Out With The Old, Help Me Find My New

Haha I didn't want to say it but I'm glad you guys did! There are definitely a lot of better options than Beats that cost about half the price. I wouldn't buy a pair of Beats if you paid me.

holy s#!+ these beats are expensive. 

 

AKG K702 are half less and better. Focal Spirits are half less and better. Senns HD600 are half less and better. List goes on.

SSD is soldered on the mother board now. Get AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AFFORD, or you'll be weeping in the long run. (I bought a maxed out 2012 everything except SSD, and eventually i ugpraded it to max for the model (756gb).

 

The speed of the internal is nowhere near anything you can get external. Get less CPU and get more SSD if necessary.

Double post

Get AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AFFORD, or you'll be weeping in the long run. (I bought a maxed out 2012 everything except SSD, and eventually i ugpraded it to max for the model (756gb).

A 2012 non-retina 15-inch MBP can take up to 2TB SSDs

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro/2012

Get AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AFFORD, or you'll be weeping in the long run. (I bought a maxed out 2012 everything except SSD, and eventually i ugpraded it to max for the model (756gb).

A 2012 non-retina 15-inch MBP can take up to 2TB SSDs

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro/2012

oopsy, should clarify, retina. 1TB aftermarkets, but I got apple branded for less money so i ran with it.

either way, when buying new, storage is soldered to the board

 

dang triplets, you dont like me that much do you?  

when buying new, storage is soldered to the board

 

dang triplets, you dont like me that much do you?  

Of course all the new laptops have soldered components. Otherwise the upgrade cycle takes too long, bad for business.

In regards to me not liking you, as you claim, you gave me a chance to clarify a common confusion on the 2012 models. So I like you very much! 

fair enough

A little bit off topic but is it really important for you to buy the Beats headphones now? You might want to wait till Black Friday to get those. You can save quite a bit of money.

I do not want the Beats headphones. There just bundled as a free gift right now. They would be placed on local classifieds immediately upon receiving. I just see it as away to salvage a bit of money back after my purchase.

A little bit off topic but is it really important for you to buy the Beats headphones now? You might want to wait till Black Friday to get those. You can save quite a bit of money.

I do not want the Beats headphones. Trust me I know better. There just bundled as a free gift right now. They would be placed on local classifieds immediately upon receiving. I just see it as away to salvage a bit of money back after my purchase. Basically $200 off from the purchase price because Im sure some teenager with mom and dads money will pay $200 for sealed Beats.

Im not comfortable going with a 2012 model as I am a bit cautious when it comes to electronics and warranties. Being that it is a 5 year old computer Im not comfortable taking the chance. The 2015 model I listed above can still do SSD swaps. They are not soldered in. As far as I can tell they are a PCI-e connection. I watched a video online and it could be swapped if needed. Of course with storage I always have external options, as well as the option of a BaseQI with the 2015 Model if I needed a little extra storage. I know the R/W speeds wouldnt be as good but I have to look at the long run here. Storage is always achievable. Processor speed is not. Obviously swapping hard drives and data would be annoying but I could live with it. Especially for the amount of storage I need. I could easily get by with a 256gb SSD. 512gb SSD would be convenient as heck . However a 2.8ghz processor would be the better upgrade choice I think as I have no alternative in the future. 

My biggest concern is the Dual GPU of the 2016. Thats where I think I may see some difference. However that model eliminates having a BaseQI as a storage option as well as adds some additional costs for adapters and dongles.

Also to help with prices. How important is getting Apple care? I can afford a new base MBP 15" with touch bar if I drop the Apple care but I read that the repair ability is terrible on those .

 

I can also afford the 2.8ghz 2015 with the 256gb SSD

I had a 2011 MBP dual core and as Triplets said it didn't matter what I did with the upgrade, I couldn't get rid of the freezes. I did every upgrade possible and still had freezes.

Now I have a 2015 quad core with an i7 and I have no problems. I think it may have frozen once. I sometimes get the beach ball if I change plugins while I'm playing live. Even then it lasts a maximum of ten seconds. And it's only happened maybe five times. 

I would have run out of space in a week with 256Gb. 

I try never to disagree with Triplets or David Nahmani, but I do recall checking the clock speed of my 2015 and as I recall it was about the same as the touch bar model that came out a year later. I might be wrong. In any event, it does everything I want. 

The i ky third party plugin I ever used was EZDrummer.

Hmm. I don't have experience with EZ Drummer, I use Addictive Drums instead. But anyway, I'm using a 2011 MacBook Pro 2.3 Hz i7 and I don't have CPU spikes unless I'm using multiple instances of Serum, Omnisphere or Alchemy. 

I would recommend the non Touch Bar version, definitely. Watch the video below if you're still leaning towards the Touch Bar version.

While this is kind of off-topic, I was wondering if you're currently running on MacOS High Sierra? If so, and since you use Addictive Drums 2, do you happen to be experiencing any compatibility issues with the plugin? I'm currently running on High Sierra and my Addictive Drums 2 plugin in no longer works on GarageBand. I just wanted to see if anybody else was experiencing the same thing.

While this is kind of off-topic, I was wondering if you're currently running on MacOS High Sierra? If so, and since you use Addictive Drums 2, do you happen to be experiencing any compatibility issues with the plugin? I'm currently running on High Sierra and my Addictive Drums 2 plugin in no longer works on GarageBand. I just wanted to see if anybody else was experiencing the same thing.

Yes I'm running High Sierra, say so in my signature. No compatibility issues with Addictive Drums 2 whatsoever. 

I always buy equipment from the "refurbished equipment" section that is tucked-away on apple.com.

 

And, for as long as it may last, I do spring for AppleCare, for as long a period as I can get.  (Then, on my taxes, I amortize the cost of the equipment for however long that warranty will last.)

 

I have never bought a single piece of equipment from Apple, in all these years (since the beginning of the company, in fact ...) that was "new" at the time.