Audio engineers use a lot of proprietary software that isn't available on Linux. Windows has no true real-time scheduling[1], so has to be carefully tuned to handle low-latency audio processing without playback glitches. Mac OS will run all the proprietary software we need and has superb real-time scheduling for audio, but the choice of hardware is very limited.
Mac Pros are scandalously expensive and aren't passively cooled. iMacs and Mac Minis are very noisy under high CPU load because of the small blower fans. Hackintoshes provide the best of both worlds - you can build a reasonably priced computer with no moving parts[2] and run an OS that is optimised for real-time audio applications.
Drivers aren't really an issue if you choose components from an approved list - either It Just Works or it doesn't.
Comments
Audio engineers use a lot of proprietary software that isn't available on Linux. Windows has no true real-time scheduling[1], so has to be carefully tuned to handle low-latency audio processing without playback glitches. Mac OS will run all the proprietary software we need and has superb real-time scheduling for audio, but the choice of hardware is very limited.
Mac Pros are scandalously expensive and aren't passively cooled. iMacs and Mac Minis are very noisy under high CPU load because of the small blower fans. Hackintoshes provide the best of both worlds - you can build a reasonably priced computer with no moving parts[2] and run an OS that is optimised for real-time audio applications.
Drivers aren't really an issue if you choose components from an approved list - either It Just Works or it doesn't.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Procedure_Call
[2] https://www.quietpc.com/sys-a470s