Hi, I am starting to sniff around for another pre-built audio computer. It’ll be my third one ever, the first was Carillon, and my current is an ADK from 2014, still going strong, but falling a little behind in terms of computing power. I loved the phone and “remoting in” support ADK gave as well!
Why past tense, “I loved …”? Well, I would buy another system from ADK in a heartbeat, but the company is under new ownership recently, and i have no idea whether buying a new computer from the new company would be anything at all like previously.
So, anyone with recommendations nowadays? I have been talking with Chris Ludwig who was the big kahuna at ADK in the old days. He’s got a new company, https://www.fundamentalav.com/ , and he’s been very helpful to me in the past few weeks in bringing my old ADK into the current era after being idle for a few years - I’ll definitely be looking at him when I do purchase.
Long story short … If you’ve recently bought a pre-built computer in the US, please share your experiences - hardware, software, support, etc.
Thank you!
W10 on Intel(R) Core™ i5-4570 CPU @ 3.20GHz, 16 GB RAM
I got a new PC from ADK about 6 months ago. It was a replacement for an aging ADK DAW (under old ownership). Great overall experience. I came in with what I thought was a good configuration. After chatting about specific usage that got tweaked a bit. Fairly fast delivery considering it’s built to order and includes burn-in.
Don’t want to jinx anything, but very satisfied so far.
I can highly, highly recommend the fanless PCs from https://silentpc.com/. They are completely fanless (meaning they are completely quiet and make zero noise - that’s critical if that PC is going to be in your studio!), yet they offer all the latest high performance components (Alder Lake processors, up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, the highest-performance SSDs, can drive up to three 4K screens, etc.).
I am using this one myself, and am super happy with it as the centerpiece of my studio running Cubase 12 on Windows 11:
Basically just running it for awhile (I think ADK does 24 hours) doing some work. Electronic devices tend to fail when they are old (duh) and also when they are brand spanking new. A burn-in is designed to catch those early failures.
I have used https://www.fundamentalav.com/ Chris Ludwig to build and service my Latest Recording/Video Studio Computer. I have had my studio since 1972, so I have been through many builds.
The box he built is amazing but most of all, HE DOES back up his computers with EXCELLENT responsive tech support ass promised. He is the REAL DEAL!
I would just add that Chris https://www.fundamentalav.com/
was one of the main guys from ADK before it got sold, I still have a c. 2014 machine from them I use, it works fine for me, he helped me a lot then, and recently helped me start up that same machine when I got it out of mothballs a while ago.
Not only great service, but speaking to him on the phone for extended periods of time, he seems like a good guy too.
