Music XPC C5 XPress

In the beginning there was the Professional C1 and it was good. In fact, it was great. With hundreds and hundreds of satisfied customers many have come to identify MusicXPC with the Small Form Factor computers made popular by Shuttle Computer. Most of us are amazed at the power and performance packed into this little speedster.

Continuing in this impressive line are the brand new Professional C5 and C5x. These machines feature the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and more than a half-terabyte of hard disk storage - all in the space of 3 hard drive cases. The Professional C5 and C5x are designed for professional musicians who want the computer at the heart of their digital studio to be flawless, supremely powerful, quiet and overly robust. The Professional C5 is all those things and then some. Get to one of our music retailers today and witness the magic.

Intel Core 2 Duo CPU

The Professional C5 is an Intel Core 2 Duo workhorse built on the 1066 MHz front-side-bus Intel 945G chipset. It runs Windows XP music applications very fast. The dual-core engine is the latest wave of performance power coming to your desktop. We are blown away at the performance increase compared to the previous generations of processors - and you will too. For years we have preached the virtues of the Intel architecture and its outstanding performance attributes. Now, finally, everyone's is on the bandwagon. While some of our competitors are just getting their feet wet in the Wintel world, we are onto our fourth generation of music production powerhouses. At MusicXPC, we are focused on a single mission - build the finest music production computers on the planet.

Motherboard for Music

The Professional C5 is equipped with a premium motherboard that is ideal for a music production studio. This motherboard supports 1066 MHz FSB, Intel Core 2 Duo processors, DDR2 RAM (Dual Channel) and PCI Express. The motherboard supports the next-generation hard drives based on the SATA 2 storage specification, which provides enhanced scalability and a doubling the bus bandwidth for high-speed data retrieval and saves. The motherboard incorporates a heat-pipe which ferries heat away from teh CPU through noiseless conduction rather than large noisy fans - found in many other computer. The motherboard sports all the essential ports you can ever want.

DDR2 667 RAM

The Professional C5 is loaded with 1GB of top-tier, dual-channel, custom-made DDR2 667 MHz RAM upgradeable to 2GB. The Professional C5x comes standard with 2GB of RAM. Starting in 2007 we have introduced custom made RAM in all our computers. This RAM comes from a top-tier supplier who manufactures and tests the RAM chips to our rigorous standards. This RAM is then supplies in matching pairs that are further tested for perfection using a combination of special RAM testing software and our own proprietary systems, methods and tools. By the time a Professional C5 arrives in your studio it is certified to be in possession of flawless, ultra fast RAM.

570 GB of HD Storage

The Professional C5 is meant for professional music production. This means that it needs multiple hard drives. We believe that multiple drives are a tremendous way to safeguard your data. The Professional C5 comes with 2 Serial ATA II, 7200 RPM drives that run fast and quiet. The drives also host a Host Protected Area that is accessible outside of the Windows operating system where the the Factory image resides. This means that even if your drive crashes, your computer may still be recoverable. Access to more than half a TeraByte of storage means that you can record, record and record as much as you want as you keep your mind on the music side of the studio equation.

16X Dual Layer DVD Optical Drive

The Professional C5 ships with a 16X dual-layer DVD-R/RW recordable optical drive that does it all. Not only does it whip through CD authoring tasks, it also allows for backups of your audio projects to dual-layer DVD discs. This optical drive records data up to 4.7GB per side on DVD media and writes in all kinds of formats: DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, DVD-RAM and CD-R/-RW. The Super-Multi also reads most DVD and CD formats, including DVD+R/+RW. This adds up to one versatile drive suitable for any application. Buffer Underrun Protection and UltraDMA 4 support ensure fast, reliable writing every time. Supported formats include: DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD+R DL, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD-R DL, DVD-RAM, CD-R, CD-RW

Very Quiet Operation

The Professional C5 would not be a MusicXPC if it didn't have components carefully selected to generate the whisper quiet operation music producers desire, deserve and demand. Each generation of computing technology ups the ante with respect to speed in all areas, this speed comes with a price - heat. To keep things cool, some computers employ an army of fans and we all know that this only brings with it an army of noise. The Professional C5 steps around this with a slick Heat-pipe technology which moves heat away from the CPU by convection instead of with fans. This computer, as you would expect, is very, very quiet indeed.

Connections and Ports Galore

The Professional C5 covers every type of connection that music producers need now and later. There is 1 PCI and 1 PCI-E slot. The PCI slot work with most PCI cards on the market. There are 8 USB 2.0 and 2 FireWire® ports and a Gigabit LAN port to lessen bottlenecks when piping data over a network. Two of the USB 2.0 ports are internal and can be use to deploy dongled inside the C5. SATA 2 throughout mean blistering, direct connections between the C5 and internal & external hard drives. There are still the legacy PS2, COM and audio connections to make this not just a computer for your studio but a computer capable of any function you can imagine.

Protected Backup/Restore

The Professional C5 sets itself apart from all other music computers with the inclusion of an almost magical backup/restore facility with the power to turn a nightmare of tears into a sigh of relief. You can easily survive major computer problems and fatal crashes by restoring the computer in minutes rather than in weeks via Fed Ex.

How is this possible? Before a Professional C5 is born we do some special work in the womb - so to speak. A special section called the Protected Area is created on the main hard drive specially to hold the original factory image as well as future user created backup images. This is followed by the installation of the Windows XP section of the drive. The "Hidden Zone" invisible to the Windows OS and cannot be erased or tampered with by normal operations. This preserves and protects the backups and factory images from damage, accidents, viruses and deletions. The music producer can easily survive a fatal computer crash by invoking a restore procedure to a previous image stored in the "Hidden Zone".

How do you spell peace of mind? Let me see . . . M U S I C X P C. The backup system is so flexible that you can even back up to DVD, across a network, another hard drive. You can load images and modify them and append to them - it's just freaking amazing. Go ahead, knock yourself out, this is one of the most robust computer systems money can buy.

Aluminum Chassis

We are crazy about Aluminum. All our Desktops and Small Form Factor machines have been made from this amazing metal. Aluminum makes for the best computer chassis because it is excels in a few key areas. It is strong and therefore can be a solid place to anchor other components. It is light and therefore will not add needless weight to the final product. It is corrosive resistant and therefore will never rust of warp like steel or plastic. It is a great heat conductor and helps the system dissipate heat by acting like a giant heat sink. Finally, one of the best qualities is that it looks gorgeous. The Professional C5 is Aluminum through and through and it is a truly beautiful computer.

Service and Support

MusicXPC is supported by the best network of music retailers on the planet. Sam Ash Music, Sweetwater, Long & McQuade and many others are all excellent places to purchase these gems. These retailers form the backbone of our user-friendly support system and provide the first line of support. Added to that is our informative live telephone support line where we treat you like a human being and not an incident number. Our customer support is FREE. Better yet, our staff is familiar many music software programs and can speak the musician's language, not just GeekSpeak from a flow chart. Yes, we know what Automatic Delay Compensation means and we won't be asking you if the 'clicking sound' is coming from the built-in computer speakers.

Don't Worry, Be Creative

The Professional C5 surely is one sexy computer that is small, light, powerful and robust. We are very proud of it. We are in business to make these gems. We love what we do and it shows on a product like the C5. MusicXPC takes the trouble out of making music today in a demanding studio environment by making triple sure that the system will work in 95% of conditions. It gives you unprecedented power and flexibility out of the box - no upgrades needed. We provide every feature we can think of that 95% of our customers need and want and then some. In the end you get to spend more time thinking about and music instead of installing drivers and tweaking the system.

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz CPU/1066 FSB
• Chipset: Intel 945GM Express
• Display: Supports dual DVI monitor
• System: Windows XP
• Memory: 2GB DDR2 667MHz
• Video: Dual-DVI/VGA output
• Video RAM: 256MB
• Hard Disk: 250GB SATA II, 320GB SATA II
• Optical Drive: 18X DVD+/-RW
• 2 FireWire ports (one 6-pin, one 4-pin)
• Gigabit LAN
• 8 USB 2.0 ports