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[jason misterka]

Good Evening -

This may have already been discussed at length but if so I can't find it on the search, and may as well have updated info as things change.

My trusty laptop went belly up.  I went shopping for a new one.   Pretty much set to buy another Thinkpad as this one lasted me 10 years (literally) of hard use.

I can order a Thinkpad T580 online which seems like a good upgrade from my old one, but it would be a two week wait for the right customization, and it is still a heavy laptop.  It's not the end of the world, but I have an important gig I am leaving for next week that will not be as easy or productive without the laptop.

Or, I can buy a new Thinkpad X1 Carbon from Costco for about the same price that weighs 2lbs and has some other slick features.  It doesn't have an RJ45 port, though, so you need to use a hub or adapter from USB-C Thunderbolt.  Which supposedly works fine.

About 75% of this laptops use will be Quickbooks/Excel/Word and other business uses.

But 25% of the time, I will be using it for my portable Smaart rig, and monitoring Dante, Wireless Workbench, and Lake.  I also use Waves MultiRack for verbs via Dante sometimes, and would like to keep that as an option on occasion.

Will needing to use the dongle for wired networking kill use of the laptop for those applications?  I looked around but am not up-to-speed on USB-C vs Thunderbolt vs USB3 etc to fully understand the implications.

Any first hand experiences with newer versions of these laptops?

Thanks for any thoughts!
Jason

PS Please don't say Mac, I have one in my FOH rack but don't want one for my laptop.

(Edit to remove link which made the formatting wacky)

[Erik Jerde]

I use a thunderbolt Ethernet dongle on my MacBook Pro.  Works fine for dante.  My only concern would be getting it knocked out during a critical moment since thunderbolt doesn’t lock in.  Same issues exists with usb c.

With the x1 carbon you can spend more and get the pro dock which I believe has Ethernet built in.  It also will lock in the laptop and provide an attachment point for a security cable.  You may even be able to bolt it down (to a rack drawer or case), not sure on that though.  Could be a good way to get a system now while maintaining a show-reliable connection method as well.

[Aisle 6]

I am using a MacBook Pro with only USB-C ports and am touring using DANTE and Waves Tracks Live for multi track etc. It is more than fine. I also am a little cautious of the non locking ports but I spend a little time placing it so that it does not get knocked.

[Riley Casey]

What USB C / Thunderbolt whatever dongle are you using to accomplish this reliably?  I know first hand that the Belkin dongle sold on the Apple website is a bad ( and potentially dangerous ) joke.

I am using a MacBook Pro with only USB-C ports and am touring using DANTE and Waves Tracks Live ...

[Mac Kerr]

What USB C / Thunderbolt whatever dongle are you using to accomplish this reliably?  I know first hand that the Belkin dongle sold on the Apple website is a bad ( and potentially dangerous ) joke.

I use a TPLink USB dongle that has GB Ethernet plus 3 USB A ports on my MBP, but it seems not to be available anymore. It's been working fine for me for about a year.

Mac

[Aram Piligian]

I use dongles pretty much exclusively at this point.  No real issues.  Everything from the Belkin USB-C dongles that are just ethernet, to some Tripp-Lite USB-C ones that include a USB hub, to the older Thunderbolt dongles, all the way to plain old USB-A gigabit ethernet dongles.

Even with USB 2.0, which tops out at 480 megabits, you won't be able to saturate it with Dante traffic, as Virtual Soundcard only has 16 flows total (@6Mbps, = 96Mbps total).  That's multitracking 64 channels. 

I'd still have spares handy; I don't find that they die in the middle of use so much as you'll go to plug it in one day and it won't work. 

[Neil White]

It’s also becomes a lot easier to carry a spare NIC if you are using a dongle. I had one incident this year where it looked like a laptop may have been dropped and caught on the Ethernet cable, trashing the port internally so that with the RJ45 properly latched any slight movement of the cable would cause the port to disconnect and reconnect. Much easier to swap and replace a dongle than an internal port.

[Jeff Lelko]

Along the same lines, does anyone have experience with a MBP dock that works well and reliably?  I’d love to have only one cable running between my MBP and my FOH rack and at the same time consolidate all the dongles into one unit.  Has anyone tried this yet? 

To the OP, at the moment I just use a dongle I bought on Amazon - seems good enough but I don’t use it with Dante or anything show critical (yet).

[Riley Casey]

I have two of the OWC Thunderbolt 3 docks.  The larger one is a full dock that also acts as a power supply.  Has all the ports you can eat.  The smaller, portable dock has two USB 3 ports but no ethernet thus my earlier question about an eNEt dongle.  They've both been very reliable unlike the Belkin that smoked and melted on my desk.  Glad it wasn't at a show under a smoke detector .

Along the same lines, does anyone have experience with a MBP dock that works well and reliably? ...

[Erik Jerde]

Along the same lines, does anyone have experience with a MBP dock that works well and reliably?  I’d love to have only one cable running between my MBP and my FOH rack and at the same time consolidate all the dongles into one unit.  Has anyone tried this yet? 

To the OP, at the moment I just use a dongle I bought on Amazon - seems good enough but I don’t use it with Dante or anything show critical (yet).

I use the caldigit TS-2 with my MBP.  Works great!

[Miguel Dahl]

I use Linksys USB-3 to Ethernet, two of them simultaneously. One for Dante DVS and whatever is on that primary network, and the the other one for "other networking", like remote console operation and SCS Android remote app on my phone, WWB/WSM just so I don't have to have to use the wifi in the laptop.

[Josh Hana]

I have a Msoft Surface Pro 4 that has been really great over the past few years. It only has a single USB3 port, so I use an Anker USB hub + ethernet and I regularly record up to 64ch with dante just fine.

[Ade Stuart]

I've used Anker USB3 to GBE adapters with DVS on Windows 7 & and Macs without problems.
https://www.anker.com/products/variant/aluminum-usb-3-0-to-ethernet-adapter/A7611011

[jason misterka]

I use Linksys USB-3 to Ethernet, two of them simultaneously. One for Dante DVS and whatever is on that primary network, and the the other one for "other networking", like remote console operation and SCS Android remote app on my phone, WWB/WSM just so I don't have to have to use the wifi in the laptop.

I was wondering if it was possible to do that. Is that on a PC or a Mac?

[jason misterka]

Thanks everyone, you have answered my question as always.

I probably will buy a dock for my FOH rack and then carry around a dongle or two in my bag.

In other good news, the off-the-shelf laptop I was looking for just dropped in price at Costco starting next week, so I think I have luck on my side for once.

Jason

[Miguel Dahl]

I was wondering if it was possible to do that. Is that on a PC or a Mac?

This is PC. It's just two separate network adapters. So different IP's.

[Mac Kerr]

I use the caldigit TS-2 with my MBP.  Works great!

I was wondering if it was possible to do that. Is that on a PC or a Mac?

I do this on a Mac also running Parallels. I assign one to Windows and it talks to everything that is running under that OS, and one is on the Mac side talking to Internet and anything browser based like FreeSpeak comms. Different IPs on each.

Mac

[ProSoundWeb Community]