Q: El Capitan USB audio problems.

I've exclusively used Firewire and before that PCI audio devices in the last 15 years.

In 2015 I upgraded to El Capitan. This year I got a refund for a defective product and used the credit to buy some other stuff so I threw in a Presonus Audiobox iOne... Terrible experience:  It's usually not recognized after boot or after sleep (requiring to unplug the USB cable every time)... it ofter disconnects or stop streaming audio (this is too much) and sometime fails to change sample rates.

I thought it was the card but after a while I realized it's an Apple's EC fault. Class Complaint USB Audio Drivers are incomplete / buggy ... or whatever.

Apple USB3 native drivers are new to EC, sadly they're working pretty bad... not to say totally unreliable to most USB audio users... (thousands?).

With no USB audio, No Firewire ports, No PCie slots ...What's left? OK. Thunderbolt. I hope this in not an intentional move from apple to convince audio guys to switch to TB.

I am in the same boat as everyone else. I spent a lot of money on what i thought was the best hardware and software combination , ie max performance to weight in a Macbook Pro, and now it can't even run the simplest Audiobox USB device. This should be straightforward fix, especially considering it worked before the El Capitan Update.

When will this be resolved Apple!!!!?

Just so everybody knows, I returned my macbook pro and got my refund.

I'm relieved to be honest. Windows is fine and I don't spend so much time seeing it as an "experience" - I.e. I'm faffing around less and getting on with the job at hand.

I can take the money and get a high spec windows desktop instead.

I'll NEVER buy Apple again. The entire experience was largely (there were brief moments of "nice interface, nice load times) terrible.

It feels good to be rid of it.

Same problem after upgrading, but I needed to in order to file share with my wife's new Mac. Ho-hum.

I've emailed Optoma technical support (who distribute Nuforce) and await a reply.

In the meantime, has anybody been able to confirm that the NuForce uDac-3 works ok with EC?

Same problems as everyone here. MacBook Pro 2015 running Yosemite, then El Capitan.

Since El Capitan upgrade my Apogee USB devices (One and Duet) will just randomly disconnect and then reconnect again. Full driver removal and re-install doesn't fix this issue. Seems to be an El Capitan issue.

Thunderbolt audio devices work fine.

Hello everyone.

Just an update.

As everyone else I was experiencing some serious problems with USB audio. (Mac Mini 2012 / Presonus Audiobox iOne to be specific. The problem wasn't present on my Mac Pro 2009. Because it's USB2 only I assume).

A few days ago I did a fresh El Capitan installation on my computers... to my surprise I haven't experienced a problem after that.

I know a clean install is time consuming... but at least in my case I made a clear difference.

Let me know what you think.

rokko102 wrote:

 

Hello everyone.

 

Just an update.

 

As everyone else I was experiencing some serious problems with USB audio. (Mac Mini 2012 / Presonus Audiobox iOne to be specific. The problem wasn't present on my Mac Pro 2009. Because it's USB2 only I assume).

 

A few days ago I did a fresh El Capitan installation on my computers... to my surprise I haven't experienced a problem after that.

 

I know a clean install is time consuming... but at least in my case I made a clear difference.

 

Let me know what you think.

That has been my general experience with most problems people are experiencing in this forum. I am not saying that there are no bugs - there is no such thing as bug-free software. I am saying that most of the problems somehow lead back to conflict with old and incompatible software.

Before committing to a clean install (which, as you said, is time consuming), people can do so in a separate drive or partition to first see if the problems do go away. Also, it is crucial to note that it if one does a clean install and then just reimports everything from, say, a Time Machine backup, one is negating the benefit of said clean install by reimporting the problem again!

Today the replacement DAC PCB arrived for my home built music box to replace the DAC that stopped functioning because of EC.

Happy to report that this one works.

The relevant chipset: XMOS DAC 32bit / 384KHz, PCM5012.
The DAC: http://www.yuan-jing.com/dacs-decoder/dacs-board/xmos-usb-audio-32bit-384khz-dac -decoder-board-pcm5102-tda1308-headphone…

For me this is a solution that comes at a cost of 55 USD and some hours work - which I don't count. I had to order this in the dark whether this solution would work, and mainly selected the device based on its modern chipset. It would be so much preferable when Apple could communicate about supported protocols.

I am almost sure all this is related to USB-1 speed and/or  the version 1 usb audio protocol. For the record, I did a clean install of EC when it was released.

Hi everyone!

My problem actually was as simple to solve as to swap the USB cable into another port on my iMac!

Blushing for my stupidity of not figuring it out on my own...

Anyhow - Optoma NuForce customer care is doing good job:

1. My enquiry in Facebook was being replied to rather quickly. The communication nice and polite.

2. My enquiry in optoma.com site was responded to in promised 2 working days. And solution eventually given.

The NuForce DDA-100 is a fantastic device! The follow-up model Optoma NuForce DDA-120 must be even better.

Cheers!

PS. Here's what Optoma outsourced customer care wrote:

Afternoon

We have found problem similar in the pass and we found to fix this issue customer will need to select a different USB port and continue to cycle between the USB ports until a connection is established

Kind Regards

(name deleted)

ASP Administrator

Optoma Europe Limited

That is interesting. It would be even more interesting to know what devices are on the same logical bus when it works and when it doesn't work. That should somehow cause the difference. There are also devices inside of you Mac connected to the usb bus, it is not just what you plug in.

I have tried this solution of disconnecting and reconnecting my MBox2 and unfortunately this did not help me.  But, I'm very glad to hear it worked in your situation!

Are you saying that doing a clean install has solved this USB Audio/DAC issue in more situations than Rokko102's? I've been considering doing a clean install lately as my mid 2012 MBPro has been getting a bit buggy lately.  In my experience, clean installs have often cleared many problems, though I haven't had to do this on the MacBook yet.  Knowing that a clean install has worked in more than one case would be just enough motivation for me to sort through 4 years of files and start over.

For me, nothing change after clean install.

Hi Guys!

Bad news so far, I updated El Capitan to 10.11.4 beta version and the usb sound still wasn't fixed.

I have a Hifiman HM-101 USB.

PS.: I have tested with my old A40 MixAMP from Astrogaming that is a sound card USB for consoles and worked fine.

ps.: sorry about my bad english.

The Hifiman HM-101 USB uses a chip called PCM2702E.

The PCM2702E datasheet: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm2702.pdf

says:

INTEGRATED USB INTERFACE: Full-Speed Transceiver Supports 12Mbps Data Transfer

Fully Compliant with the USB 1.0 Specification

I suspect, but nothing has been communicated, that USB 1 devices and/ or devices that support usb audio version 1 are no longer supported.