Music from hard drive better than CD?

Jax2: I can appreciate your argument, however several points in your argument are inaccurate. Having used PCs for years and always wanting a Mac, I recently purchased one about 6 months ago; this has given me sufficient time to gather an evaluation on the Apple platform.

Yes, there is absolutely no doubt that OS X provides a better user experience than Windows XP. It looks nicer yet seems to be equally intuitive. I can’t say that OS X is more intuitive than Windows XP, because this all depends on which type of interface a user is used to. There are other points of your argument I’d like to address:

“I suppose if you want to deal with an inferior operating system, vastly increased vulnerabiltiy to viruses (if you use the same computer to surf the Net), general instability, chop-shop reliability (should you choose that direction to save money), and worst of all the likes of Microsoft software, well then yes; you'd save a bit of coin with a PC.”

In my opinion, if you are going to use this computer as a dedicated music transport, it should not even be on the Internet. Regardless, OS X is more secure overall than Windows XP, mainly because of the OS design and the fact that Windows is a bigger target for hackers. However, your statement that Windows XP is unstable is not true. I’ve used Windows XP just about every day since it came out back in 2001 and consider its reliability to be far from “chop-shop.” If you were referring to an earlier version of Windows, I would have to agree; but Windows XP has proven to be extremely stable in my experience and the experiences of other computer users that I know.

“They certainly are capable of streaming music just as good as a Mac, and indeed do cost less money in general, though I find that, as in most things in life, you get just what you pay for. Fast PC's tend to cost just as much as fast Macs. Cheap computers indeed have limited capabilities, and streaming music does not take any sophisticated for ultra-fast processor, nor an abundance of RAM.”

These first two sentences appear to be contradicting in that you first say that PCs cost less in general, but that a fast PC will tend to cost just as much as a fast Mac. This also is untrue. Anyone who follows the prices of PCs and Macintosh computers will be able to tell you that Mac hardware costs more. Period. There have been dozens and dozens of arguments on Tech sites between Mac Zealots and PC owners, and one topic I see repeatedly is “I would buy a Mac, but I can get a PC that’s just as fast for much less.” Now, you won’t be getting the great experience that OS X can provide, but you will get an equally fast PC at a much lower cost.

“The Mac-Mini is a great suggestion by Rsbeck. At $599 with a free keyboard, all you really need is a small monitor and external drive. For a grand you'll have a dead reliable computer interface that's as easy as pie to use and will be more than useful at other applications, and not take up much room to boot.”

This is definitely a good idea. The Mac Mini is very affordable, and it will do fine for simply playing music. The unit should also run pretty quietly, and should integrate nicely into a system with its sleek look. Keep in mind that you will want to upgrade the RAM from 256, unless you don’t mind OS X running very sluggish.

“A used or factory refurbed Mac iBook will set you back about the same but you won't need to spring for the monitor. I work with an old 12 inch G3 iBook which typically go on eBay for around $400. It does everything I need it to, is very portable and streams music effortlessly through iTunes.”

A PC laptop purchased for around that same price will give you much better performance.

So yes, you are right in saying that you get what you pay for—but only to a certain extent. I believe that this is limited to the experience of using the operating system itself and the sleek look of Apple hardware. So if you aren’t going to be surfing the web, editing photos, or creating web pages on this machine, the user interface may not be as much of a factor when considering price.

>>if you are going to use this computer as a dedicated music transport, it
should not even be on the Internet.<<

No. You want internet connectivity -- you'll be ripping CD's to your hard drive
and you'll be downloading all of the titles and other information from an
internet site. This will all happen with a couple of clicks if you are connected
to the internet. If you are not connected to the internet, you'll have to enter
all of that information manually, that would be tedious as hell, and would
slow the ripping process to a crawl. By the tenth or eleventh CD, you'd be
ready to hurt someone.

If you're going to be adding an external hard drive anyway, why not opt for the $499 Mac Mini? I don't think you need a keyboard, but if you connect the Mac Mini to a video monitor, a wireless mouse would be real handy. I would also opt for more RAM.

If you are computer and tech savvy, prefer PC, and if you want to get really deep into using your computer for not only music, but an entire home entertainment hub, here is a forum that might interest you --

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26

Jwglista - I think you may have misunderstood some of my points, or perhaps my communications skills are lacking here. Regardless I will try to clarify:

As Rsbeck indicates, the link to the Internet makes ripping CD's oh so much easier than manually inserting all the information. But I was not even suggesting that, though it is a very good point. I don't use any of my three computers as dedicated music streaming devices, and I'd hazzard to guess not many folks do. I do use a large, external hard drive as a dedicated storage device for my music. Would not think of storing them on the internal drive since I do listen in more than one location. I therefore don't agree with you on that point. Certainly with even a modest Mac you can stream music seamlessly and perform many other functions simultaneously. I see no particular reason to dedicate a computer to just streaming music. Perhaps it will compromise a PC, but I haven't had any problems on a Mac. I routinely do very RAM/Processor intensive image editing in Photoshop on the same computer that is streaming music without a single hiccup.

I was not referring to the Windows XP operating system when I said "chop-shop". I was referring to chop shop PC builders that assemble PC's at lower costs according to the users needs and budget. I'm not speaking of Dell, but of Cuss-Tum Computer in downtown Anywhere, U.S.A.

I don't think I was contradicting myself. If you outfit, for instance, a Dell computer with the same speed processor, same amount of RAM and same basic features as a Mac you will not be saving much money buying the PC. The fact is that Mac just doesn't make any real cheapy, bargain basement computers like those abundantly available in the PC platform. If you're only doing word processing and streaming music you can get a cheap PC and it will do the job fine, yes. But it will have it's faults as I indicated in my previous post. Even the low end MacMini, or the iBooks are faster and more capable than a 'cheap PC', and, as you suggested yourself, have a superior operating system which is very intuitive and will not ruin your afternoon if a program crashes or freezes up - you can just 'force quit' the specific program and the entire operating system and all other open programs remain stable and unaffected. Has Windows figured that one out yet? Last time I checked, which may have been over a year now, if your program crashes or freezes in Windows you are SOL as far as anything else that is running.

EXCELLENT point on the RAM suggestion with the MacMini: Definitely spring for at least double the stock 256mb as OSX is a glutten for RAM and will indeed slow down with only the minimum. Fortunately RAM is cheap.

I'm coming from the opposite end of the spectrum. Spent a few years on PC's and hated them. I've been on a Mac platform since 94 and much prefer their system overall. Customer support is excellent. FWIW if you look at Consumer Reports, Apple is consistently ranking at the top in customer satisfaction and overall performance. They just keep getting it right, and aren't much on compromise.

Now did I understand you correctly; did you imply that for $400 you can buy a PC laptop that will give you better overall performance than an iBook? Could you point me at that particular laptop? In what ways will it give you better performance? How reliable is it? I'm truly curious...I'm not challenging you, believe it or not. If that is true I'm just not aware of it. Most of the folks I know using computers are working professionals in one field or another and none tend to compromise much on their computers. All the PC laptops I've seen may be a bit cheaper than Mac overall, but certainly don't seem to be profoundly so if you compare apples to...er, that's a bad choice of words...oranges to oranges (same speed processor, same RAM, same features, same size).

The bottom line, in my view, is that streaming music is an effortless task for most modern computers. I would tend to choose the actual computer for the other factors you may use it for, and either way I'd still choose a Mac, if only for the stability and operating system. If I were a gamer I'd choose a PC only for the fact that more software and hardware exists to play games on PC's than on Macs.

Marco