[gumbi_nz]

I find that truly bizarre. Would people seriously prefer to run a commercial studio and Pro Tools on a windows machine? I've run Logic across a number of versions on various Mac Pros and they're rock solid. I could almost guarantee a very different experience on a PC ....

[deng]

I find it truly bizarre that there are people who actually still buy a Mac Pro. Just look at the shop page. They sell that thing for 4k$ with 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. It's completely bonkers. If you need a high-powered audio machine with dedicated PCI-E ports today(!), there's simply no alternative to a Windows PC. And yes, Windows can do audio just fine; you either invest the work and carefully choose components and build it yourself, or you buy it readily from 3XS, VisionDAW, whatever.

[PascLeRasc]

The difference between a $1.5k Windows machine and a $4k Mac, with the intention to use either for the next 4-5 years, is nothing compared to studio budgets. Audio engineers spend tens of thousands just on room treatments, thousands more on analog mic preamps, and you need a hefty collection of different microphones. This is all so that you can bill studio time at $500+ per hour and produce great recordings. Any time you're spending diagnosing blue screens and Windows driver issues is time not booking artists and preparing mixes. OS X happens to be the first-class platform for most DAWs like Ableton, and the only choice for Logic, so you're limiting yourself not using a Mac.

[StreamBright]

There used to be some timing issues with Windows audio 10 years ago that forced people to go for alternatives but I think it got fixed in Windows 7. Now Apple's ignorance and total lack of innovation makes people move to Windows. I think it just shows that market forces work.

[deng]

Yes, Windows used to be terrible when it comes to audio, but that was a long time ago. Of course, any badly written driver can still destroy everything, that is why you have to choose hardware carefully. But with a good ASIO driver you will achieve very low latencies without problems.

[jdietrich]

>Would people seriously prefer to run a commercial studio and Pro Tools on a windows machine?

Yes. A specialist system integrator can sell you a Windows machine with reliable low-latency audio performance and modern components. A lot of people can make do with a 2013 Mac Pro and don't want to deal with the inconvenience of switching; plenty of others have switched because they simply can't tolerate working on a machine with an Ivy Bridge processor and a maximum of 64GB of RAM.

[timc3]

In commercial environments the OS starts to not matter so much. The machine is literally bought for one purpose and that alone.

I have worked in environments where vendors actually give a proper legally binding guarantee that Windows boxes work as expected and they charge accordingly.