Audio stutters with USB Dacs on Macbook M1 Pro

[Zensō]

Are they both UAC2? if so and others find the same it will confirm the problem is not mac hardware, And that it is fixable.

The THX is UAC2, I can’t find the spec on the Apple dongle.

 

[staticV3]

After reading about the HDMI option, I had a quick google and searched the forum, but I'm guessing there's no easy way to extract audio from HDMI to a USB DAC?

There is not. You'd need some kind of USB Host device between the HDMI extractor and your DAC. Something like a Raspberry Pi.

 

[Bigsy]

Just incase it helps anyone figure this issue out... I have 2 usbc dacs a sound blaster X1 and a sound blaster play! 4. They are pretty similar, look similar, offer pretty much the same functionality. Difference being for me is the play! 4 has never stuttered/glitched ever it plays back perfectly, the X1 however drops out so bad it's totally unusable, but only on my mac.

One significant difference is also the amount of power they draw from the usb. The play!4 only draws 0.16w at normal volume, the same perceived volume and headphones on the x1 draws 0.6watts, way more.

Also worth mentioning I have a m1 14" pro 16gb - I am a software developer and have a lot of memory-hungry things constantly running (chrome, docker etc)

EDIT also worth saying is the play4 is even running at a higher bit rate (it supports higher) 24/192 than the x1 (max 96khz), so doesnt appear to be bandwidth related.

 

[Trell]

One significant difference is also the amount of power they draw from the usb. The play!4 only draws 0.16w at normal volume, the same perceived volume and headphones on the x1 draws 0.6watts, way more.

But even USB 2.0 can handle 0.5A, which gives 0.5A*5V=2.5W, so 0.6W should not be a problem.

 

[gochristoph]

And, e.g., the RME ADI-2 DAC that many reported having issues with has an external power supply and can run standalone. Inferring from that, it doesn’t seem to me that the power draw is a good predictor for stuttering.

 

[Trell]

And, e.g., the RME ADI-2 DAC that many reported having issues with has an external power supply and can run standalone. Inferring from that, it doesn’t seem to me that the power draw is a good predictor for stuttering.

The RME ADI-2 DAC doesn't use USB bus power at all and must have an external power supply to function.

I've ordered the new Mac Studio M2 Max (38 GPU cores, 32 GB RAM) for my daughter but it's unlikely that she'll use an external DAC or audio interface. On the other I might try do some testing when I get the Mac to see if I get similar issues as reported here in this thread.

 

[Zensō]

Another data point. In the past I've never had any stuttering issues in Ableton Live, but today I did for the first time. This was through my RME Babyface Pro FS to my Genelec 8030C's. The only thing different in my setup today was that I had a THX Onyx DAC/amp plugged into one of the USB-C ports on the front of the Mac Studio. I was NOT using the THX, it was sitting idle. I paused the music in Ableton, unplugged the THX and the stuttering through the RME went away. Plugged it back in and the stuttering came back. So strange...

 

[Zensō]

I have what appears to be a workaround that's going to serve me until Apple solves this issue (assuming they ever do). Here's my setup:

M1 Max MacStudio > USB cable to RME Babyface Pro > Genelec 8030C/Sennheiser HD800S

This is my signal path for music production when running either Ableton Live or Logic Pro. This runs without stutters as long as I have no other memory intensive applications running, it stutters if I do. This path is preferred for music production due to near zero latency.

M1 Max MacStudio > Airplay 2 to WiiM Pro streamer > S/PDIF cable to RME Babyface Pro > Genelec 8030C/Sennheiser HD800S

This is my signal path for listening to music while multi-tasking in other applications. I ran the memory pressure way up and had no stutters with this setup. This introduces some latency, but not to a level of being problematic for tasks other than live instrument monitoring.

Both of these are routed through SoundSource. I have the Sonarworks and CanOpener plugins running inside of SoundSource, so I'm getting systemwide EQ on both signal paths. Switching between the two is just a click or two. For now this seems solved for me, I'll let you know if something changes.

 

[gochristoph]

Thanks for sharing. AirPlay always worked for me, too. But it is limited to 16 bit and 48 kHz and there is the issue with latency, requiring additional devices, etc. But for some it might provide a good temporary fix.

 

[Zensō]

Thanks for sharing. AirPlay always worked for me, too. But it is limited to 16 bit and 48 kHz and there is the issue with latency, requiring additional devices, etc. But for some it might provide a good temporary fit.

You're welcome. It's not ideal, but I can live with this solution. I'm certainly happy to move on from trying to solve this headache. As for the bitrate, I'm just having the WiiM output 16/44.1 over S/PDIF which is more than good enough for my ears.

 

[silwynar]

Instead of buying a HDMI Audio extractor, I remembered that my Topping DX3+ also has in-build bluetooth.
So these last few days I just hooked up my Macbook via BT to my DAC.
As they are basically 10cm's apart, I'm not getting any noticable delay, even though sound quality is probably reduced. Can't really tell though to be honest.
For now I much prefer the stutterless audio over 100% quality.
Maybe that's also an solution for some of you. Afaik there are also bluetooth receivers you could hook into whatever inputs your DAC has.

 

[vurt]

Maybe that's also an solution for some of you. Afaik there are also bluetooth receivers you could hook into whatever inputs your DAC has.

I started thinking the same but at least for me, my 2 other DACs—Questyle M15, Cayin RU6—all use USB-C interfaces

 

[bboris77]

This is interesting.

 

[vurt]

Working on my personal laptop and listening to music—no stuttering so far—fingers crossed. Just as I remember it until I switched to using my work laptop daily.

Personal laptop: M1 Pro MacBook Pro 2021, 32GB ram, Monterey v12.6.6

Work laptop with stuttering: M1 Pro MacBook Pro 2021, 16GB ram, Ventura v13.4

 

[Sokel]

I tried my wife's Mac Studio M1 ultra (64GB memory if I'm not wrong) just to give you a little feedback.
Two different DACs at 24/352.8,no stutters for the little i tried it (can't get it from her for a long time,it's her work tool).
I browsed a little at the same time but not too familiar with Mac,didn't want to screw with it more.

 

[Old Listener]

To be honest - from what you have said, it seems likely your mac has become infected with some sort of malware. Particularly the pop up ads you are experiencing, and difficulty installing ad blockers suggest this.

It may be that the malware has allowed someone to compromise your apple ID password. (Apple do not arbitrarily invalidate your password). You need to get that fixed immediately. Contact apple support if you are unable to get your password changed yourself.

And I'd suggest not entering any critical passwords on your mac until you've ensured there is no suspicious software on it.

Thank you the helpful advice.

An AV scan found no malware.

The websites I described had ads that were part of the designed web pages. They weren't popup ads.
When I closed all the tabs showing pages with lots of ads including videos, CPU and memory use seems normal.

I have changed the Apple ID password using an MacBook Pro laptop. When I try to log into iCloud.com on my Mac mini, my password is initially rejected by the two step dialog. When I get past that dialog, I see a single level log in page with user name and password fields on a single page. I can log in successfully on that web page. That behavior remains a puzzle.

 

[Trell]

I did not notice any audio dropouts after watching Netflix in Safari for a few hours.

Connected my RME ADI-2 DAC FS to a Mac Studio M2 Max with 32 GB RAM running MacOS 13.4. I used one of the USB-A ports in the back for connection to the RME.

 

[gochristoph]

I did not notice any audio dropouts after watching Netflix in Safari for a few hours.

Connected my RME ADI-2 DAC FS to a Mac Studio M2 Max with 32 GB RAM running MacOS 13.4. I used one of the USB-A ports in the back for connection to the RME.

Sounds like expected behavior. The common denominator that we see here for the stuttering to occur is high memory usage/pressure. If you‘re not running any memory hungry application you‘ll probably only rarely or not at all run into your audio stuttering.

 

[pengin15]

I did not notice any audio dropouts after watching Netflix in Safari for a few hours.

Connected my RME ADI-2 DAC FS to a Mac Studio M2 Max with 32 GB RAM running MacOS 13.4. I used one of the USB-A ports in the back for connection to the RME.

Since you seem to be one of the few M2 havers in this thread, do you think you can do a bit of testing for us?

Discussions a few pages ago suggests that this problem is isolated to the M1 devices and that M2 devices are not affected by this issue at all. Could you try artificially increasing the RAM load to your system to induce medium/high memory pressure (yellow graph in the activity monitor, which should show up at or around 29-30GB RAM usage) and see if any audio skipping shows up?

You can try either opening many professional apps at the same time or, if that's usually not your workflow, use this link https://www.trackthis.link/ and open as many Chrome tabs as you can through the system (I think 6-7 instance of 100 tabs will get you to 29-30GB RAM usage easily).

We're trying to track if this might have also been a hardware-related issue that Apple is keeping quiet about to prevent a recall.

 

[Trell]

Since you seem to be one of the few M2 havers in this thread, do you think you can do a bit of testing for us?

Discussions a few pages ago suggests that this problem is isolated to the M1 devices and that M2 devices are not affected by this issue at all. Could you try artificially increasing the RAM load to your system to induce medium/high memory pressure (yellow graph in the activity monitor, which should show up at or around 29-30GB RAM usage) and see if any audio skipping shows up?

You can try either opening many professional apps at the same time or, if that's usually not your workflow, use this link https://www.trackthis.link/ and open as many Chrome tabs as you can through the system (I think 6-7 instance of 100 tabs will get you to 29-30GB RAM usage easily).

We're trying to track if this might have also been a hardware-related issue that Apple is keeping quiet about to prevent a recall.

The Mac Studio M2 max 32 GB is a gift to my daughter so it’s in use for the moment. I’ll see what I can do in a week or so.