac. Microsoft is so far behind the times its funny. all of your statements mac vs. pc are unfounded. some of the most critical issues of all pc users are: how stable is the OS, how stable is the hardware, how user friendly is the OS, etc... all of these items the mac wins hands down. the mac doesn't have a blue screen of death, etc... when you use a mac, you know it is going to work.

there are many other ripping programs that run on a mac so that is a non issue, and if you wait, there will be a new 1 tomorrow. also, i run vmware so i can run any other operating system if needed.
BTW: i don't want to hook up my computer directly to a dac or use a usb cable, i like isolating the computer. and also, if you were to hook up a computer or network device, i would use a toslink cable to further isolate the 2.