Topic: Audio glitches on Mac with RME HDSPe AIO

We have a new RME HDSPe AIO card in our mac running 10.6.8 24 GB Ram 2 x 2.8 quad core
The driver software for the RME is 3.04.
We use Logic 9

When receiving an audio signal via SPDIF TOS link, there is a consistent audio glitch across the input signal.

Here is the sample of a 1k reference tone at -14db with consistent glitches across the signal.

RME Glitches Sample

This does not happen when we use the SPDIF TOS link input on the existing mac audio card which came with the mac.

We bought the RMS card initially for mastering so we could play audio out of Logic, into an external audio interface (TC Electronic Finalizer) and record back into Logic.
This created random intermittent noise across the audio which was far worse than the above.

We contacted RME support via email for help on 3 occasions but received no response.

In the meantime, we changed tactic and tried to play audio from another computer (PC) into the Mac via the RME card, presuming this would ease the load on the mac and may resolve the issue, but it didn't and now we have the problem of the audio glitches.

We bought another RME HDSPe AIO card to see if the first was perhaps a faulty card, but having installed the new one, the same problem exists.

Hoping you can offer some help on what may be causing this.

Thanks

Re: Audio glitches on Mac with RME HDSPe AIO

Hello,

have you made sure the card is correctly syncing to the incomoing SPDIF? Is the clock source set to SPDIF and do you see "Sync" for the SPDIF input? How was the sync set up when using the card with the TC device?

If this does not help, please provide an uncompressed sample of the audio (wav).

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Audio glitches on Mac with RME HDSPe AIO

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

OK, I've just messed around with the settings whilst running a test tone into the device and we had "clock mode" set to "Master". I've changed this to auto sync and the glitches have stopped smile

Changing any of the other settings didn't seem to make any difference, although I've changed ADAT Outputs / Inputs to SPDIF/TOS as advised on both the RME Card and the TC Finalizer.

I need to test the other setup we had where playing out of logic into the TC Finalizer and recording back into logic where we were encountering all sorts of random noises but this only happened occasionally, but was far worse. I'll get back to you on this, but will probably end up using a chain playing from one PC to TC Finalizer and into the mac, unless you know of any reason why it may be better to do it the other way all through one card?

Thanks

Re: Audio glitches on Mac with RME HDSPe AIO

I would assume that in the setup with the TC, you had both devices running on internal clock (as in your setup now), which caused essentially the same phenomenon - possibly worsened by the fact that the connection went both ways...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Audio glitches on Mac with RME HDSPe AIO

Should there be any advantages / disadvantages over running the signal in a chain from one PC>TC Finalizer>MAC using 2 RME HDSPe AIO cards, or using MAC > TC Finalizer> MAC using a single RME HDSPe AIO card. Would you recommend either method above the other?