Weird Sound Artefacts about soundflower HOT 142 OPEN

I have the exact same problem, but my Interface is a Native Instruments Audio 4 
DJ.

I've also tried the latest drivers from Native Instruments, without success.

I have the same issue with a MOTU Ultralite on 10.5.7

I'm using Mac OS-X Leopard 10.5.{6,7} also.

Any hints on how to solve this bug?!

I'm running the latest version of Soundflower on Snow Leopard (MacBook 3.1), 
with
latest drivers.

It appears to be some kind of buffer overflow. When the artifacts occurs, 
clicking on
Soundflower menu item and reselecting the interface temporarily solves the 
problem.

I also have an issue just like thi.

SF/SFB worked perfect on Leopard, I am wondering whether to go back until a fix 
is found? As this seems to 
have happened sine i upgraded to SL. Although I have not confirmed that yet...?

Ableton 8.0.05 into SF 1.5.1 then into Audacity 1.2.5 // AH Pro 2.9.4

Have also tried through Audio HiJack, but, because the trial is time locked, 10 
minutes is not enough to see if 
the problem replicates through that app...?

Forgot to add the specs... 

 MacBookPro 5.2 17 Uni
 Intel Core 2 Duo
 2.66 GHz
 4 GB

Snow Leopard 10.6.1

This bug occured with Leopard too. I've never been able to suscessfully run
Soundflower with my NI Audio 4 DJ sound car.

Issue 21 has been merged into this issue.

Issue 19 has been merged into this issue.

Issue 10 has been merged into this issue.

Issue 40 has been merged into this issue.

I have reproduced this problem using Max/MSP generating a sine wave with the 
AudioTester patcher -> 
SoundflowerBed.

[deleted comment]

[deleted comment]

This problem does not require a Firewire audio interface -- it will occur with 
the built-in sound device.  

It is not at all obvious from looking through the code where the problem is 
occuring.

MacMini
Intel Core Duo
1.66 GHz
1GB
10.6.1

Do you have an estimate on when this bug will be solved and a new version 
released?
Thanks.

Phew, I'm glad this has been picked up.

I am gutted not being able to lay anything down at present, without sitting on 
tender hooks, waiting for the 
drops and clicks.

If you need any audio samples, feel free, I can provide to demo the problem

Glad these apparently related issues have been picked up & merged. Thank you - 
please mail me if there is 
anything specific you would like tested.

Coming in with my 2¢ here. I'm running soundflower on snow leopard, on a 
macbook3,1 
without any issues.

    One thing I've noticed about my laptop is that it ALWAYS is emitting faint buzzing and 
higher pitched beeping, whenever the soundcard is powered on. This is not a 
soundflower 
issue; this is a hardware issue. It is only noticeable when using headphones 
and when no other 
audio is playing (but the soundcard has not been cycled off). Additionally, 
messing with the 
audio settings, such as switching audio devices, will cause the soundcard to 
cycle off and "fix" 
this issue.

    Could it be possible that some you with the "buffer overrun" issue are simply experiencing 
the effects of the macbook's relatively average soundcard as well? Of course, 
this doesn't apply 
to those who are experiencing high cpu usage as well, I believe that's a 
separate issue.

@percontation: no, this has nothing to do with what you described. 1) if you 
hear the
sound you will immediatly know it is _not_ an hardware issue 2) it happens on 
certain
Soundcards, not with the apple chip. 3) I don't have a macbook ;-)

So really, it is soundflower itself which needs to be fixed

@percontation: I have a NI Audio 4 DJ interface and a MacBook 3,1. It does emit 
the
faint buzz ONLY when my MacBook sleep or is powering off. When it's on, the 
faint
buzz does not appear.

This faint buzz was introduced since I upgraded my system to Snow Leopard. I 
don't
know if it's a software issue, or if it's just a coincident hardware failure.

I don't know if it's related to SoundFlower also. But I have completely 
uninstalled
SoundFlower and the faint buzz becomes evident when I put my MacBook to sleep.

But this is a issue that doesn't botter me at all.

@percontation: What does botter me is that SoundFlower does not work. Whenever 
I run
it with my Native Instruments Audio 4 DJ, after some period of time, the audio 
is
"jammed", and the weird sound artifacts appear. The audio only returns to 
normal when
I click in some option of the SoundFlowerBed icon in the menu bar.

*** But I think this bug may be perceived ONLY with expensive audio interfaces 
with
very low latency. Cheap ones, like the onboard audio interface of the MacBook, 
may
not have present the issue. ***

Evidently these are different issues indeed. It just struck me how much your 
textual 
descriptions would resemble me trying to describe the crappy mbp built-in 
audio. I 
guess I'll fiddle around with the two USB audio cards I have and see if I can 
hit the 
problems you've been talking about (I've used them before without problems, 
though).

I Have the exact same issue with a native instruments audio kontrol 1. After a 
few
(less buffer) or more minutes (more buffer) the audio either stops completely
(happens with vlc video) or is completely jammed (using itunes/front row). 
Would it
be possible as a workaround to inlclude in a new version of SF an option with a 
much
bigger buffer ? 

[deleted comment]

Disagree with comment 26 - not a true representation of the scope of the issue.

Sorry, @shoarthing, it's just a guess.

This problem also occurs on a hackintosh (OS X Leopard, a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4
motherboard which has Realtek ALC889A integrated audio).

I used Soundflower to enable audio volume control when using optical output. 
But I
stopped using it because of this bug. Hopefully this will get fixed soon and I 
can
use those volume buttons on my keyboard again :)

[deleted comment]

Unfortunately, I gave up on waiting. 

When i reinstalled Leopard on a different partition the same issue appeared, 
which then indicated mine was 
hardware. 

So, following a board replacement, I have actually found a work around with 
Ableton, record the audio in there 
and then render to Wav, you don't need SF then.... Da Dah!

Any position about this bug? Thanks.

Please fix this fast! These Problem makes Soundflower absolutely not usable at 
all for now.

yes, fix it! I reported this over 6 months ago and a LOT of people can't use 
this.
This is even more serious bc Soundflower remains the only option for certain
situations. PLEASE, fix this ASAP. Thank you!

exact same issue here.  selecting 2048 buffer size gives about an hour before 
it gets
"jammed", and clicking any current menu setting SF seems to 'reset the clock' 
as it
were on the countdown before it jams up again.  i use (or would like to use) SF 
for
streaming audio from my computer and would like to leave it to do its thing
automatically without coming back every hour to click on the SF menu to reset 
the
"jam countdown" (what i would guess, as others have guessed, is a buffer 
underrun issue).

until it's fixed i'll try to come up with an applescript that essentially does 
that
menu click, or equivelant, for me, every hour.

crossing fingers that this gets fixed soon, cos it's a great and quite necessary
app/function!

would be glad to do testing.

10.5.7
3 gigs ram
onboard audio

I guess there is no one looking at this bug (or this messages anyway...)

we are working with final cut studio and are facing the same problem. 
soundflowerbed
seems the only option to us....since months we are working with this horrible 
bug,
it's no longer possible for us...

is there any solution upcoming?

  I don't know why this has started happening! I was using Soundflower  to route all apps out of my M-Audio 
Projectmix's digital output so I can use the much better D/A conversion on my  
MOTU Traveller. 

It was working great for many months, but when I upgraded both Ableton LIve and 
MAX/MSP, I started getting 
these weird buffer artifacts, which I wrongly thought for a while were related 
to those programs updates, but 
now I get them eventually on any audio source when using Soundflower.  

This clearly didn't happen before, but now it does.  I am confused.

Just wanted to add that I have noticed the same problem, confirm the same 
workarounds
as effective to solve it too.
Platform is Snow Leopard 10.6 along with Soundflower 1.5.1, runnning in 32-bit 
kernel
mode.
Soundcard is onboard (Maximus Formula) with a Analog Devices chip AD1988B 
running an
unsupported kext.
I know this may not the best controlled environment you get but there it is.
I may just test 64-bit to check if there's any influence.
I'll report later.

Thank you, @gamma.stardust. Please, do you have any idea of when a new version 
(or beta) will be released 
solving this?

@filipead, nopes... have no idea, I am just a newcomer around.

I am testing 64-bit right now... I'll report soon.

Test done, 64-bit suffers the same issue.
This was made with a buffer of 512.
With Soundflower 16ch output of a 5.1 ac3 track played on VLC 1.0.3 (32bit)

Following up with a minor report.

Same stuff happens with Quicktime Pro X.

Same problem here, using an iMac 2007 intel aluminum 24 inch with Snow Leopard 
10.6.2
and a MOTU 896. I have all sound output routed to soundflower 2ch and 
soundflowerbed
2ch routed to my Motu 896 to control volume via software. Works great for maybe 
half
an hour and then the sound starts to sound robotic and then locks up looping on 
a
sample. Changing output drivers fixed it for me.

Same prolem with a M-Audio Fast Track Ultra (FTU) on a 2.66 GHz Quad with 
10.5.8. ...

same on dual quad 2.8 intel mac pro, imac alu and mac book pro.
all running 10.6.2 and the problem is there when audio is routed from inside 
the computer to an external soundcard. happens with a 
MOTU 828mk3 firewire audio, MOTU ultralite mk2 (both MOTU drivers) 
and EDIROL fa66 (coreaudio drivers).
sound is ok for some 40-50 seconds and then KCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCH. noise.
switching the outputs (resetting the clocks?) makes things right again�
�for a moment.
it happens on 32 and 64 bit startup modes.

the first time this happened was with right after installing 
10.5. with 10.4 it worked fine. I was hoping for it to go away wit
h 10.6 but no, something is still screwed up and looking over 
the code, no obvious fix is seen.

I really wish this could work again someday in a not to far future.

It appears that Soundflower is an abandoned project... This bug is confirmed by 
several people, but no developer 
is trying to fix it. Too bad, it's a great tool. I would even pay for it to 
work properly.

Issue 44 has been merged into this issue.

Think Issue 43 is also describing the same problem. So, can we hope for a fix 
soon?
Seems that this is issue #1 for many many people. I hope you will have the 
ressources
to do this. And, as others I would even pay for a fix! Thank you. 

Issue 43 has been merged into this issue.

Trying to look into the source of this problem and why affects some users but 
not others...  

Most of the comment and reports of this problem are missing information.  In 
order to be helpful 
they need to include, at a minimum, the following:

1. The signal path.  e.g.  Live 5.1.1 -> SoundFlower -> Max/MSP 5.1.3 -> 
built-in output

2. The sample rates and vector/buffer/block sizes used by all programs in the 
signal path

3. Hardware configuration (many have included this, which is a good start)

4. Exact and detailed steps on how to reproduce.  Vague instructions or those 
missing steps don't 
help.

Thanks everyone for your help!  Once the problem can be pinned down then there 
is hope of trying 
to fix it.

Having now spent a couple of days on this problem, I am only able to reproduce 
when I use 
a bogus setup.  I am unable to reproduce when everything is set up properly: 

- all involved applications are using the same driver (e.g. Built-in or Apogee 
Duet or 
whatever) and not mixed drivers
- all involved applications are running at the same sample rate
- all involved applications are using the same vector size
- the vector size is reasonable (i.e. 512 is reasonable, 32 is not)

This is with a beta build of Soundflower 1.5.2, so it's possible that some of 
the issues 
involved are also solved in-part by this new version, which I'll post shortly.

Tried with Soundflower 1.5.2 beta and the issue appears in it too.

The signal path is VLCPlayer -> SoundFlower -> Native Instruments Audio 2 DJ
Buffer size is 512 or 1024 (with 1024 it takes more time to reproduce)

MacBook MB404RS/A

It's quite easy to reproduce the problem, just listen to music for 5 minutes.

BTW, I'm familiar to programming, so I can help you collect logs if you'd like 
this.

Forgot about OS: Snow Leopard 10.6.2

ok.
tested again. 

10.6.3 latest developer build, stared up in 64 bit mode
soundflower 1.5.2b1
early 2008 mac pro 2 x 2,8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 8GB DDR2, 6 GB striped raid
firewire audio with Motu 828MK3 and Motu UltraLite

simple audiopath 1 : iTunes > soundflower 2CH 1 + 2 > Motu 828MK3 CH 13 + 14 
(SPDIF)

simple audiopath 2 : Soundtrack > soundflower 2CH 1 + 2 > Motu Ultralite CH 5 + 
6 (ANALOG)

all set to 48 kHz, soundflower buffer 512

it takes longer to reproduce with  bigger buffer, but it will happen. 
it also happens if I select any other combination of channels on the output 
devices.

after 12-13 minutes (longer than ever before, some progress at least) : audio 
stalls in last frequencies, providing an almost continuous tone.

good luck, we all have our fingers crossed that this might get fixed eventually.

10.6.2 (32bit), MacPro 2.66 Dual Listening to iTunes, Safari, various. (normal 
use) Stopwatch timed, not accurate.

system audio settings: Use This Device for Sound Output / Input = Soundflower 
(2ch-32bit) @44.1kHz->EchoAudioFIre(12ch-24bit) @44.1kHz, clock 
source = Mac

buffer: 256 = 3:25  to meltdown
buffer: 512 = 6:39  to meltdown
buffer: 1024 = 13:15 to meltdown

system audio settings: Use This Device for Sound Output / Input = Soundflower 
(2ch-32bit) @44.1kHz->EchoAudioFIre(12ch-24bit) @96kHz, clock 
source = Mac

buffer: 256 = 1:59 to meltdown
buffer: 512 = 3:09 to meltdown
buffer: 1024 = 6:15 to meltdown


system audio settings: Use This Device for Sound Output / Input = Soundflower 
(2ch-32bit) @96kHz->EchoAudioFIre(12ch-24bit) @44.1kHz, clock 
source = Mac

buffer: 256 = 1:42 to meltdown
buffer: 512 = 3:10 to meltdown
buffer: 1024 = 6:12 to meltdown

let me know what other factors to compare, t. no problem consistently 
reproducing it for ya.

These last two comments don't indicate what software is getting the sound out 
of 
Soundflower and sending to the hardware, which seems to imply that you are 
using 
SoundflowerBed?  

I just tried SoundflowerBed and I _can_ reproduce the problem.  So this looks 
like a bug 
not in Soundflower, but in SoundflowerBed.  Soundflower itself seems to work 
fine with 
other applications (such as Max/MSP) at the end of the chain.

I too am suffering from this problem. And Yes I am using soundflowerbed to 
route the
audio to my audio interface (Mbox 2 USB).

I am running OSX 10.6.2 , Mac Pro. 

Signal flow is Logic Pro 9.1 - soundflower - Soundflowerbed - Mbox 2 output.

Buffer is set to 512 samples in all applications. 

I get about 5 minutes or so before I have to reselect my hardware from 
soundflowerbed
to get sound again. This happens every time I use soundflower 2ch or 16ch as the
audio interface for Logic Pro. 

Also, when I first start soundflowerbed although my audio interface is already
selected in soundflowerbed it does not route audio to it until I select the 
interface
again.

Thanks

Yes. Using soundflowerbed. I will try with max tonight. 

I was also using SFB.... 

Although have given up on this software for now and have found a work around 
for my particular set up.

using previous config, the problem exists when using SFB, not with MAX.

I *have* the problem with the following signal path:
Traktor Pro => Soundflower => Ableton Live 8 => Audio8 DJ.
I *do not have* the problem with the following signal paths:
(i)  Traktor Pro => Audio8 DJ
(ii) Ableton Live 8 => Audio8 DJ
(iii) Traktor Pro => Soundflower => Live 8 => Internal Sound Card

It appears that something about my configuration that involves Soundflower 
finally
routed through the Audio8 DJ driver seems to cause this issue. 

I have a similar setup like vamshi.raghu, and I also have exactly the same 
behaviour
like all people here reported (noise after certain periods of time). Might add 
that I
am also using Soundflower, so the Setup

Anyapp => Soundflower => Audio DJ 8

produces the problems stated above by me and other people. Should be really 
easy to
reproduce and it also seems to occur on certain types of sound hardware, 
apparently
including all Native Instruments audio interfaces, but also many others. Maybe 
all of
these cards have a similar chipset?

I'm really happy to see some progress on this issue, and also come 
cleanup/consolidation of the reports.

I'll try to re-verify on my current setup (Mac Pro with Apogee Ensemble) ASAP, 
and 
verify whether it happens just with SoundflowerBed involved, or not.

The same bug occurs in the new Soundflower 1.5.2 Beta1. Too sad...

Soundflower was awesome when it worked. I was able to control the System Volume 
from
my computer while using a firewire device through Soundflowerbed. Could we get 
the
priority escalated from medium please?

-R

I'm currently working on fixing this issue myself. I seem to have narrowed down 
where the problem is occurring. If any of the maintainers 
have any input to my observations, that would be helpful.

In the InputIOProc of AudioThruEngine, input audio is stored in the ring 
buffer, and in the OutputIOProc, it is fetched. After a certain 
period of time, every attempt to fetch from the ring buffer in the OutputIOProc 
fails because the times passed in fall outside of the range 
of the buffer. So say the buffer is 96000 samples big (48khz / sec @ 2 
seconds). On my sound card, the safety offset is 50, so it will 
consistently fail trying to fetch 95950 - 96462 (462 greater than the buffer) 
when buffer size is set to 512. Not quite sure what is 
causing this, but it is pretty consistent and has to do with the ring buffer. 
If I change the source to bypass the ring buffer, writing directly 
to This->mWorkBuf in the InputIOProc and reading directly from This->mWorkBuf 
in the OutputIOProc, the problem disappears, though 
there is a bit more static than normal because there is no safety offset.

Would any of the maintainers care to comment? I'll submit the patch if the 
solution is found.

I normalized the buffer times, and this is the error I'm getting from 
AudioRingBuffer::Fetch():

error - buffer times: 0 - 96000, reading for 95987 - 96051
This same error repeated > 1000 times

Thanks for working on this!  Please do submit a patch if/once you get a 
solution working.  I'd be more than 
happy to build up new installers as soon as this issue is resolved.

I'm also glad to hear there is progress in...and hope this issue will be solved 
soon...If we we can help with any 
further information, let us know...

just to add my stats:

Mac Pro Quad Core, 6 GB 1066 MHz DDR3,
Mac OS X 10.5.8

audio path 1: Final cut Pro -> soundflowerbed (1.5.1, 2ch) -> Blackmagic Audio
audio path 2: Final cut Pro -> soundflowerbed -> Level Meter (Spectre)

Buffer size is 2048, not editable in FCP, Signal is 48 KHz, 32 Bit, 2 Ch

I've been working on this for a few days now.
Here's what I found out.

0) There are quite a few simple typo bugs in SoundflowerBed, those are trivial 
to fix.
     SIntXX, in audio app, there really isn't a lot of call of Signed Numbers (unless they are PCM data in float) I changed all that to UIntXX
     There in [AppController readDevicePrefs], val should really be unsigned long
     [AppController bufferSizeChanged16ch], should never use data from 2ch

1) The fundamental problem with this issue (24) is that you have two devices 
running in parallels without any effort to keep the two clocks in sync (beyond 
setting the sample rate the same). Which, in theory is enough, but in practice 
those two clocks can drift apart, especially if one of them is driven by 
different hardware than other.

Solution to this is to either:
a) Keep track of drift between the two clocks and compensate by either 
re-sampling the data on the fly (hard) or insert some noise by 
duplicating/dropping sample frames (easy, but bad).
b) Find a way to sync those clocks. But without actually having sync source 
that you can physically tie two hardware together, this might not be possible.
c) Rewrite AudioThruEngine to use AudioQueue

I am trying to do c). I will post again if I get anywhere with it.

Thank you very much, @Jyin.Spheal. We all appreciate your effort.

Jyin.Spheal,

Can you release the version of Soundflowerbed with the typo bugs fixed?

-R

[deleted comment]

I don't have write access to SVN.
Besides, my code-base is currently a utter mess.

AudioQueue is a bust... not really designed for this sort of thing.
Latency on AQ is in the order of 2-300 ms in i7 system.

Moving off to Plan d)....

what was plan d? i only saw up to c :)
i've been working on your plan a & b, as I believe it's really the best way to 
implement it to give the most versatility. I've identified the exact problem 
and understand how it's drifting apart, i'm carefully considering the solution.

i'd be interested to see the code you've implemented for audio queue services, 
perhaps you could email what you have?

bryanmatteson <at> hotmail <dot> com

The code I have for AQ is not functional, it is *just* functional enough to 
measure latency.
As to Plan D... I am trying out AggregateDevice.

Basically, I will tie the input and output device into single aggregate device 
and use one IO proc to do the input/output in single call.

So, Plan D seems to be coming along well.
I got prototype running on my system as I type.

I've just applied to this group, hopefully, by the time I get some testing done 
on this code-base, I will have write access to SVN.

I've ran into a problem I can't seem to fix.
Every 30sec or so (with 2048 buffer) I get a pop in the sound.

Only on 2048 buffer? Or is this the case on, say, a 64 buffer as well?

64 buffer is unusable in my system (10 channel output).
2048 seems to give best result in terms of sound quality.

[deleted comment]

Awesome to see some progress on this!  As for getting it into SVN, there are a 
variety of options.  The easiest way is if you are using Github @ 
http://github.com/tap/Soundflower .  Usually the bleeding edge is there and the 
stable changes are then merged to Googlecode's SVN.  

Otherwise we could get you svn access on googlecode and maybe this could go in 
a branch initially and then we can merge it to trunk after testing/review?  To 
go this route, drop me an email.

Thanks, I will look into the qithub, the noise issue is still there, and I got 
bit busy with work at the moment.
I will get back to it when things quiets down.

Any news, folks?

Any news, folks?

I have a similar issue - I get messed up audio buffers (ie a sine wave looks 
chopped up and rearranged - see screenshot) after ~ 5-10 min. I am not using 
SFBed's monitoring feature, but instead I'm aggregating Soundflower and my MOTU 
Ultralite. Everything has 128 sample buffers. Ultralite is clock source, 
resample not checked on either. Would love to see this fixed! For now I am 
using JackOSX instead.

Has anything else been done on this issue?  I used to yse SF and SFB about two 
years ago and never had a problem like this one.  Today I needed to use it for 
a project and can up with the same issues everyone above has had.  My Setup:

Mac Pro 3,1, 8 GB Dual quad
Routing:  Kore 1 controller out 1/2 mapped to SF ch 1/2===> SF ====> NI 
Maschine input 1/2 mapped to SF input 1/2  with soundflower bed ch1/2 mapped to 
Kore1 controller out 3/4 (headphone outputs).  Maschine external output mapped 
to SF ch2 which is mapped in soindflower bed to ch1/2 on the Kore1 controller AI

Whenever going into the audio menu of either app the sound would stop. If 
playing a sequence on maschine the sound would turn into a nasty buzzing 
simialr to an audio loop).  Saw above manywre having problems with NI audio 
ints, so I switched the device to my Alesis USB 16.

Pretty much got the same results except no buzzing.  The sound would no longer 
play throughthe AI, but I did confirm that SF will routing the audio cleanly.  
The audio routed from Kore into Maschine was showing on the Maschines meters.  
I hit record and got a waveform when done.  Reset SFB and played back the 
sampled wav and it was clean, so it appears that the SFB connection to the AI 
was disonnected/dropped/hung?? Yet the audio channel between the apps was still 
good.... not useable, but contributing my experiences.

Sorry, I've been tied up with other project and haven't had a lot of time to 
work on this.
I got aggregate code working, but I still get noise.

There may be some thing in the driver itself.

If I find time, I will insert some NSLog and see what I can find.

Any news, folks?

Is SoundFlower dead? C'mon, guys!

Yeah - soundflower is such a great concept and so useful and simple, but I've 
had to stop using it because of this issue. If I knew what I was doing in this 
realm, I'd help out.

Does anyone knows any alternative to this otherwise great piece of software ?
I've tested Jack OSX but experienced the same issue...
Soundfloweer is way more simple to use and configure.
Would love to see it work again.

in my experience jackOSX works perfectly fine if you set it up right - its just 
that it is more complex, requires remembering to turn it on before launching 
your software (doh!), the connections GUI is not very good, and it seems to eat 
CPU for breakfast. The last is the reason I don't use it when performing - i 
get pops and clicks in the audio doing much less audio processing than I would 
if i was not using jack. For now I've been getting around this by using 
hardware loopback in my MOTU ultralite, but its not ideal - only 4 chans (2 
chans in cuemix + 2 chans SPDIF loopback) and it means I am glued to that 
hardware.

Issue 79 has been merged into this issue.

same issue :-( after six hour with nrv10 and mac mini.

This issue is over a year old. What's the status?

The status seems to be "We simply do not care."

Has anyone found another solution yet?

I'm willing to PAY someone to actually fix this. Don't have huge amounts of 
cash to spare, but something. I know first hand how hard this stuff is to debug 
when it's in realtime and requires time before the bug manifests… I would 
work on it myself, I just know nothing about coreaudio and not sure i want to 
spend the time learning it. Or maybe Apple has fundamentally broken something 
and a fix is just not possible? (that would not be particularly unusual as I 
understand it)