I installed roon to try it out, and made my 2017 macbook pro my core. I tried it out for a few hours. I (foolishly) tried some audio settings to see what they would do. I did something stupid, and now ALL sound from my computer, through any output, sounds muffled, crackly, and horrible. It’s like i altered the way audio files are decoded system wide, if that’s possible. I have no idea how to fix it. I tried changing all outputs to default settings within roon. I tried uninstalling roon. nothing helps. I have no idea what happened. Please help!
Hi @Luke_White, this sounds like a fairly horrible experience. If you’re going to get help you’ll probably need to supply a few more details:
- how are you playing back the sound?
- what settings did you play with, even sketchy details?
- were the settings all within Roon or did you alter any OS settings?
I’m sure you’ll find others willing to help but you’ll have to help them to do so.
Good luck…
I’m playing the sound through the intenal speakers, an attached USB speaker, and airplay. Same problem with all.
I only changes settings on roon. I thought it happened after I changed some device setup options under Audio in roon preferences, but the problem persisted even after setting each to ‘load defaults’ and saved again.
when i play the same audio (say a tidal song) from my phone to the same airplay speakers, it sounds perfect. Definitely something with my mac.
So that does sound like you’ve isolated it to the MacBook. Could it be that the volume’s overdriven somehow. I’m not a Mac user really but I have a mini for testing software. What’s the settings look like for the sound output? Again I’m just trying to tease out info that might help, I’m not super confident that I’m your knight in shining here.
also, i may have changed settings accesible from the menu that shows the current bitrate (color coded purple, blue, etc). i cant be sure because i canceled my trial when i assumed uninstalling would fix the issue, and now only have access to preferences in the file menu. really stuck here.
Just out of curiosity have you tried Bluetooth out of the MacBook? Also what players have you tried?
volume is at the low end system wide. the sound is more like a lower bitrate than speakers blowing out
bluetooth sounds much better! what would that mean?
Sounds like you’re favouring some kind of codec screw up, which sounds feasible. I suspect your bitrate ears are better than mine 
Bluetooth is basically a data transfer so the decoding is done elsewhere. It might be that somethings wrong with the sound card. This link might have some clues https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/macbook-pro-sound-distortion-help
Trying a guest account to isolate user settings sounds a good test.
Ok, i’ve isolated that the problem only happens when i have my USB soundstick speakers selected as my default system wide. If i select an airplay speaker as my default speaker, it works. However, if i select the USB speaker as the default, but then from another app i choose airplay, it sends the garbled sound through airplay. So weird. unfortunately this means I still can’t use my usb speakers. any ideas?
The good news is that it sounds like software so nothing real is broken. It’s late where I am and am off to sleep shortly. Will think about it some, but Macs not my specialist subject. There does seem to be a lot of it about if Google search is any indication. What USB speakers are they?
THanks for passing along the article. So far nothing has worked but relieved i can use other outputs. The USB are harman kardon soundsticks
Hi Luke,
Have you Enabled System Output as your USB zone? Do you see the USB Soundstick as an endpoint you can Enable? Can you post a screenshot of your Roon Settings > Audio tab?
Cheers, Greg
I dont know how to enable system output as a USB zone. i can enable the soundsticks. see screenshots of how settings are. I’m pretty sure now I changed something in the soundstick settings when I was looking at the bitrate output but…i cant use roon since i ended my trial, so can’t get to that screen.
Can you restart my 14 day trial so i can try switching the menu options I saw from within the full application?
The trial is the same software as everyone uses. Your login determines if your membership is trial or full. There is no difference to the software and so you are seeing the full interface. Unless your trial has expired.
Have you used spotlight to get toe the midi settings in the Mac, this is where things like nitrates are setup.
I cancelled my trial, not realizing it would have limited functionality after doing so. I understand the trial was the full software, but my trial is now over, even though it has been fewer than 14 days. Would be great to get the full 14 days if it would help me resolve this problem, which i think it would.
I don’t know what you mean about using spotlight to get to midi settings or nitrates, please enlighten me if you think this would help.
Bitrates sorry…it’s the apple audio settings place but it’s under midi settings
@accounts might be able to reinstate your trial
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