I have been using the combination of Roon remote and Soundsource on my Mac since I started using Roon years ago, but it has recently become a problem which has essentially broken my setup. My standard setup is as follows: SoundSource is directing the main audio output of the machine to my Schiit Multibit DAC, and Roon is controlling my Denafrips ARES-II in exclusive mode.
In this setup, playback in Roon is occuring, but the audio cuts out after what seems like maybe 100ms, just a tiny blip of sound, then silence.
On the latest 2.0 build 1462 on both Server and Remote, on MacOS Sonoma 14.6.1 and with SoundSource 5.7.1
I suspect this is some problem in the ARK layer, but I am no expert. I have tried the following:
clearly uninstalled and reinstalled both Roon and SoundSource and ARK (which is done as part of the Soundsource fresh install)
ran all OS updates on Sonoma short of a major version upgrade to Sequoia
swapped the roles of the DACs as described above
had Roon start playing on a different device on the network, and used the double arrow transfer feature to punt it over to the Denafrips
migrated the setup to a different Mac running Sequoia
The only workarounds I have now are not really tenable: stopping SoundSource, or changing Roon to not use exclusive mode.
Anyone else encounter this issue, or have any guidance on how to further troubleshoot?
I just did a fresh login from the Mac in question, so you should see new login activity as of about 5 mins ago.
Played the track Crying Inside by Nick Lowe on the album Indoor Safari via Qobuz streaming, with the sound issue happening as described (a very, very short blip of sound, then silence). Same with my attempt to play a track from my locally stored FLAC album in my library - Where’s My Everything? by Nick Lowe on the album The Impossible Bird.
Please let me know if I can provide anything else to help diagnose. Thanks again.
Thanks for digging up this thread. Per David’s comment “…I would completely quit SoundSource when you’re using Roon. That works best in my situation, although “No Redirect” should, in theory, do the same thing.”- this is how my setup has worked for years, with me never touching any of the redirect settings on the Denafrips device, or the Roon app (as represented in Soundsource).
This, in effect, seemed to allow Roon to commandeer the DAC in exclusive mode, and get “in front” of SoundSource/ARK.
Now, it seems that SoundSource is trumping Roon, which just got me wondering… what if I start Roon first, then initialize SoundSource? And vice versa? In other words, can I force the precedence of Roon exclusive mode over SoundSource/ARK by starting them in different sequences? I just completed some tests along those lines, and unfortunately none of these attempts worked:
Start Mac → Start Roon → Play song (success) → Start SoundSource → Roon goes quiet, but shows the track still playing to the DAC (failure)
Start Mac → Start Roon → Play song (success) → Start SoundSource → Pause song, disable Denafrips, reenable Denafrips, play song (failure)
I suspect David always knew that that was a possibility. Maybe something changed in the latest release of SoundSource?
May I make two comments, please?
I was alerted recently of the availability of SoundSource 5.7.x; although not 100% clear, it seemed as though 5.7 may be guaranteed to work only on Sequoia. You’re running Sonoma. So one thing you could try is reverting to version 5.6.4. This page on Rogue Amoeba’s site has more info on versions
the folks at Rogue Amoeba as particularly helpful and responsive. Why not try approaching them for advice?
I wanted to get SoundSource working with everything - including Roon - back in 2020. But I realized then (and, as I say, incompatibility may have been resolved in the past four years) that I was just asking for trouble. So if all else fails, you can indeed still use Roon and its own ways of directing audio output. Good luck!
Thanks for the timestamps! We didn’t see any errors around the time you started playback on both tracks. Perhaps @Mark_Sealey’s suggestions above may help?
P_lease post your version of macOS and of SoundSource, @Coz; and when you last updated each: they might help in identifying where any possible incompatibility might be.
That doesn’t look s though it definitively isolates the phenomenon to an incompatibility between earlier versions of macOs than 15. In theory it highlights the 5.7(.n?) version of SoundSource, doesn’t it.
Whoa! You all are legends, I was just about to raise a thread with them and see you’re miles ahead of me! Thanks all, I will test this new build this weekend.
Alright, chaps, I tested with the latest dev build that Coz linked above and the results are good. There is one new magic incantation required, however, to get the apps working nicely together. Within SoundSource, simply set an application level redirect for Roon to the specific DAC you are using in exclusive mode, and it works like a charm. It did not work with the default “no redirect”, but this is not a concern for me. In fact, SoundSource seems to have a healthy awareness that Roon has taken over the DAC. See screenshots below:
Hmm, I didn’t had to do any redirect with my RME adi-2 it works as before the updates, but volume under favorites don’t work after turning on the Adi-2 until I restart Soundsource I have reported this all so.
They said they are still working on improvements, so you can expect things will get fixed it’s very fine company and have great support.
