jdb8167

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  • New AirPods firmware enables Spatial Audio, automatic switching

    jdb8167jdb8167
    hydrogen said:
    I have a question : this article refers to IOS and MacOS to enable the spatial audio feature, but (at least to me), in practice the interest is when watching films from your AppleTV. Has anyone experienced this feature from his AppleTV ?
    Doesn’t seem to be available and Apple hasn’t said it would be either as far as I know. A bit of a strange oversight unless their is a technical reason why it isn’t doable. 
    hydrogen

  • First Apple silicon Macs likely to be MacBook rebirth, iMac with custom GPU

    jdb8167jdb8167
    Apple has already stated for the record that they are going to use their own GPU. Why is this written as speculation?

    They have also stated that they are designing Mac specific SoCs. So no, it won’t be an A14X. Though it might use the same core design but the number of CPU and GPU cores are going to be Mac specific. 
    foregoneconclusionRayz2016mwhitecornchiptmaypatchythepiratemariowincospock1234firelockwatto_cobra

  • Compared: 2020 27-inch iMac vs 2019 iMac 5K

    jdb8167jdb8167

    Pylons said:
    Regarding putting an ARM Mac in a recording studio I'd be very careful for the first year, until all software and plugins have been updated to natively support it. Unless you're used to always updating your software to the latest version as soon as it comes out. In my experience, from the 3 or 4 studios I have recorded in as a musician (and previously having a small home studio myself), studios are very reluctant to experiment with the latest and would rather prefer something that is already tried and tested. That said, music production is not as computationally heavy as for example video editing, and even advanced effects or VST instruments could potentially run well under Rosetta emulation.
    Note that I am not saying that studios will prefer Intel Macs indefinitely. Of course they will also move to ARM, but as with anyone depending on a production environment for living, it may take a little longer for ARM Macs to get there. 
    One thing that you can check up on for whatever studio software you are using is how they load their plug-ins. If they load the plug-ins in a separate process instead of sharing memory with the application, then you can mix and match Apple and Intel freely. If they load into the local memory of the application, then you have to have everything Apple or everything Intel. Obviously for performance, the first scenario is preferable. Once the application is updated to support Apple Silicon, it won't matter if the plug-in developers are slow or out of business.

    I'd certainly check before purchasing any new software or paying for significant updates.
    FileMakerFellerbaconstangwatto_cobrahippo

  • The high-end 27-inch iMac is more 'pro' than the iMac Pro is

    jdb8167jdb8167
    I don't seem to be able to find documentation about the current iMac Pro CPUs: Xeon W2150B, W2170B or W2191B on Intel's website. That usually means that they are custom parts made only for Apple. But looking to see if Intel has anything that can replace them, I don't see much. The latest Xeon Ws in the same category are all 165W TDP where the current parts are 140W. Maybe the cooling can handle another 25W or maybe not. But the caches on the newer chips: W2255, W2275 and W2295, seem smaller and given the minor Turbo updates, generally about 200 MHz - 500 MHz, with maybe a slight architecture improvement with Cascade Lake, I doubt that performance will improve much with the newer parts. 

    This more or less sums up why Apple had to go to their own silicon. Intel's Xeon are still 14nm parts with minor performance changes after 3 years. 
    Xedwatto_cobra

  • How to pick the best monitor for studying and working from home

    jdb8167jdb8167
    I’m not sure I agree with the minimum specs on the 4K category. I bought a 24” 4K LG display for use with a Mac mini. The size of 24” seems more appropriate for 4K than 27”. Running at the Mac default resolution gives you 1920x1080 which at 24” is higher DPI than it would be at 27”. I tend to keep the monitor at a scaled 2048x1152 as a compromise between the Retina default and a bit more screen real estate. macOS does a very good job on the monitor scaling support. 

    The good thing is that the LG monitor was cheap at ~$300. No real features: display port and HDMI for inputs, no speakers but it does have headphone out to connect external speakers. It is adequate for my needs as a cheap monitor for the mini. The stand is exceptionally cheap but I plan on replacing it with VESA arm that rotates anyway. The display is good quality.
    rundhvidwatto_cobra