I have an Apple MacBook Pro M2 Max with 32 GB of RAM and listening to DSD files, especially 256, via my iFi iDSD Black Label (audirvana certified) are dropping out like crazy. Happens when moving focus, switching desktops, switching tabs etc.
SysOptimizer is on full with 31GB of memory dedicated. what in the world is wrong? This computer is a BEAST and should have no problems with these files. My older(and current) iPhones have no problems running DSD 256 files with eh Onkyo App.
This is unacceptable for the price of this app. Please help
Hi Adam, suggest you post your debug information. For your information I have an M2 Max MacBook Pro and occasionally play DSD256 files through Audirvana. I have 96 GB ram but only allocate 8 GB for Audirvana and there are no issues with playback whilst also doing a days work on the MBP. You are starving the OS of ram with your settings when Audirvana is using its full allocation
Seeing your debug info will help us to identify additional potential causes of your problem if RAM allocation adjustment does not work.
This speaks volumes to many DSD256 playback performance questions…
My feeling is 6GB to 8GB of pre-load RAM is the sweet-spot… From what I can determine from the posts regarding DSD128 and DSD256 playback anomalies via DoP 1.1 on macOS platforms with 8GB of system RAM, is, this is not enough memory for best performance.
It’s a CTO option for the 16”. I select the highest performance processor and max out the RAM available due to some RAM and processor intensive engineering simulations I run for my clients.
I would add the system architecture of the M2 Max is so good I can put my feet up with headphones on and listen to my library with Audirvana even during a simulation run! Biggest advance I have seen from Apple in terms of performance since I started using Apple portables in the late 90’s
Think it is a combination of RAM on chip design and processor capabilities that helps in my case. The M2 Max is very efficient handling buffered data. The system on a chip design facilitates great performance as can be seen when handling multiple streams of buffered 8k video as demonstrated by Apple with Final Cut Pro. I can only concur with them, performance with the M2 Max running simulations blows away what I got with a Mac Pro with 12 core Intel Xeon with 256 GB RAM that I used to use for my simulation runs!
A bog standard M2 processor is all most people need. The M2 Max is overkill for anyone other than those niche users running highly processor/RAM/Graphics intensive applications.
But then why do people buy a Ferrari when their daily commute limits them to 30 mph speed limits?
I should also add that another important factor I think with my use of Audirvana is that I get the 4TB SSD storage option in the MBP so my music library can be stored on my Mac. This reduces the number of potential bottlenecks feeding Audirvana . Data transfer is limited to very high performance internal SSD (Blackmagic disk speed tests show 6 gigabytes per second performance)
Using external storage just introduces the potential for further bottlenecks in data flow, especially with NAS over wireless…… Not impossible by any means to get this right with external storage but the shorter the chain of data flow the better in my opinion.
Important that I should state the specification of my Mac is totally driven by work requirements (with the exception of SSD capacity which is partly driven by my music library)
If I was only using my computer for Audirvana and my photography hobby I would get an M series Mac Mini and just max out the ram……my machine of choice during retirement I think!
