are apple laptops better then pc for computer bassed music.

I've found that my Macbook sounds better than my XP desktop when connecting a USB DAC to it in the office. At home, however, I can't really tell the difference between my Vaio and my iMac when streaming to the Uniti using Airfoil.

Depending on version of Windows it should be reasonably straightforward to get good sound out of a WinPC, and you have a bit more flexibility in terms of file formats etc. I also find that my Vaio is less prone to heating up and turning its fan on than my Macbook is.

In theory optical will isolate you better from electrical noise within the computer, and also supports higher-res bitrates, whereas USB is limited to 16/44.

I don't know much about Windows pc's and their audio capabilities. I do know that my MacBook is pretty good for computer audio. My MacBook is not state of the art (bought in 2007) but it runs all the latest software. It is not fanless but quiet most of the time. In my experience there is a big advantage to having the same company designing both hardware and software. There are hardly ever any problems with drivers. When there are problems they have to do with third party vendors not supplying new drivers for a new OS (we had this with an HP printer and a Canon Scanner). But this happens in the Windows world too. Macs don't need a lot of maintenance. They simply work.

iTunes for Mac is pretty good as program to manage my music and podcasts. I don't use it for videos. Spotify Premium sounds terrific.

Optical out to a DAC is considered to be better than USB, but that may depend on the DAC. Combined with an Airport Express to the DACMagic it sounds excellent with Apple Lossless (ALAC) files. Optical sounds slightly better than USB. All Macs have had optical out since the switch to Intel processors.

The only thing I don't find very good with Apple laptops are the 'Superdrives' (DVD writer). I use an external DVD writer (firewire) to rip CD's and DVD's. 

A very positive thing about Macs is that over time you can easily install a new operating system, even if your computer is couple of years old. This also means that there is quite a good market for second hand Macs. Our Macs run faster now then when we bought them, due to improvements in the OS.

If it's just for music I don't think you need to buy a new Mac. I wouldn't be surprised that the new OS (10.7, Lion) which will be introduced later in 2011 will have more music capabilities. The iOS already supports sending any audio to an Airport Express and it seems the way forward to incorporate the same thing in OS 10.7.

There may not be as much software available to the Mac as for other platforms but most software is excellent. One of the best companies is Rogue Amoeba which makes the extremely useful programs Airfoil and Audio Hijack Pro. 

Overall I would recommend a Mac laptop for computer based audio. Easy to set up, easy maintenance. There is however one caveat with the current MacBook and MacBook 13 inch. Apple has dropped one of the audio ports. There is only one port left which can be used for both input and output. If you want to monitor a digital recording with earphones this is now impossible. The only laptops with two ports are now the MacBook Pro 15 and 17inch. 

A Mac is approx 2.5 times better than the equivelant PC at anything.    2.5x being the price difference.

 Personally, rather than spend £1000+ on a Macbook that you have to have running all time you are listening, I'd spend £300 on a cheap windows netbook or windows home server; then £200 on a streamer (sonos z90 or SqueezeBox touch); and then £300 on a mid range DAC.   It'll support most formats (no 24bit on Sonos) and sound better than any Mac solution at that price point. You can still run itunes too.

Pelagi:

A Mac is approx 2.5 times better than the equivelant PC at anything.    2.5x being the price difference.

There are no equivalent PC's to Macs because they run Windows. Only Macs can run OS X (except of course for some Hackintoshes).

For music you don't need a new Mac. Get a Mac from 2008 or 2009 and you'll have a better experience than with a new Windows machine. 

iMark:

Pelagi:

A Mac is approx 2.5 times better than the equivelant PC at anything.    2.5x being the price difference.

 

There are no equivalent PC's to Macs because they run Windows. Only Macs can run OS X (except of course for some Hackintoshes).

For music you don't need a new Mac. Get a Mac from 2008 or 2009 and you'll have a better experience than with a new Windows machine. 

An equivalent machine is one that performs an equivalent function.  Who cares what OS they run?  A £300 windows netbook runs computer based music software everybit as well as a £1000 Macbbook and is therefore an equivelant.   Better experience?  Actually it should be 3X better, but it is not going to sound any better, fancy graphics and illuminated fruit logo or not.

 For me the key to computer based music experience that you don't  have to actually look at a computer to enjoy it.  Set it up and stick it in a cupboard and forget about.  That's a better experience. imho.

OSX will make no difference to the sound I gues it can actually be worse since if you then go the logical Apple itunes route, you will not be able to enjoy 16/24 bit FLACs.   For many that is a worse sonic experience, and I beleive that was OPs question.

Paul Hobbs:

Im curious where you are going to find an equivalent laptop to the mac for £300?  You may find something with a similar clock speed and ram, but something to a similar build quality?  With a great screen?  Mag safe power adapters, huge giant internal batteries, industrial engineering which means the thing will be in one piece in three years?

When people buy cars or stereos they don't just look at the numbers on a page and ignore reality, so I don't get why people do this with computers? 

 The op seems to specifically want a laptop, so its safe to assume its required for functions other than just streaming music.

if all the pc/mac will be used for is playing music and related things (downloading, spotify, storage of songs ect) then a £300 pc laptop will perform just as well as a £1000 mac. they both just need to output bit perfect digital music. which is a pretty simple task to ask a computer to do. maybe the pc will require more setting up initially but is easy and quick.

a mac may have a better screen, batteries or better build quality. if this is worth paying double or triple for depends on your financial situation i guess. 

I wouldn't buy a mac for music personally as my housemates ones don't do very well with copied audio disks or data cd-rw.

also, the new macbook air doesn't even have a cd drive, so if you plan on using cd's you need to buy the additional external drive, or rip/burn using another computer and transfer on a usb stick.

if the laptop will be used for other functions as well as music, then make the decision of what to buy based on these other requirements. 

A Mac is basically like a 12 month old pc - they lack the latest processors and graphics cards.

Its also debatable whether OSX is any better than Win7, now Micro$oft has finally got its act together. If ur an enthusiast & really want a slick OS then a linux distrubution such as Ubuntu/Gentoo/Suse may be better.

As for the price of Mac's - its not great when u look at the relatively poor spec u get for the money.

A PC with sound output over HDMI/Optical is going to be at least a match for a Mac. The sound quality out of either is going to be virtually identical.

You dont need spec of a (over priced) MAC or any current PC/Laptop to run your music if its just a decicated machine for that. 

I bought a second hand HP/Compaq  NC8000 laptop £100, its hardwired to network to access music stored on NAS and control remotely from my Android phone using Foobar 2000  with HTTP plugin ..

 Job done

 There is a big differance between expensive and value.  Macs mayby expensive, but they represent good value. The above post covers this nicely.

My Macbook Pro is two and a half years old, quick as the day I bought it (i have never re-installed the os from scratch) is still in one piece (and it has a hard life, I'm a location photographer) and most importantly has retained 60% of its value as resale.  Thats right,  a 2.5 year old machine that I can sell on ebay right now for 60% of what I paid for it, show me a PC that can do that?  When you factor in resale Macs all of a sudden become very cheap.

My two year old Dell Inspiron (which cost 70% of the value of the Macbook Pro) was worthless (due to poor build quality and poor resale value of pc's), so factoring in resale the Mac was significantly cheaper than the dell and a much nicer machine to boot.

Ah, the old Macs vs PCs debate.

When I was young, it was Amiga vs Atari...

Sometimes it is not just all about what you need.

Sometimes it is not all about the money.

Everybody has different needs, tastes, desires, budgets, etc, etc.

Just saying......... 

Back on topic and probably relevant to some of the above. A lot of criticism about iTunes appears to come when used on a PC. People rarely complain about it when used on a Mac. That could be relevant. If you are not going to use iTunes, well.......

Suppose the point is anyone buying a MAC JUST to play music is someone who doesnt care about value for money.

They didn't say the only thing they were going to do was play music off of the thing. The question was directed at sound quality, but it's safe to assume someone buying a laptop has other needs. Can't watch iplayer in bed on a livingroom desktop

wow, so much advice.thanks everybody for it all.very interesting indeed.

cheers

john