Audio stutters with USB Dacs on Macbook M1 Pro

[Zensō]

I got a Mac Mini M1 recently and have had problems with USB audio dropouts. I've done a lot of Googling, hence finding this thread, and a lot of testing trying to get to the bottom of it, including installing different versions of Mac OS from Big Sur to Sonoma, and I'm now fairly sure the problem is from Rosetta. If I do a fresh install of Mac OS and don't install any apps that require Rosetta then the audio is fine. When I install an app that requires Rosetta, once Rosetta is installed I get regular pops and clicks in the audio from my USB interface. Has anyone else noticed this or done testing with and without Rosetta installed? I'm now on Sonoma with a fresh install without Rosetta and not having any problems.

This is interesting but it isn’t the issue in my case. I’m running Rosetta under Sonoma with no stutters.

 

[Vezza]

Sonoma didn't fix the audio stack crashes for me. I have Mac Studio M1 Max 64Gb. I'm using Apple Music lossless + Ifi Zen v2. Maybe Tidal has sw that bypasses Apple buffering problems.. need to check.

 

[Axo1989]

Installed Sonoma 14.0 just now on M2 MBP (13" 24 GB RAM).

Now to try playing audio ... via Apple Music (to USB DAC, amp and speakers). Previously, opening Safari and browsing sites like The Guardian or ASR would bring on the stutters once memory pressure started to ramp up. Particularly because short, sharp CPU spikes occurred across all cores (and were presumably prioritised over USB audio output). Like this:

That was Ventura back in July. Now it looks like this, opening tabs on those two sites while playing audio:

And no audio stutters. Now it's the first time running this macOS update so some background processes are doing their thing. After a while a few more kicked in—fileproviderd, photolibraryd, corespotlightd—and are hammering the CPU efficiency cores:

Still no audio stutters. Nice ...

I haven't managed to get memory pressure up into the yellow yet, even after opening a stack of large-ish Pages and Numbers files (no GIS on this machine, so nothing super-massive is handy). Memory used isn't going much over 16 GB when previously a similar document load would be hitting 20 GB. Maybe part of the fix here is Sonoma doing memory allocation/management better?

Anyway, so far so good.

 

[Veri]

Memory used isn't going much over 16 GB when previously a similar document load would be hitting 20 GB. Maybe part of the fix here is Sonoma doing memory allocation/management better?

Anyway, so far so good.

Yes, I believe so.

 

[Zensō]

Installed Sonoma 14.0 just now on M2 MBP (13" 24 GB RAM).

Now to try playing audio ... via Apple Music (to USB DAC, amp and speakers). Previously, opening Safari and browsing sites like The Guardian or ASR would bring on the stutters once memory pressure started to ramp up. Particularly because short, sharp CPU spikes occurred across all cores (and were presumably prioritised over USB audio output). Like this:View attachment 316059
That was Ventura back in July. Now it looks like this, opening tabs on those two sites while playing audio:
View attachment 316060
And no audio stutters. Now it's the first time running this macOS update so some background processes are doing their thing. After a while a few more kicked in—fileproviderd, photolibraryd, corespotlightd—and are hammering the CPU efficiency cores:

View attachment 316061
Still no audio stutters. Nice ...

I haven't managed to get memory pressure up into the yellow yet, even after opening a stack of large-ish Pages and Numbers files (no GIS on this machine, so nothing super-massive is handy). Memory used isn't going much over 16 GB when previously a similar document load would be hitting 20 GB. Maybe part of the fix here is Sonoma doing memory allocation/management better?

Anyway, so far so good.

Mimics my experience. Thanks!

 

[Vezza]

Have you checked Audio Midi Setup after upgrading to Sonoma ? My Studio didn't stutter with defaults, but PCM 96kHz andf above started it. I have 64Gb memory, no pressure there, but many ports in use ( behind two Caldigit Thunderbolt docks ) and this & that running.

 

[Axo1989]

Have you checked Audio Midi Setup after upgrading to Sonoma ? My Studio didn't stutter with defaults, but PCM 96kHz andf above started it. I have 64Gb memory, no pressure there, but many ports in use ( behind two Caldigit Thunderbolt docks ) and this & that running.

I didn't check prior but good point.

Looks like installing Sonoma left the Audio Midi Setup settings as they were: "2 ch 32-bit integer 192.0 kHz" to the DAC. That's the highest resolution of music files from Apple Music, so generally the setting I use (not that I've really noticed any audible differences using the lower settings down to 44.1 kHz). The higher bi-rate doesn't appear to be an issue on my setup. Conversely, lowering the bit-rate didn't seem to help previously with Ventura either.

So you have the details, the audio chain was MBP > Apple Thunderbolt 4 Pro Cable (3 m) > LaCie 1big Dock External Hard Drive Docking Station > generic USB-A to B cable (1 m) > exaSound E68 DAC. That dock also sends MBP video via HDMI to a TV screen. The MacBook Pro being the 13" M2 model, there are only the two Thunderbolt ports, the one in use for audio+video out is also supplying power to the laptop. The second port often has a Lightning cable connected to keep phone or AirPods Max charged (and did so when the above screenshots were taken) but doesn't get much other use.

I haven't bought a Studio yet, still running an Intel iMac Pro, which doesn't have the audio stutters, of course.

 

[Vezza]

It looks like I have found my mystery fix for stuttering, or at least managed to make them notably less frequent ( I have not listened very long times ) ... everyone has their own snake oil.

So mine is - move the USB DAC from USB-C to USB-A port at Mac Studio.

I used to get quite intense flow of these messages when using USB-C:

IssueReporting.cpp:466 RTAID [ use_case=Generic report_type=RMS Generic Chain clientID=HAL node=usb -Output issue_detected_sample_time=52760376.000000 ] -- [ -36.199566, -18.783535 ]

Now these messages come quite regularly at 10 second intervals and no stutterin so far. It might be so that the DAC connection gets priority overridden when something is going on at USB-C/Thunderbolt world.

 

[Vezza]

It looks like I have found my mystery fix for stuttering, or at least managed to make them notably less frequent ( I have not listened very long times ) ... everyone has their own snake oil.

So mine is - move the USB DAC from USB-C to USB-A port at Mac Studio.

I used to get quite intense flow of these messages when using USB-C:

IssueReporting.cpp:466 RTAID [ use_case=Generic report_type=RMS Generic Chain clientID=HAL node=usb -Output issue_detected_sample_time=52760376.000000 ] -- [ -36.199566, -18.783535 ]

Now these messages come quite regularly at 10 second intervals and no stutterin so far. It might be so that the DAC connection gets priority overridden when something is going on at USB-C/Thunderbolt world.

I need to add that between USB-C and DAC was a Satechi USB hub - just for converting connectors. No other devices at the hub.

 

[stefanovesa]

Hello. Similar issue with M1 MacBook Air and Naim DAC-V1 USB2 DAC. DAC-V1 has a test mode for testing bit-perfect playback. If I connect DAC-V1 to Apple USB-C to USB adapter, the test fails everytime (dropouts?), if I connect DAC-V1 to Apple multiport adapter that adds a USB-2 HUB to the USB chain, the test is OK. Definitely something related to USB-C ports implementation on the MacBook

 

[Supernormal]

Hey guys, just wanted to report since I've also had this issue since getting my m1 machine about a year ago and it's been driving me crazy. I have a 16 inch M1 pro Macbook with 16gb ram. My interface is a Babyface Pro which I've had for years and never had issues on my Windows machine. I'm running Sonoma and the problem is still there the same as always. I can easily replicate by just watching a youtube vid and opening a raw file in photoshop. Audio never fails to drop out when I do that. I've been relying on just plugging my headphones straight to the computer to get stutter free audio reproduction which sucks when you got a 800us interface and some studio monitors that you can't really use.

I was gonna buy another USB interface thinking that was the problem but reading through this thread that would have been a waste of money.

Edit: Was just getting major stutters like every half a second just watching youtube on chrome while my memory was on green. Like it's a very annoying and frequent issue.

 

[theREALdotnet]

if I connect DAC-V1 to Apple multiport adapter that adds a USB-2 HUB to the USB chain, the test is OK

Interesting, this device?

 

[_thelaughingman]

I've been holding off upgrading my Intel Mac mini to the new Apple silicon Mac mini, but this audio stutter issue really makes me skeptical on upgrading to the new Macs. Hopefully it's resolved, waiting for more anecdotal data and scouring other forums to see if it's resolved.

 

[stefanovesa]

Interesting, this device?

Exactly. No more issues using that.

 

[Vezza]

My stuttering came back after two weeks - really bad. At the same time also other things started to fail - time machine needed 1,5 hours to do the last minute, 14.0 animated screen savers were also stuttering etc. So i took the good old top to terminal. Even Music stopped and everythin except top active the machine load was 12 and some system processes were running like crazy, apparently with high priority. A restart from Apple menu didn't bring mac back - I needed to use the power button. So this was a .0 -version. I upgraded to 14.1 and now console log is exceptionally clean considering Music related stuff - and no stuttering. Let's wait a couple of weeks - I REALLY hope 14.1 is more stable.

 

[Axo1989]

My stuttering came back after two weeks - really bad. At the same time also other things started to fail - time machine needed 1,5 hours to do the last minute, 14.0 animated screen savers were also stuttering etc. So i took the good old top to terminal. Even Music stopped and everythin except top active the machine load was 12 and some system processes were running like crazy, apparently with high priority. A restart from Apple menu didn't bring mac back - I needed to use the power button. So this was a .0 -version. I upgraded to 14.1 and now console log is exceptionally clean considering Music related stuff - and no stuttering. Let's wait a couple of weeks - I REALLY hope 14.1 is more stable.

Sorry to hear that !! I don't usually do point zero versions either, but did so due to this audio issue. I hadn't noticed 14.1 was out, so thanks for that.

 

[Spyerx]

Interesting thread. I have 3 Mac minis:
M2 base model...the cheapest one you can get latest software 8gb/256gb ssd
Mid 2011 i7 8gb/500gb ssd, running 12.7 Monterey
Late 2018 i7 16gb/ 1tb ssd, running latest OS

The M2 I use on a Benchmark DAC 3 via USB and is my main playback device. It's been flawless.
The Mid 2011 I use in my office, with a Topping E50 via USB and its also been flawless

On the M2 I do use a USB-A plug into the DAC3. The device does have an external SSD on a USBC port, which is where local music is.

I just picked up a USB-C to B cable to I'll try that on the M2 to see if I can replicate any of these issues or console warnings.

These machines I don't use for other stuff, so they aren't loaded up. But even when browsing web while playing music or running other background tasks I've not seen any stuttering issues at all playing either local files or streaming.

Just a data point, sorry to those having issues. :-(

 

[Vezza]

Sorry to hear that !! I don't usually do point zero versions either, but did so due to this audio issue. I hadn't noticed 14.1 was out, so thanks for that.

It's not out - I have a release candidate. I took it because these beta versions come with reporting possibilities - if this RC starts to stutter I can report the happenings to someone who might actually look at the problem.

 

[Axo1989]

It's not out - I have a release candidate. I took it because these beta versions come with reporting possibilities - if this RC starts to stutter I can report the happenings to someone who might actually look at the problem.

Makes sense. I checked following your original post on that and looks like official 14.1 has actually just been released yesterday/today. I haven't updated yet. I've had some minor stability issues not related to audio so I will when I get a break in the next few days.

 

[Spyerx]

I did update and haven't noticed any ill effects. I'll try the USBC - USBB cable today to see if mine continues to work OK.