Anderton
I know Brian, he doesn't take it personally - guaranteed. He's just had to dodge too many Mac people telling him PCs are no good for music, and PC owners who say SONAR sucks because it has zillions of dropouts and can run only 3 tracks of audio   And yes, they really do work their butt off. When I bought my machine they asked what programs I ran, and installed and tested every one on the machine to make sure they would work together. They they deleted all traces of the programs so when I installed, there wouldn't be anything left festering in the registry. Companies like PC Audio Labs, Studio Cat, ADK, etc. aren't just companies...they're on a mission to save the world from bad Windows experiences. Most people aren't as technically savvy as many of the people on these forums...you know who they are, they're the ones who say "Yeah, I'm getting 100 tracks and it never crashes." 
 
It's a good thing Brian doesn't hang out much here, I think some of the people claiming SONAR crashes all the time would drive him up the wall. I can just see him yelling to the walls in a Sam Kinison voice -- "IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!!! NO, YOU CAN'T USE INTERNAL SOUND CARDS FOR AUDIO!!!! JUST BECAUSE MICROSOFT SAYS "2 GB OF RAM" SYSTEM REQUIREMENT DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN ACTUALLY DO ANY USEFUL WORK WITH THE COMPUTER!!! NO IT'S NOT A GAMING MACHINE, IT'S A MULTITRACK RECORDER!!!!!!!"

This is EXACTLY how I've had to be on Gearslutz :P 

My next system will be built by those with the wisdom to do it correctly.
When I got back into serious songwriting I went thru several "top of the line" Costco systems...
They all sucked... they all went back.  Thank you, Costco...
 
I spend endless nights compiling the best parts list for power silent DAW tools and spent a wad at Newegg... A friend who owns a local computer shop put it together... was ok... but no cigar.
 
After a motherboard failure I upgraded to my current 6 core monster (at least, a couple years ago it was!) and have been relatively happy.  But I KNOW it is subpar, and even my rudamentary suggestions weren't followed; it still freaks out periodically and crashes more often than I'd like.  My win10 upgrade actually slowed startups/song loads.  I'm living with it at the moment but I know I should have left it to those who do this with a passion, dedication and understanding most others lack.   Penny wise and pound foolish, especially my latest build...which did NOT go smoothly.
 
In the next year I'll be turning this maschine, which has served me well, despite the above, into a slave running under VEP... and the new vaster maschine will be built by one of the three experts mentioned in this thread.  If I consider the thousands of head scratching moments and frustrated "WTF"'s I've experienced on my current power system, I was foolish to ask anyone but them to build a system, given my particular circumstances.

Vastman
My next system will be built by those with the wisdom to do it correctly.
When I got back into serious songwriting I went thru several "top of the line" Costco systems...
They all sucked... they all went back.  Thank you, Costco...
 
I spend endless nights compiling the best parts list for power silent DAW tools and spent a wad at Newegg... A friend who owns a local computer shop put it together... was ok... but no cigar.
 
After a motherboard failure I upgraded to my current 6 core monster (at least, a couple years ago it was!) and have been relatively happy.  But I KNOW it is subpar, and even my rudamentary suggestions weren't followed; it still freaks out periodically and crashes more often than I'd like.  My win10 upgrade actually slowed startups/song loads.  I'm living with it at the moment but I know I should have left it to those who do this with a passion, dedication and understanding most others lack.   Penny wise and pound foolish, especially my latest build...which did NOT go smoothly.
 
In the next year I'll be turning this maschine, which has served me well, despite the above, into a slave running under VEP... and the new vaster maschine will be built by one of the three experts mentioned in this thread.  If I consider the thousands of head scratching moments and frustrated "WTF"'s I've experienced on my current power system, I was foolish to ask anyone but them to build a system, given my particular circumstances.

We've been doing a lot of VEP machines lately, they've been a lot of fun to configure. 
 

brianobedia

Anderton
I know Brian, he doesn't take it personally - guaranteed. He's just had to dodge too many Mac people telling him PCs are no good for music, and PC owners who say SONAR sucks because it has zillions of dropouts and can run only 3 tracks of audio   And yes, they really do work their butt off. When I bought my machine they asked what programs I ran, and installed and tested every one on the machine to make sure they would work together. They they deleted all traces of the programs so when I installed, there wouldn't be anything left festering in the registry. Companies like PC Audio Labs, Studio Cat, ADK, etc. aren't just companies...they're on a mission to save the world from bad Windows experiences. Most people aren't as technically savvy as many of the people on these forums...you know who they are, they're the ones who say "Yeah, I'm getting 100 tracks and it never crashes." 
 
It's a good thing Brian doesn't hang out much here, I think some of the people claiming SONAR crashes all the time would drive him up the wall. I can just see him yelling to the walls in a Sam Kinison voice -- "IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!!! NO, YOU CAN'T USE INTERNAL SOUND CARDS FOR AUDIO!!!! JUST BECAUSE MICROSOFT SAYS "2 GB OF RAM" SYSTEM REQUIREMENT DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN ACTUALLY DO ANY USEFUL WORK WITH THE COMPUTER!!! NO IT'S NOT A GAMING MACHINE, IT'S A MULTITRACK RECORDER!!!!!!!"

This is EXACTLY how I've had to be on Gearslutz :P 

 
haha - yes GS can be that way sometimes (well...most of the time really

I have one of Jim's ProRack machines and have been extremely satisfied with it. Not only with the quality craftmanship using high quality components, but the tremendous aftercare he provides me when I seem hellbent on burning it to the ground! Thanks Jim!!! I even talked a friend into getting one.

Support is a big deal; it's one of the most important things you're buying.  That's something we've worked very hard to make a priority, and I know it makes a difference.  
 
 

I think a lot of it comes down to how professional your use of the machine is.  e.g. if you run a studio, perhaps as a professional audio engineer then for sure it's worth investing properly in what is your livelihood.
 
For the home studio / hobbyist level of requirement, I would suggest to build your own machine (or buy a decent barebones one) and buy your own operating system license (at least professional level for Windows variants) rather than buy a machine with an OEM licensed OS pre-installed, in particular to avoid all the ever-expanding bloatware/bundleware guff.  It's mostly all the crap that comes bundled with OEM licensed machines that drag them down.  A lot of it (looking at you, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba!) is also riddled with security holes that you could drive a truck through.  Seriously, if you have any of: Lenovo Solution Center, Dell System Detect, Toshiba Service Station installed, uninstall it toute-suite!
 
I built and configured my own machine for a modest price and it's more than adequate for my needs (which are far from professional ofc); the most load I put it under is probably multi-tracking my vDrums kit, i.e. recording 8 tracks simultaneously.  It handles that just fine, is very quiet and is rock solid stable.

i got lucky with one budget computer, not so much with the one before that.
a dedicated computer, no windows updates/mcaffee/internet connection really helps, at least that's my experience...and agree ofcourse a computer from a specialist is best.

I am guessing that most peoples problems with crashes are, on balance, software conflicts, rather than hardware insufficientsy or failure. Do any of these boutique companies perform optimization on machines that they did not sell? As mentioned on an earlier post, I have a Rain Ion (Xeon) that is a powerful, well appointed custom component machine with 24 gig of ram. I have Sonar Plat. but my DAW has been largely unusable since Sonar X3E. It is my fault that I have failed to continue to work rigorously with tech support to resolve my problems. They have been well intentioned in helping me, but after many phone sessions, Sonar was even less usable. I'm ashamed to admit that, I have run out of time, energy, and patience, and have been procrastinating the revival of my efforts to get things working properly. I would be happy to pay a slightly more than fair price to have someone straighten things out. While Rain was in business, they had excellent tech support and were always able to solve what problems came up. The downside of boutique companies is that they might disappear overnight. If any of you companies would like my business, let me know.

mgh
on the other hand, my £400 Ebay PC is still going fine after 4 years...i did make sure of some of the components (i5-750, fanless 1gb graphics card, Win 7 x64), but the hardware is essentially cheap (MSI mobo, no-name PSU etc). use onboard FW with an Echo Audiofire AI.
i don't do mega-intensive work, but 20 audio tracks, 5 softsynths, 50 FX+ on most projects, no sweat. and it's also an Internet PC, does video-editing, office work....
 
so you can make music on cheaper gear!

just to say that 2 years later, the same PC is still going fine, it now has Win 10 onboard and 8gb RAM rather than 4 but has never given a moments bother thus far.