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hipdeejay Author

Level 1

12 points

Strange Issues w/ New 2013 MBPR

Ok so I just got my brand new 2013 15" Macbook Pro retina, fully maxed out with 1TB SSD and 16gigs of RAM. Going through the long process of reinstalling everything and putting my settings how I like them when I noticed something weird.

When I open up Ableton, under the Audio preferences tab it says it has 19+ milliseconds of Overall Latency. With no audio interface connected, this is just stock with Core Audio. This is weird because my previous gen 2012 MBPR had 7.80ms Overall Latency, with the same settings, no interface, nothing, fresh out the box.

This doesn't make sense to me. I didn't do anything different. And I haven't even installed a single plugin yet. Why does the new gen MBPR have much higher latency fresh out the box? I thought it was supposed to be faster. It boggles the mind.

Any ideas what could be contributing to this? Anyone else experiencing similar issues? Could it be defective? Or does it have something to do with the newer chipsets causing more latency for some reason? I don't get it.

I'm hoping it's just a simple setting I need to change, but really I have no idea what would cause this. It should have just as much latency as the previous gen does but instead it's much much higher.

I've also noticed some weird screen flickering, especially when quitting Ableton. I really hope it's not defective. Any thoughts? Thanks

Macbook Pro Unibody, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Oct 31, 2013 12:38 AM

21 replies

Dec 10, 2013 3:03 AM in response to djmemewinter

Excellent news! Of course we all think our issue is 'the biggest' but as long as they're aware and fix it properly first time, I for one am prepared to wait.

Life at the bleeding edge eh.

Dec 12, 2013 5:16 AM in response to charibancho

If Apple would say this publicly, I'd buy a new MBP. I'm holding off until it's confirmed that there is no hardware issue.

Dec 16, 2013 12:03 PM in response to Moosebear

Just spoke with someone in core audio and he would not (could not?) confirm the existence of any problem whatsoever with latency in core audio, nor could he say anything about any software (or hardware) audio issues, or any fix in the works.

He said "Well if it's true that many people are having this latency problem, they should call us, because we are not hearing from them".

And he did also recommend that I wait. Which to me, might suggest he knows something he is not allowed to tell me. I can't believe Apple core audio would not know about a problem so widely experienced. Like, by everyone. I haven't seen anyone online say: "I've got a new MBP late 2013 and the latency is as good as any Apple I've ever bought.

So... we wait for confirmation. Dum de dum.

Dec 20, 2013 5:26 AM in response to Moosebear

Updated to 10.9.1, no change 😢

Dec 20, 2013 1:11 PM in response to charibancho

So Charibancho, or anyone, presuming you have one of the new Haswell Macbooks, do you see a change when you plug in headphones? Is the latency acceptable when you do that?

Jun 5, 2014 2:47 PM in response to hipdeejay

Wondering how we might know when they have fixed it, which as a brand new fully loaded mbp user who bought it soley thinking I was getting the best audio traveling machine I could, I hope happens soon. Will it say in the update, "fixed the latency issues with core audio" or will it just be something in the backround and oneday we will al bel happy to see a lower number.

Strange Issues w/ New 2013 MBPR