I was later to the Mac Studio party than some, who were queuing down the street the day Apple announced. Here’s what I thought of it the day I got it and 6 months on.

The Mac Studio

When Apple announced the Mac Studio back in March 2022, I didn't jump immediately. After all, I was happy with my MacBook Pro running clamshell in my studio with a Caldigit TS3 Plus running the entire studio and then being able to unhook it and use it in the house.

I think I decided to jump over to the Mac Studio because the dream of one portable computer was also somewhat of a nightmare. Not on a technical level, more on a discipline one, in that I’d end up working in the house when I was supposed to be ‘not working’ - I can’t be the only person who has a partner asking ‘you’re not working are you?’ In some ways a rhetorical question that answers itself.

Anyway, for both personal and technical reasons I decided to invest in the Mac Studio for my studio machine. Specifications are:

• M1 Ultra with 20 core CPU and 48 core GPU

• 64GB Unified memory

• 2TB SSD Storage

I also ordered the MyElectronics Mac Studio Rack Mount, which at the time cost €245. An excellent alternative to some of the more costly options, I wrote about it in detail here.

First Impressions

For many professionals buying a new Mac is a somewhat odd experience, especially if you are using the same screen. When I say odd, I mean that many of us clone our old machine and move it over to the new one, then we boot up and to all intents and purposes we are looking at the same machine, only faster. It’s not like, for example, buying a new car.

This was the case, I plugged all my stuff in, having the additional connectivity helps to alleviate the need for hubs and dongles, although in reality I simply plugged in things as I had previoulsy via my Caldigit TS3 Plus hub. You can see the connectivity achieved, from left to right;

Via Caldigit TS3 Plus

1. Fixed LAN connection

2. Connection to 2nd monitor, now redundant

3. Connection to Audient EV16 audio interface

4. Connection back to Mac Studio

5. Connection to front panel of Mac Studio rack as USB3 x 2

Via Mac Studio (only some noted)

1. TB4 to peripheral

2. Connection to drive/chassis cupboard via optical TB3 cable using a TB4 - TB3 adaptor

3. TB4 connection to Studio Display

4. LAN connection to Avid Pro Tools Carbon interface

5. USB connection to USB hub

6. USB connection to Kii Control monitor controller

With all that said, the first thing I noticed was just how quickly this Mac boots up, I’ve not timed it, but sometimes its alive before I’ve had time to turn on my second monitor. I put this down to the joy of a new computer.

The second thing I noticed was how quiet this thing is. When I say quiet, you can put your ear right next to it and there’s hardly any fan noise. Once I’m a metre or so away I can hear nothing, some of my hard drives in a cupboard across the studio are noisier. I had read a handful of reports online about noisy Macs, in fact so noisy you can’t use them in the same room. My advice is take it back and get it fixed if that is the case, the Mac Studio is whisper quite. See the image below, it sits in the area marked by the red box, I can’t hear it in the chair a few feet away.

Of course, for some, hardware and software compatibilty can be challenging at the start of a new generation of a chip change. Thankfully I had already had two previous Macs that use the new Apple Silicon SoC, so those challenges had already been overcome. All my hardware works without issue, this includes an old Sonnet PCi chassis that had to use a Thunderbolt 3 to 4 convertor cable.

If there’s one thing that does annoy me, which is more about the OS than the hardware and that’s Apple’s modern security policies. Sometimes it requires reboots into secret squirrel mode to get drivers and other processes to install and then run. It’s all a bit over the top for the average human to have to go through the hoops, it’s not as if we’re running a bank or national security.

Another odd thing that happened when I first starting using the Mac, is that when I shut down to turn the computer off, I would return the next morning to find the Mac had rebooted. It was nothing to do with any wake on LAN or other power settings, it just seemed to do it. To the point that I took to turning it off at the wall to be safe. Then one day a few months later it fixed itself and now works as expected.

I haven’t mentioned the speed. Put simply, it’s so fast I don’t notice. In other words I’m never wondering if I can squeeze more speed out of it, it just seems to have the headroom to deliver whatever the task. I’m yet to work on a DAW session or a video edit that I’ve wished I had more power.

Six Months On

Now it’s around six months since those first impressions. The honeymoon is over and I’m filling up the drive with tons of stuff. My data house keeping has never been the best, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d given the Mac reasons to be slower.

Fact is, boot time is still as fast as it always was. It’s still as quiet as the first day I booted. The weird issue with it turning itself on isn’t happening any longer.

My report six months on is pretty boring. The Mac Ultra is as lightning fast, as quiet, and as rock solid as the day I bought it and installed it as the centrepiece of my studio.

Since purchasing it I also added a Pro Tools Carbon Interface and more recently a Studio Display. I now have a super quiet, HDX powered studio with crystal clear images for video editing work. I think it’s damn near a perfect set-up for any small studio, both for music, and after Avid’s recent Carbon update, for post too. I’m certainly not tempted by a Mac Pro 2023 in the slightest, this is all I need.

Roger Guerin came to the same conclusion about the Mac Studio

I know some people struggle to think that an aluminium block this small can compare with a large tower, I understand that. Many of us have had at least a decade of using the Mac Pro in its various iterations. I used the original Cheese-Grater and Two Trashcans Mac Pros, they all served me well.

Can a Mac Studio replace the old paradigm? Yes, and then some!