After discussing this issue in the HQplayer threads, I think it is a sufficiently serious issue, that upon migrating to or using Tahoo, a full level digital noise can appear with HQplayer, possibly every time a new track is picked, and sometimes when repeating it after attempting once. It “sounds” like what you get when the MSB is not managed correctly. It sounds extremely strong and truly horrible !
The issue is scary enough to motivate a Roon or HQplayer WARNING NOTICE for Mac and HQplayers that upgrade OS to Tahoo ! Imagine a person that uses a fully digital volume control on a powerful system. It could destroy speakers, ears or perhaps both, by the time the person reacts…
I have tested using an idle time set to some value (10 or 20 s), upon recommendation from Jussi Laako for 20 or 30s, in the advanced parameters settings. It does not solve the issue.
The bug is (still) in Tahoo 26.2.1 and appeared possibly in Tahoo.26.1, but I migrated only recently to Tahoo, and directly into 26.2, on my Mac Book Air M3.
Hoping this word of caution helps, and perhaps saves some moving coils and tympanis from damage…
I’ve been using Tahoe since it was released and made corresponding workarounds to HQPlayer v5. So if you are up to date with latest HQPlayer v5, no issues.
To avoid potential issues, make sure your DAC is NOT set as default output device for macOS.
Example how things should be (iFi DAC as HQPlayer output in this case):
Hi Jussi,
Thanks but… where do you find this on a Mac running Tahoo ? All I get relative to the audio output (with Edirol which is old but same thing with IFI DSD) is that:
And I never use the USB output to DAC simultaneously on default output when I am using HQplayer.
Thanks again if you can help me find a solution.
Best regards,
CD
OK but with the EDIROL interface to SPDIF (The Hifi DSD interface is 600 km away for now) what I can see is only this. It looks quite different and with little possibilites to change anything :
Audio MIDI setup is a separate app in macOS. It is an Apple utility app that, if memory serves me correctly, is located in the/Applications/Utilities folder.
One can just click on the “Apps” icon in macOS launch bar, and type “audio” on the search field and it appears…
But I guess one of the issues here could be use of outdated version of HQPlayer. Apple changed CoreAudio on Tahoe, and I made corresponding changes in HQPlayer 5.15.1 (and couple of smaller ones later). Any version prior to that won’t work correctly on Tahoe.
You were rightly asking ! I must reckon I had not upgraded. Like presumably many, getting used to software asking user to download and install the latest update (or optionally doing it automatically, which I am reluctant to aside from IOS itself), I am getting lazy and losing the habit of checking regularly for new versions of my favorite software. It was a good warning though.
No issues now, problem solved with Tahoo using HQplayer Desktop 5.16.3 !
Best regards,
Christian
