Mac OS 9 Lives

Classic Mac OS Hardware => DAW - Audio & MIDI Hardware => Topic started by: ict on May 03, 2019, 11:57:23 PM

Title: M-Audio Delta Audiophile 24/96 crackling
Post by: ict on May 03, 2019, 11:57:23 PM
Hi guys,

I've recently been working on kitting out a dual 500 MHz G4 and, seeing a good opportunity to start exploring some DAW applications as well as some other potential audio-related uses, I picked up an open boxed Delta Audiophile 24/96 for it. After setting it up for testing I pulled up SoundJam and tried playing a couple songs and got quite crackly output. At first I had wondered if it was due to the fact that I had been running it into line-in on my main workstation in order to share a set of speakers, but after checking all of my cables, restarting and tweaking volume/EQ settings on both systems the crackling continued. I've been able to work with a setup like this acceptably with the on-board audio chipset on my single 500 in the past.

Most interestingly to me, when I scrubbed around songs sometimes the crackling would stop completely for some period of time, only to begin again, usually when playing another song or system sound.

So far I've tried a couple things; increasing the DMA buffer size to 2K, increasing/decreasing the sample rate, re-installing drivers from the included CD, installing the 1.5.2b2 drivers, removing other PCI cards, and trying a different PCI slot. None seem to have done much good, and the fact that I can get the crackling to go away seems to indicate that at least the cables and my workstation's audio aren't causing the problem. I've also stumbled upon a few threads here and elsewhere that indicate it might be an issue with the clock, or simply that the Audiophile doesn't always want to play nice with OS 9. To that end, I'm also running the factory 9.0.4 restore image on my system rather than 9.2.2, but I'm not sure if that is meaningful.

Does anyone have any experiences running an Audiophile 24/96 with an earlier G4? I'm really hoping it's just my vast inexperience or a driver issue, rather than a hardware problem that would require replacing/repairing the card or saving it for another system that's better equipped for it. I'd appreciate any ideas! I think I'm also going to give it a try on my single 500 later on to see if anything different happens.

Thanks for reading!
Title: Re: M-Audio Delta Audiophile 24/96 crackling
Post by: macStuff on May 04, 2019, 01:41:33 AM
can u specify which driver version you are using and if possible the date from the driver files themselves

you are not limited to using "Audiophile 2496" driver you can use the "delta family" driver aswell
not sure if u have tried
Title: Re: M-Audio Delta Audiophile 24/96 crackling
Post by: DieHard on May 04, 2019, 12:58:57 PM
IF you are using ASIO drivers, try a different one for the 2496 with the app; there are multiple ASIO drivers and some apps don't like specific drivers
Title: Re: M-Audio Delta Audiophile 24/96 crackling
Post by: ict on May 04, 2019, 04:42:30 PM
can u specify which driver version you are using and if possible the date from the driver files themselves

you are not limited to using "Audiophile 2496" driver you can use the "delta family" driver aswell
not sure if u have tried
I'm currently using the Audiophile 0.7.4 driver, I believe the same version was included on the CD as well. I haven't come across generic Delta Family driver so far in any of the packages I've picked up, but I'm definitely hunting for other versions as I go along.
IF you are using ASIO drivers, try a different one for the 2496 with the app; there are multiple ASIO drivers and some apps don't like specific drivers
I haven't tried anything using the ASIO drivers yet, but that's a really great point. I went and tested some other software, and I'm getting perfect audio playback from QuickTime and Apple DVD player, I'm starting to think this is a problem with SoundJam specifically. I had initially assumed it was system-wide as it acts similarly with the operating system sound effects as well. I might try re-installing SoundJam without visualizations, or perhaps another audio player to see if I get better results.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, guys, I was quite afraid that I had a defective card.