Audirvana Origin (MacBook Pro M1, Sonoma) had problems with my new KEF LS50W2 speakers from Santa Claus. Songs cut off in mid-play, would not go to the next song, spinning beach ball, warnings about System Optimizer lacking a helper app (???), etc. The problems were not present with streaming sources that did not go through Audirvana. After abandoning use of the Audirvana Remote app to try and deal with this, and trying the suggestions all over on the forum, changing the buffer size, raw PCM, the built-in settings for these issues, etc., what finally worked was turning off the software volume control option, and using the KEF remote to change volume. (The integer setting is not available with the KEF’s internal DAC, so don’t go nuts trying to find it.) I don’t know if the other workarounds in Settings are a necessary part of the solution, but I’m not ready to try the myriad combinations on Christmas eve.
Damian, it might be really helpful to provide ONE updated and complete post or FAQ of things to try, instead of having all these closed threads with no resolution (no pun intended).
But those KEF speakers and Audirvana sound great now! I hope they become Audirvana partners.
Just for information. These are the default settings I use with the KEF LS50 WII’s. I have never had an issue with playback for well over a year and even then they were network related. Not sure what you mean when you say that you have to use the KEF remote volume control to change volume. Even with software volume control off in settings I can still use the volume slider in the Audirvana app (bottom right) as well as the KEF remote.
A couple of other things. I run the KEF Ethernet cable between the speakers and set the KEF Connect app settings to cable mode (get 24/192 kHz with the cable and only 24/96 without the cable) due to my speakers being close to a TV and other wireless sources I found wireless mode for the speakers more unreliable. I also plug the KEFs into the wireless router with an ethernet cable and my computer connects wirelessly via UPnP to the router, this also improved playback stability over wireless connections for both the KEF’s and the computer.
Set up this way I can upsample to 24/192 to the speakers or play DSD128 without any issues.
