And now we return to our regularly programmed schedule...

Back from Christmas With The Rednecks, and right in to it. Over the break, I got a letter from Michael Liero, who pondered the following:
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Over the last
few years I have been running ableton live and reason on a very outdated
800mhz P3 gateway which I’ve owned for over five years. Im finally ready to purchase a new computer and was looking at an iMac, due to the fact that I am on a limited budget. I was goin to run ableton and reason on it with a presonus firebox, do you think that an iMac would be sufficient for a [computer just used as a] DAW?
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Well, speaking strictly from a dollars to power ratio, I think buying a PC would be a wiser choice, if you can’t afford one of the big gun Macs. For a grand, you can build/buy a pretty powerful PC, whereas the cheapest iMac is gonna set you back $1299, and is a long way from anything that could be described as a “powerhouse.” Plus you’ll need to get an external 7200 RPM FW drive. Your plugin and track counts in Live are gonna be on the low side, as well. The iMac isn’t a computer very well-suited to production chores, in my humble opinion.

From a usability standpoint, it’s strictly a matter of taste. I personally use a (quite powerful) PC for music because Nuendo is Nuendo, so who cares? I just want to use a shitload of plugins and not spend $4000 doing it. However, I vastly prefer OSX for my email, web surfing, iChat, iTunes, etc., and I am, in fact, writing this on my trusty iBook, which has been beat to hell, and still works fine. So, what does everyone else think? Let’s keep this from degenerating in to a platform flame-fest. From a strictly professional viewpoint, should Michael spend $1299 on the new iMac, or put that same money in to a more powerful but less friendly PC?