[CharlesC]

Setting aside (if possible) questions of file support and player availability, I'm interested to know other opinions on Mac vs. PC in the area of system level USB Audio transport (forgive me if my terminology is awkward).  I have been using a new Surface 2 (ARM processor), a 4 year old Dell laptop and a 4 year old MacBook Pro.  Of these, the old MacBook Pro seems to provide the most consistently glitch free music streams. Based on this, I'm inclined to think the Mac may do a better job in general but I'm interested in other opinions. I'd be happy to hear that both are perfect in this area with up to date hardware.  I figure they must both be pretty good considering the amount of money people dump into their computer based audio systems.  Thanks!

 

[PleasantSounds]

Macs are probably more consistent in providing very good support for audio than PCs, but by no means are they problem free.
PC being a more open platform delivers results from unacceptable to excellent, but the general expectation is that it should handle the task as well as a Mac. There are some differences in the system architecture details, but in practical terms both architectures are equally capable.

 

[proton007]

  Setting aside (if possible) questions of file support and player availability, I'm interested to know other opinions on Mac vs. PC in the area of system level USB Audio transport (forgive me if my terminology is awkward).  I have been using a new Surface 2 (ARM processor), a 4 year old Dell laptop and a 4 year old MacBook Pro.  Of these, the old MacBook Pro seems to provide the most consistently glitch free music streams. Based on this, I'm inclined to think the Mac may do a better job in general but I'm interested in other opinions. I'd be happy to hear that both are perfect in this area with up to date hardware.  I figure they must both be pretty good considering the amount of money people dump into their computer based audio systems.  Thanks!

 
There can be multiple factors affecting USB performance. There's no one statement "X is better than Y' in this case.
 
I'm using a PC with Linux, and there have been no issues.

 

[CharlesC]

Thank you for the replies.  I suspect that newer hardware may be the solution.