Audio drop outs with new 2013 iMac

Hello Everyone,

I'm not an iMac user, but I've stumbled on this thread after searching for a solution for my Retina Macbook Pro (late 2013) audio drops during video playback.

I'd like to add an important fact about the described bug. This is not just happening with iMac.

For a long time, I am seeing audio drops problems while streaming video using Plex to my Google TV. At first I thought this was a Wifi problem (since Apple acknowledged wifi problems fixed in the recent Yosemite updates), nevertheless, the problem still happens.

Then I thought it was a problem with my Google TV's optical out, so I switched to audio through its HDMI out. But the problem stayed.

Today, this bugged me so much while watching a film, I connected my computer to the TV directly with an HDMI cable (instead of streaming through the Google TV), in hope this will solve the problem. However, even with the cable running directly from the computer, and checking both Plex and VLC, the audio still dropped for a few seconds every once and awhile while video kept playing.

In any case, I'm not sure what the cause of the problem is, but it seems it is not wifi related. Wish I knew more.

Any thoughts would be welcomed.

Hey there,

This audio dropout or crackling or random interruptions is not an isolated issue to the iMac. It's also happening on a 2011 MacBook Pro, and a 2013 MacBook pro retina. No matter what I do settings wise it eventually happens. I have to restart Logic Pro X, and the interface to make it work. Every now and then I also need to reboot Mavericks/Yosemite/El Capitan as well (yes this issue has been going on since the Mountain Lion days). What I suspect is going on is throttling of USB speed on laptops. Maybe it's a power saving thing that's not user-accessible to turn off.

I disabled all kinds of power saving settings, I tried everything google could get me. I always have the laptop plugged in when using the interface, still no go.

My personal conclusion is that Apple sacrificed external connectivity for the sake of saving battery life on mobile platforms. Whenever I plug the same Octa-Capture interface in my MacPro it doesn't happen. I have 3 other things connected via the same usb hub. 15' of USB cord (dangerously close to the signal dropoff length) between the hub and the mac and yet, no issue at all. Same Logic Pro X project file. Same sample rate, settings, buffer, and all that.

Now, given that the iMac is a desktop computer, I have no idea why this would happen. It's always plugged in. But on a Mac Pro (and I've heard others having success with a mini) there's no issues.

I am having audio dropouts that sound like pops/clicks and the occasional digital "****" when running anything through my Roland Studio Capture using a brand new iMac with a -you guessed it - 2 TB Fusion drive. Latest driver for El Capitan from Roland, every buffer setting tried, tried sample rate of 48 kHz, no other apps going, CPU and ram usage have tons of headroom - still get dropouts/pops/clicks. The Roland works fine on my MBP.

Come on Apple! I'm about to return my 2nd iMac for a 1 TB HHD version. If that doesn't fix it, I'm returning that and giving up. I've wasted SO much time trying to get this to work.