After many years of toiling with PCs that seemed to be working against you rather than with you, I decided to spend a little extra and have something built for the job it's meant to do - make music.

I record in my 'home studio', so most of the time I'm tracking in the same room as the PC. I've had the PC for a few months now, and used it over long weekends of recording, and it hasn't let me down yet - it's whisper quiet.

I have a number of firewire and USB interfaces and, I've had no compatibility issues with any of them.

CPU usage hasn't been an issue - 25/30 tracks in Cubase hardly registers a blip. I'd normally have at least one track of midi drums and have had up to 10 tracks of midi orchestration etc - again, it handles it all (noting this will also depend on how efficient your software/plugins are).

All said, I'm very happy. I haven't wasted any time in the last two months worrying about my setup, and instead got on with writing and recording music - which is what I should have been doing!

Worth every penny.

Here are my experiences of buying an X4R Pro from Inta-Audio.

Ordering: Speaking to the guys at Inta-Audio to discuss specs put my mind at ease about what I should go for. I went for the processor upgrade. I had concerns over extra hardware I had to install (Fireface 800 and UADs) and my questions were answered quickly and correctly. I got the impression that they actually cared about what they built.

Delivery: The PC was delivered on the day specified and was extremely well packed with plenty of shredded paper packing! Everything I expected to be in the box was there, along with instructions on restoring the backup from the initial build if required. Cubase 5.1 came ready installed.

Setting up: I have two flat screens so I was able to have my old and new PCs along side each other. That made it very easy to transfer over firewire and USB devices. Loading up and authorising all the DAW software and samples took a long time, but I didn't have any problems with the X4R at all. No crashes or BSODs. I had a problem with one of the UADs, but reseating and restoring from one of my backups solved the problem (a problem caused by me and not the X4R!). All the usual 'tweaks' for audio are in place as expected.

In use: The X4R is very quiet and very fast. Projects in Cubase 5 open quickly. I've used the RME ASIO driver at 48 sample buffer size while using lots of large VSTi's, and experienced no spikes or glitches at all! It's a pleasure to use, and inspires confidence.

Conclusion: I can't recommend the X4R Pro highly enough. And that reflects on Inta-Audio as a company of professional DAW builders who care.