Why are there so many Mac users?

Even though I have owned Macs from the beginning, it was Amarra, Weiss, and the use of Firewire that achieved a level of performance that I have not heard in any other digital. I just think it is ridiculous that USB is being used. AES/EBU and S/P Dif sound much better than USB if you are not going to use the best, Firewire. Incidentally, I hate Itunes, but Amarra takes over and you hardly notices its sales pitches.

Even though I have owned Macs from the beginning, it was Amarra, Weiss, and the use of Firewire that achieved a level of performance that I have not heard in any other digital. I just think it is ridiculous that USB is being used.

I'm pretty sure Firewire's been used in Pro-audio since before adopted by PC-audio high-end manufacturers. There are implementations of USB that are better than others (USB>I2S, and asynchronous USB). As I understand it, using Firewire requires custom plug-in software that is proprietary to the device used, whereas USB can be implemented more simply and universally without plug-in software. A recent review of Empirical Audio's OffRamp and DAC in TAS (FWIW) claimed that the USB combo of the OffRamp and Empirical's new DAC surpassed the performance of the Weiss Minerva with Firewire interface. In that same article (again, you throw in as much grains of salt as you see fit) the reviewer claimed that using the Empirical USB Offramp with the Minerva improved on the direct connection of the Minerva via Firewire. Details in the Feb '10 TAS.

Rwwear - sounds like your GF needs a new MacBook :-) I actually use a Macbook, but NOT for a music server (I use my tower for that) and would not recommend the base MacBook for that purpose. Especially not older ones...they will not run the current OS (10.6) well at all. It's the same planned obsolescence with PC's - my brother and I just replaced my Mom's PC (only 3-4 years old which is a lifetime in the PC world - this is not exclusive to either platform) for similar reasons. The hardware has to keep up with the software and eventually it will clog up and bog down. The new OS for both platforms requires more RAM, more HD free space and more processor power than ever (even though streaming music is not really processor/memory intensive). FTR - I would definitely choose a MacMini or iMac as a music server over a laptop.

This is a development machine and I have a master image for my dev boxes as such, there is no bloatware. I run the Altiris suite which is Symantec, and a number of background processes (~ 50) as any Windows box would in the course of dev.

It is not surprising at all to me, the way that memory and multitasking are handled falls in line with the difference in performance when running multiple apps.

Not to be rude, but I think this topic is getting to far into left field for this thread, so I hope everyone likes there boxes and I hope they yield what you desire, but I again am going to respectfully back away from the merits of one vs the other. The fact is I use both albeit for different tasks...

Amarra is quite nice :)

"The new OS for both platforms requires more RAM, more HD free space and more processor power than ever (even though streaming music is not really processor/memory intensive)."

No, new Snow Leopard requires 100MB less disk space than Leopard. Also Snow Leopard runs faster - check here: http://www.macworld.com/article/142425/2009/08/snow_leopard_performance.html

As for firewire - in general firewire is peer-to-peer network where devices are inteligent and can negotiate bus conflicts. USB is a Master-Slave architecture where devices are dumb. Firewire has separate processing unit and can make transfers without loading main processor while USB always slows down processing (depends on main uP).