Opinion on rack mounted DAW

[Braveheart]

Had it with Dell and HP boxes, just can't get them configured well even though they meet specs. I want to get setup with a real rack mounted PC unit. Was thinking of Sweet Water Creation Station Rack. Seems like good support knowledge for working with PT LE and such. However, their attitude in sales was a bit harsh when trying to ask a few simple questions or see if they can do any system customizing "No!".

Found these guys www.samplebytes.com. They are steering me towards the quad rack box so I can do 16 record tracks at once, etc. That's what I want.

Anyone have any experience with their stuff? Any other suggestions? Also any opinion about going to 64 bit XP? I've looked at others like Spectral and Axx something (replace xx's with appropriate chars) but prices seem higher and support lower.

003 Rack
Glyph 250
M-Audio Octane 8-Pre
Dell Insp 530

[IntelDoc]

Why not build your own PC for WAY CHEAPER and go from there.

Quads are CHEAP now....

http://www.mypccase.com/

Just a thought... I built my Quad for under 2K and put it together myself. Guarentee it will blow that Sweetwater crap away.

Granted now it is running HD it worked well for my LE setup.

Pretty ongoing thread right at the top of the LE forum about the Quads, and Octas...

http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.p...b=5&o=&fpart=1

Doc

[sunburst79]

I built my own rack mount DAW in a I-Star brand case, VERY heavy duty case! Spectral Computer was using the same cases.

I thoroughly recommend rolling you own Quad.

When looking for a rack case you want a 4 space case. This will let you run a standard ATX quiet PSU which is importent as most of the 2 and 3 space cases will come with a server style PSU and they are often NOISY!. The other limitation to a 4 Space rack case over a standard ATX tower is that a 4 unit rack case is around 1/4 shorter height wise than a standard ATX case. The only time when this really comes into play is if you are trying to mount a monster CPU heat sink like the Thermalright Ultra 120. You will find the heat sink is about 1/8 taller than the case.., The Zalman CPNS9700 and the Scythe Ninja series will fit though and do a great job of quieting things down. You can build something thats better, quieter and faster than store bought but theres no 1-800-HELP-ME! number. You would need to balance that against the money saved.

[Braveheart]

Thanks guys. I was building these things when the XT was the hot new thing and we couldn't wait for the 286 but that was a long time ago.

These Samplebyte guys are a smaller operation and their Quad rack is at $1749. The SW guys are at $2999 with slightly more disk space and andother mb of ram. I don't need the space, the Samplebyte guys will delete the internal storage but SW won't. I think I'll go with the quad from SB. Free shipping this month.

P.S. I have no association with these guys. I'll let ya know if the system works out.