There is no sound-quality loss possible.
As far as robustness of the drivers and such goes, Win 7 as it is now is more stable than the latest OS Xs.
Top range Win PCs are as expensive as mid-range Macs, but outperform them by lightyears (due to better hardware you can get for the same price).
If you don't go super-cheap on the hardware (the first sign is BOTH worse hardware AND drivers), you will get a much more stable and cheaper system.
In the mid-90s, we were forced to work on Macs, by the end of the 90s, they were still much better, Win PCs kinda caught up with Win 98 SP2, got worse with ME and Vista (horrible).
Win7 is by far the best and most stable system I've worked on so far.
Like I said, unless you go with cheap hardware and drivers, you will be positively surprised.
In many countries, Apples license agreement is against the law, so building your own Hackintosh with a bought OS X license is legal.
But once you switch to Win 7 and set up a nice system, you won't look back.
---------- Post added at 11:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 AM ----------
I have a friend who says music produced on a Mac sounds better.
He obviously has no idea what he is talking about.
It's like saying that a "K" written on a Mac is a better "K" that I wrote on this Linux machine here. LOL Complete nonsense.
Will I have to change the fans on the PC for quieter fans?
The Macs my friends used over the years ALWAYS had noise problems.
I have a sound-proof case and a i7 system. No noise or any sound AT ALL.
I read on here where a member said that software companies don't make 64bit software with 64bit Windows in mind. Can I get some facts?
The FACTS are, that there is more software that is Win-exclusive, than there is software which is Mac-exclusive. Most of the plug ins/DAWs/software in general these days is written for 64bit systems and utilizes the 64bit structure. There are still SOME companies which didn't switch, but as you've already guessed, it doesn't matter if OS X or Win. When it's STILL in 32bit, it's still in 32bit on both platforms.
So no, this theory makes no sense either. Most of the PC software I bought is in the 64bit format.