Which mac is best for audio editing

I will soon be going to college for sound engineering, and i will be in the market for a mac. What would be the best for proffessional level audio editing/recording. Would a desktop be cheaper or more reliable than a lap top? Also, what should i look for? I have funds up to 3 grand but would prefer to keep it closer to 2,000. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

I would get a macbook pro since you will be at school and portability will be an issue. I would also get a set of studio monitors for your desk which are more accurate then regular speakers.

I think it depends, Ive been learning to record from my business partner and from what Ive done so far I would never do it on a laptop. We use pro tools and it runs very smooth with his new comp(power mac 3ghz) Before he had a G5 1.6ghz and it was getting to the point were it just wouldnt run any of the mized songs because it couldnt handle it. Id say if you plan on opening your own studio I would get a desktop. If you dont plan on doing something like that till after college, I would just go with a laptop because they are very nice to have as a college student. In my opinion I think it would just be very hard to use a interface like pro tools on a laptop, we have to monitors setup and one monitor gets very busy.

budget id say is the biggest issue. currently i have a macbook and an intel imac and have a protools, logic and reason set up. i do most of my editing and self recording at home on the imac, however, i take the macbook with me when im recording a band elsewhere. the plain run of the mill macbook holds up fine, until you start using 10 or so plugins and are recording 8 tracks at once (drums or something).

if youve got 2K to spend, will be using it through college and portability is an issue, i would go with the macbook pro and throw at least another gig of ram in it, and you will have no issues.

you didnt mention what program and interface youll be using. some interfaces out there limit you to how many simultanous tracks you will be recording at once. if its 4 or less, you shouldnt have any issues with even a stock MBP. if its more, an upgrade in ram should do nicely.

if portability isnt an issue, a powermac and mac pro will do great. i would simply recommend buying an imac and spend the rest of the cash on whatever else you might need (mics, xlr cables, interface, programs, etc). and have you seen the 24 inch imacs? wow. thats all that needs to be said. good luck.

hi, in the past i have always found mac laptops don't perform quite as well as the desktops for music apps (logic in my case) and other friends who do music have said the same but i can't say if it's still the case with the intels. ram is a big factor and i agree screen size is important (logic is so much easier with a dual screen set-up. also, if you're serious about using a mac for music production i would reccomend a tower for the pci slots, drive bays etc. and if you have any money left over get a uad-1 dsp card, they are quite simply the best bit of computer music hardware around! have fun

yeah i wouldn't worry about the performance of the new macbookpros as i have one and i'd say its as powerful as my G5 2.3.

I use mine for logic and ableton. My advice to you is how portable do you wanna be?

as £2000 will get you a nice macbookpro you need to get at least 2gig ram what ever u get. your also going to prob want logic as well which isnt cheap plus a decent set of studio monitors and and audio interface.