Unbelievable amount of recording latency only on apple silicon macs

Note: This is not your standard latency issue. I truly appreciate anyone who would take the time to answer this question by asking me about my audio software and/or driver settings like software monitoring, buffer length, sample rate, etc, but I promise you that I ruled out everything in the realm of standard troubleshooting for this sort of thing. I've exhaustively tried every setting I could find that has anything to do with audio and even did a fresh os install. I'm very curious if other silicon mac users have the same issue, and NEED to know if this is a bug or a feature.

Hope you're ready for a journey.

With built-in mic and speakers, my Nov 2023 macbook pro (M3 max, 36GB, sonoma 14.4.1) has 45-50ms of uncompensated input delay. This with no plugins. Totally blank projects. 32 buffer length. 48kHz sample rate. Testing with the tried and true, record the metronome measurement. What's more puzzling is that when I first got this computer the first thing I tested was latency and there were no issues - super fast, even with plugins.

me: it must be a Logic Pro bug, I'll try FL studio and Audacity

universe: nope

me: must be the audio interface, I'll update the firmware!

universe: nope.

me: must be the interface itself, I have two others I can try!

universe: nope. nope.

me: wtf...is it the usb driver or something? I'll try the built in mic/speakers

universe: nope.

me: Well it must be messed up settings or preferences, let's reset those everywhere.

universe: nope.

me: Maybe a rogue process or messed up OS...I'll wipe my hard drive and do a fresh macOS install.

universe: nope.

me: hardware!!?? I know apple loves planned obsolescence, but a 3 month old macbook pro? I'll try my work computer, another silicon macbook pro, 2021 (M1 Pro, 16GB, sonoma 14.4.1)

universe: same latency issue.

me: well at least it's not hardware, let's dust off the old intel macbook (2018 i5, 16GB, ventura 13.3.1)

universe: well that still works.

me: adjust the intel mac buffer settings and sample rate

universe: it still works, no need to manually adjust a thing, you can even monitor in near real time if you keep your plugins to a minimum, just like you've always been doing for the last 15 years of making music

me: what the...? How is this possible? I'll call support for the first time ever.

4 transfers and 2 scheduled calls later, they get me to a logic pro "expert" who's lecturing me on buffer sizes lol. He said it's totally normal and to just adjust the recording compensation. Well of course I can do that to align the metronome and get my recordings in time, that's not the point. The point is that it's off by 50ms! On only the new models! 50ms is a really long time for a computer of this caliber.

What started as frustration has turned into total curiosity and amusement. This can't be normal, and if it is, then no musician should ever buy a new mac ever again.

me: why does Logic report round trip latency as 5.4ms (3.9ms output)?

expert: I'd have to look

me: does Logic do any automatic latency compensation of any kind

expert: I'd have to look.

me: are there any differences between the coreaudio APIs for intel and silicon

expert:

me: can I talk to a core audio engineer?

expert: no.

I find it very difficult to accept that it's normal. 15yrs recording, never anything remotely close to this bad. Am I missing something? Two different silicon macs have this issue that make it impossible to monitor, and are reporting incorrect latencies. I can't be the only one, right? Is this a coreaudio bug or audiosyncd bug introduced in the latest macOS? is this actually normal? Am I crazy?! AM I !?

Thank you reading.