@OP: Here's my take on the situation - take it as you will. I don't much care for these debates and the fanaticism and outright bigotry they appear to inevitably inspire.
You strike me as someone on a budget, trying to get the very most you can out of a financially-conscious purchase. That would put you in the same boat with the other 98% of us on the forum (and perhaps the wider world).
My goals, not implying that you share them, dictate to me that I should gear my buying decisions toward getting the best quality end product out of my purchase, for as little money spent as possible. Best sound quality, dollar for dollar, weighed against the speed and efficiency inherent to a more costly computer. Going with that logic, in your case I see two viable solutions, both being centered around a PC platform. Here they are:
1) Purchase a PC with (roughly) equivalent specs to the iMac you are considering. Use the spare few thousand dollars saved over to invest in gear that improves the actual sound quality of your work. Better plug-ins, better outboard, essentially anything better than the free plug-ins you are aspiring toward. At the end of the day, whether or not you get a Mac or PC, you've just got another number crunching machine. Whichever way they crunch numbers, they'll both still run your DAW (unless it's Logic
) and they'll both still sum the same. One costs more than the other. One is (arguably) easier to operate and more foolproof than the other. I won't say 'reliable', as they both essentially run off gear made by the same manufacturers; the only significant factor is warranty and support as far as hardware goes. So once again, I would run with the custom PC and use the savings to purchase gear that retains more fidelity, sounds more musical, offers greater options etc. etc. Basically, gear that is somewhat consequential as far as the audible end product is concerned.
2) Use the same amount of money as you would spend on the iMac and use it on a custom built PC. You will get better specs. You will crunch numbers faster. You will twiddle your thumbs for less time, waiting for tracks to bounce (provided you're not running outboard and/or ProTools). You will be able to run more tracks, more plug-in instances and crunch larger numbers in real time. Dollar for dollar, for my purposes (and hopefully yours), the machine that has the most end number crunching potential is the most logical purchase. This is counter-weighed by the fact that:
-You will be running a greatly outdated OS.
-You need knowledge on setting up and maintaining such a machine as your OS is old, clunky, bloated & untweaked. (Hint: TinyXP).
-You will need to augment your OS and workflow with 3rd party software in many cases.
-You won't be running Logic.
-You may find the cost in time & patience necessitated by all the above factors outweighs the benefits of a more powerful machine.
So there's the situation and the options as I see them. You've likely gathered by now that I'm a PC user. I have been one for over a decade or so now. My major experiences, running Macs on a semi-regular basis started roughly 4 years ago - when I first started recording in professional studio facilities. I took a dislike to them from the moment I'd started using them, and my experiences in the subsequent 4 years have done nothing to change my impressions.
This is getting a bit off topic now, but I figure I should stay within the spirit of the thread and voice my needless propaganda at you for good measure. What I tend to dislike most about Apple is perhaps the user base, or at least the sort of mentality it cultivates. The level of arrogance, smugness & elitism exhibited by a good 90% of Mac users I have ever encountered is perhaps only matched by the sector of the populace who drive hybrid cars. Apple's advertising approach is a thinly-veiled smear campaign against PCs, no less foul than what the political parties engage in leading up to an election. I'm sure you guys in the US would've had your fill of that in recent times. I'd say the same for Oz, whenever it was that our current dipshit was elected, but I don't even bother watching TV anymore, so no.
Anywhoo, I tend to avoid getting caught up in these threads, but since you seem to genuinely want some advice on the best system to buy, I couldn't help but chip in with my thoughts. I believe that buying the most powerful machine, buck-for-buck is in line with the better approach to take in this situation. Save what money you can and invest it in gear that will improve your tone-retention (pres, converters, clocks) or tone-sculpting (EQs, comps, verbs, delays, blah blah) rather than giving too much creed to the platform that crunches your numbers.
