Need a new laptop for running Sonar

import from the US with the EU as stong as it is..

Yep

What interface do you use?

Audioreason


...however I am from Europe and I cannot afford to wait for a laptop delivered from US I am afraid. I have taken a job and it was quite unexpected so I should purchase a laptop until the middle of next week.

So, I know that the obvious choice is an audio specialist laptop, but I would appreciate input from users who had success with some off the shelf laptops.

I've recently bought the US equivalent of this machine. Very low DPC latency out of the box and hardly any bloatware to remove. It was a steal at $550. Very fast 2nd gen. i5 processor and four USB ports, two of them being 3.0!

Stevethesearcher

Audioreason


Hello everybody, it's nice to be here!

I am going to be on the road very soon and I urgently need to get a laptop for running Sonar X1.

Unfortunately, 3XS does not provide one at the moment and I am in need of a laptop as soon as possible anyway.

I am willing to spend around 1500 to 1800 euros on a laptop.

Anyone here having success with an off the self laptop? I have found some well spec'd Toshiba's and Sony Vaios.

However, what I will obviously need is:

Low DPC latency. This is the most critical part, and unfortunately you cannot be sure about this until you bought the laptop.

7200 rpm hard drive- Some Sony Vaios offer 7200 rpm hard drives.

Firewire connectivity if possible.

I would appreciate any input as I want to have Sonar setup and running in almost a week.

Thank you!

Audio Reason- I am in the exact same boat as you. I am looking for a Laptop to record audio and I am looking for the same specs as you. However I dont want to spend more than 1500 Euro maximum. I was aware of ADK but how long would it take for them to ship to Europe. I am not sure what to do. www.scancomputers.co.uk also do audio Laptops but at present they dont have any stock. Then there is also Inta-audio. They are both Uk companies.

I was looking at Sony Vaios because I want a Firewire port but I am not sure if they are good for audio. The Toshiba Qosmio was also a consideration although thats a bit pricey for me.

Really its hard to find a Laptop at the moment because most of them have dropped Firewire which is a killer for me. It was easier two or three years ago to find a Laptop. At present I am using a Toshiba which works fine for me but its now three and a half years old and I am looking for something better.

Steve,

I know, things are harder now than what it was 5 or even 2 years ago. In the past I had a Vaio and after that a Toshiba, both of them performed excellent. Vaio was as good as it could be and had a gorgeous screen, that some other audio specialist laptops don't have and are horrible to look at for hours. That said, a 3XS laptop I have tried (the one reviewed on Sound On Sound) was amazing and had a very clear screen.

The Toshiba was even better than the Vaio because it was a much faster machine (Core2Duo) but I experienced some problems with USB devices when things got VERY heavy(I was running 10 usb devices 2 of which were hard drives!). But it served me well without even being a specialist audio laptop. I even had a record produced on it that went for release right of my Toshiba! Of course it needed the proper setup with the Windows, de-activating some devices, but I know how to do this stuff.

Things are completely different now because there are hidden options locked away in the BIOS of the new systems. Nevertheless some laptops still perform well. I checked a Vaio in notebookcheck.com and it had very good DPC latency values, however it is not the model I am finding here.

Hope I find something during the week cause I have to set it up with plugins and stuff a well!

Hi,

I bought MSI GE620 last week. Now, I am installing and tweaking everything, and I am getting constant 50-80 µs DPC latency. I have not had a chance to try it with Sonar and a complex project yet, but I will this weekend.