Jim Roseberry

NVMe now comes in two flavors: PCIe 3.0 (good drives sustain ~3500MB/Sec) PCIe 4.0 (good drives sustain ~7000MB/Sec) Only recent make machines support PCIe 4.0. If you have something like Spectrasonics Keyscape, the C7 Yamaha Grand loads ***REALLY*** slow. Using a fast m.2 SSD helps mitigate this.

FWIW, I was just using my channels strips as a point of reference. I actually meant between the two choices you listed (ISA Two and WA273). ? I'd go with the ISA Two as it's $100 less than the WA273. Everything has gone up in cost. Got the Shelford channel at GearFest (several years back) and I want to say it was under $3000. Still not cheap... but not what it is currently.

FWIW, I've got Neve Shelford, Neve Portico-II, and two Warm Audio WA273-EQ channels strips. The Warm units aren't quite the same level as a real Neve... but they're pretty good. QC isn't as tight as with a real Neve. One of my WA273-EQ units, developed an issue that sounded like ground noise... but it was the unit itself (not a ground loop). Had to get it swapped out. Haven't had any issues since. Comparing side-by-side with my Neve preamps and a Neve 8816 Summing mixer, the WA273-EQ has similar character (round/full, detailed, not harsh in the upper mids). The ISA Two is a nice preamp. It's not going to impart as much character as something like the Shelford... but it's a lot more affordable. Focusrite QC is tighter than Warm Audio. Can't go too far wrong with either choice. If you're not wanting the 1073 type inductive EQ (WA273-EQ), I'd opt for the ISA Two. It's $100 less...

I'm not re-framing / railroading anything. I said that professional composers for TV/Film (meaning high level professionals) are almost all using custom PCs. That hasn't changed. Someone mentioned they could name 40 (TV/Film composers) who don't. I'm saying... name them.

I have to buy Macs because we support clients running VE Pro "Slave" machines (connected to their Mac). I like some things about OSX (lean and networking is more straight forward). Can't stand the lack of internal expansion... and lack of speed (relative to what's otherwise available).

I'm not talking bedroom composers. I mean high level professional composers for TV/Film. Name those 40.

LOL! Have fun being a part of the "LA scene". If I were to name-drop, it would be an extensive list from ~30-years. Composers Rock-Stars Mix Engineers Mastering Engineers Label Executives I've had the pleasure of working with many great individuals (famous and not)... including the CTO from Cakewalk. If you're actually running Cakewalk By Bandlab, it was compiled on 10980xe based machine (that I built). ?

Neither... ? PRS all day long

The fact of the matter is that composers running large scoring templates are forced to custom machine/s to get the speed/configuration necessary (to effectively work). I deal with these folks every day. If you are watching a popular TV show or Film, a custom PC was most likely used by the composer (either as main machine or VE Pro "Slave"). I used Tim Wynn as an example... because long-time forum members will remember him. Tim was an active forum member. Tim climbed the composing ranks over the past several decades... and is now scoring feature films. Show me 20 examples of top-tier professional composers who are NOT using any custom PC. The short answer is... you can't. The top composers in LA meet once a month. Many of them actually live in the same neighborhood (strange but true). All are running custom machine/s...

I'd setup a "stress-test" type project in another DAW. That'll let you know whether the issue is specific to Ableton Live.

Those who think most professionals are using Mac: I get calls on a daily basis from professional composers... who simply can't get the speed/configuration (from Apple) they need to effectively work. If you watch TV/Movies... a custom PC was used to create the music on almost all of them. Composer Tim Wynn was a long time Cakewalk user (has since switched to Cubase). Tim is now scoring feature films for the likes of Marvel. I can say with 100% certainty that he's not using a Mac. Nor is his colleague Ernie Lee... as we just shipped his new machine I do think the Apple Mini is a slick little machine. It's pretty cool for what it is (small form-factor simple machine).

If it takes someone more than about 15 minutes to tweak Win10 for maximum DAW performance, they don't know what they're doing. If it takes hours/days, they're learning/experimenting. I build/configure machines literally every day. (Have done so for 25+ years) Lots of tweaks involved... but I know exactly what needs to be done... and it's the same every time. I'd liken building/configuring PCs to Algebra. If you know how to solve the equation, you'll always get the right answer.

A bit over-blown. Win10 needs properly configured once. For someone who knows what they're doing, that process isn't lengthy (probably about 15 minutes). We have Apple machines here to support VE Pro clients. I tweak OSX as well (disable power-management, etc).

I recall someone on these forums saying that the 12900k was faster than the M1. He had actually benckmarked both... comparing side-by-side. Don't know who that might have been... ? The 12900k is an amazing CPU. Yes, you need robust cooling. Heat is nowhere near Threadripper. IOW, It's possible to build a quiet machine.

One great machine with something like the 12900k and a RTX 3xxx series video card (with 0dB fan mode) would excel at both running DAW applications, video editing,... as well as games. You don't want to build something like this fully passive-cooled. You could... but it would be a thermal-throttling disaster. ?

If you're talking about more recent make CPUs (5950x and 12900k), robust air-cooling isn't enough when the CPU is under heavy load. Closed-loop water-coolers are maintenance-free. You don't need to add coolant, etc. With a water-cooler, you're dealing with both fan and pump noise. Important to get one with a quiet pump (quiet fans are easy) You'll see guys on YouTube building Threadripper machines using a NH-U14S or NH-D15 (large air-cooler). Yeah, it's quiet. ? Put that CPU under load... and it thermal-throttles CPU clock-speed WAY down. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a $1k+ CPU. The same is true for the 5950x and 12900k (just not as extreme).

All is well here... Certainly didn't mean to drop-the-ball! I was thinking you'd decided against getting a machine... and that's the last I remember of our conversations. FWIW, my Email is easy to remember (jim@studiocat.com) You're always welcome to send an Email... or give me a call/text.

8700k has six cores at 4.7GHz Max Turbo 9900k has eight cores at 5GHz Max Turbo It's an upgrade... but not a huge difference in performance. Both CPUs are socket 1151.

All about performance expectation... If you expect workstation type performance, laptops aren't the solution (M1 or otherwise).

Fast... compared to what? The 5950x or 12900k?

Define your expectations. If you expect the M1 to compete with hard-core "workstation" CPUs, it doesn't do that. The 5950x smokes the M1. The new 12900k bests the 5950x both single-core and multi-core.

Typing isn't faster... but the 12900k exists in the here/now. If you want to run heavy loads at lowest possible latency, there's not a better CPU.

I'm typing this on a 12th Gen i9-12900k based DAW. ?

When it comes to low latency audio, the 11900k is a performance step backward (vs the 10th Gen 10900k). The newest 12900k (12th Gen) smokes them both.

Yes, the last three speaker types are bass specific 12" and 10" speakers. You can also "resize" (virtually) any of the speakers... so you could create a 15" or 18" version (to mix along side the stock speakers)