Major studio upgrade question please

[HCMarkus]

Which Mac Studio did you get ?
Regrets or " I wish I would have bought that one instead " ?

I ordered the M1 Ultra 64GB/2TB the day Apple announced it. Do I really need that much horsepower? Probably not.
But we all know, headroom is a good thing when in the studio.

[James Steele]

UAD : lots of plugin that I use a LOT are not native , so I think I'll jump with the Sonnet box.

How many SHARC processors on your card? I had a UAD-2 DUO card and bought a Sonnet Box that I think cost me about $300. The sonnet box had a fan and although it was reasonably quiet it was louder than my M1 Max Mac Studio. I ultimately returned the box and decided to apply that $300 toward a new UAD-2 TB3 Satellite OCTO. Yeah... maybe I went overboard, but I never have to worry about running out of power for what I'm doing. There's also deals to be had on Satellites on used website because all the conventional wisdom is pronouncing external DSP dead. I just checked FB marketplace and found a used TB3 Satellite OCTO for $600.

Anyway... food for thought.

[tremo]

Like the OP, I had 2 UAD Solo PCIe cards and lots of plugins. When I went from a 5,1 Mac Pro to a Mac Studio (M1 Max), I bought a Quad TB3 Satellite. Given the fact that I now have the option of using native versions of many of my UAD plugins (at no extra cost!), I've never even come close to maxing out the Satellite.

[fokof]

How many SHARC processors on your card?

I have a Duo and a Quad card , I'll probably end up ditching the Duo
Good idea for the used TB3 satellite though ....

I'll also have to change and buy a couple of things : second screen , USB-C dock , HD docks , cables , the list goes on

I also have a 1st gen silver Appollo at work , I might decide to bring it home and use that instead .... decisions , decisions ....

Thanx for the ideas , helpful !!

[mariosprt]

Hi

I might keep the Mac Pro , until I have space to do so

I actually am based around MacBooks since 2008 but got a 2006 first generation Mac Pro for peanuts 4 years ago to replace all my FW/USB external HDs as I had enough of power adapters, cables, power switches and HDs failing before they were supposed to. Don’t regret it, no HD fails ever since, a single power cable and switch and… I can access all my data on the network even on the couch or bed.
I know I could do that with a NAS but (a) the Mac Pro solution is cheaper and (b) looks way cooler!

The difference between what we Paid vs what we can have for it now is so heartbreaking

Ture, so keeping it for long term storage might be an option.
As a side note I replaced the dual 2-core CPUs with dual 4-core and added 32Gb RAM just because none of these cost more than 30euro and I can say a have 8-core monster