Hackintosh, Universal Audio - Static Noise Problem

[cooolbreizha]

Hello,
I am having problems installing the UAD Apollo twin x (Thunderbolt 3)
Hope to find some help here, thanks to your similar experiences and the geniuses that frequent this place!

Equipment:
Motherboard Gygabyte Z490 Vision D
Intel i9-10850K processor
Graphics Gigabyte RX590
GC-Titan Ridge 2.0 flashed to Mac use.
UAD Apollo Twin X Heritage Ed.
Apple Thunderbolt 3 cable

Encountered problem:
A sort of crackle appears randomly on the main output. The sound distorts and sizzles strongly.
Difficult to describe precisely what is happening but it seems that it acts mainly on the medium frequencies and less on the low and high frequencies.
It would also seem that the distortion and the crackles occur more often and more strongly when the source (Youtube or Logic Pro, Protools etc…) is stronger (without saturating I specify). For example, it looks like this doesn't happen if no player is started.

Has anyone encountered this type of problem? Is it resolved?
Thank you very much in advance

 

[WilliamBrantree]

Does this happen with another pair of monitor speakers? Did you already try getting one of those three to two prong adapters? It could be a ground loop issue as mentioned in this thread.

 

[cooolbreizha]

Does this happen with another pair of monitor speakers? Did you already try getting one of those three to two prong adapters? It could be a ground loop issue as mentioned in this thread.

Hi,
Thank you for your help.
I read this before actually posting.
I figured this didn't apply to me, as my Apollo's power supply is not grounded.
Maybe I'm wrong?

 

[cooolbreizha]

And the sound doesn't sound like constant mass sound.
Rather a kind of digital saturation and a distortion that occurs occasionally, but very often and randomly.
I guess this is not from the monitors or the cable as I am using them with an RME usb fireface on the same computer without any problem.

 

[jiffyslot]

Sometimes when the media sample rate changes, the UAD is trying do a realtime sample rate conversion but begins to degrade. I had issues with this when switching from 48 KHz to 96 KHz then back again. Make certain that you are only using the UAD for sound in/out and make sure all system and clocking is pointing at the UAD. Restart and see if that helps. Power-cycling the interface may not help, hence the restart.

 

[Montesumolo]

Hi!
I am having the same problem with my focusrite firewire Interfaces (saffire pro 40 and pro 24)
Digital / modem-like sound in headphones and monitors.

I tried different cables, 600/600 600/800 and applied also some ferrite emi filter rings.

I also tried different PCI slots, removed GPU by using iGPU, swapping FW PCI Cards (Syba &Kalea).
I also tried with disabled c states and cfg lock and I tried to change pci speeds from auto -> gen3.

I also tried OpenCore and clover.

There is always the same annoying, digital, interference sound.

I now bought a USB audio interface and it is dead silent.

Did anyone solve the problem?

 

[jiffyslot]

If you aren't already, use shielded, balanced cables and keep your A/D D/A conversion away from your PC case and anything else that has a transformer, especially those little USB phone chargers.

I once had a USB connected MBox Mini that was inproperly shielded/isolated. I had to attached a couple Ebtech Hum Eliminators. Looking back, it may have been cheaper to get a much better interface.

 

[Montesumolo]

Hi. Thank you for your input.

The devices worked like a charm for years now with several imacs.
So I think there is nothing to blame on the interfaces. The A/D converters have now more distance to the pc than before...
And as far as I researched the shielded and balanced cables to the monitors or e.g. a hum destroyer would not get rid of the digital sound in my headphones.
I've seen this ebtech Hum eliminators, but they are not available on the european market.
I also bought a well shielded firewire cable and applied extra ferrite emi filter rings, which did not help.

already ordered and got another Interface with USB... with this: no noise at all, dead quiet.

So I really think it has to do with something within the pc or the bios settings.
Before upgrading from an i7 8700 to an i9 9900k I tested the PCI fw card and my interface and as far as I can remember there wasn't such a problem before.

Hi to all!
Hi @pastrychef

First of all... This build is awesome! Thank you!

I started this build with an i7 8700 CPU and 16 GB RAM to use it at home and also installed a SYBA FW PCI E Card to upgrade it in the future for Studio use in 2018. Since some months ago my Studio iMac LogicBoard broke, I decided to upgrade my home Hack and bring it to the Studio.

Some months ago I upgraded to an i9 9900k CPU, 64 GB Ram and a nvme m.2 ssd (WD Black) and a new PC case to have all my SSDs via SATA.

At the Studio I am using a Focusrite Pro 40 FW Interface and now when i hook up the Interface and start the PC, I get a constant modem like, whining sound, sometimes crackling, especially when scrolling with the mouse, through my active Monitors/Speakers and both Headphone outputs.

My current setup is:

CPU: i9 9900k
mobo: Asus Rog Strix z370-g (wifi-ac)
RAM: 64 GB crucial ballstix 3200 MHz
PSU: Seasonic Focus plus gold 550 Watt
SSD: 4x SSD (Crucial/Samsung), 1x Nvme m.2 ssd (WD Black)
GPU: MSI RAdeon Rx 560 4GB Lite
SYBA PCI-E card with Texas Instruments Chip, 2x 1394B & 1x 1394A FW
case: Cooler Master S400 Silencio

As soon as I unplug the FW cable from the PC the Sound is gone. I also tried with my Saffire pro 24 DSP in the Studio, which brings me to the same scenario.

As I tested this setup before buying the i9 with my Saffire pro 24 DSP and the SYBA on the i7, RXx 560 at home, and there were no problems, I am really surprised and ask myself what it can be, since the only thing I changed in this build is the CPU, the RAM, the M.2 NVMe, the case and the CPU cooler (Noctua)?!

I already tried to figure out if it is a grounding problem in the Studio, but every combination of plugging all power into one socket, different sockets, sockets in another room and combinations of it, etc., did not help.

I tried also different FW cables with no change.
I also killed the ground on the socket of my audio interface with tape, no change. Today I will try it on the PC.

I also deactivated my RX 560 on the PCI slot and activated iGPU via BIOS and also changed the slot placement combo of SYBA and RX 560 with no positive result. I deactivated C-States in BIOS with no result, since I've read it on some forums.

I searched the entire Internet and found a lot of threads with similar problems on tonymacx86.com , gearspace.com and a lot of other places. But most of them had the problem only through speakers and not in the headphones. Until now I did not try to record anything, cause the sound is really annoying and already starts before the bootloader (clover) and MacOS starts, but then gets louder.

Maybe someone has a hint or can help me! I am a little bit despaired at the moment.

 

[Sandstorm]

Hello,
I am having problems installing the UAD Apollo twin x (Thunderbolt 3)
Hope to find some help here, thanks to your similar experiences and the geniuses that frequent this place!

Equipment:
Motherboard Gygabyte Z490 Vision D
Intel i9-10850K processor
Graphics Gigabyte RX590
GC-Titan Ridge 2.0 flashed to Mac use.
UAD Apollo Twin X Heritage Ed.
Apple Thunderbolt 3 cable

Encountered problem:
A sort of crackle appears randomly on the main output. The sound distorts and sizzles strongly.
Difficult to describe precisely what is happening but it seems that it acts mainly on the medium frequencies and less on the low and high frequencies.
It would also seem that the distortion and the crackles occur more often and more strongly when the source (Youtube or Logic Pro, Protools etc…) is stronger (without saturating I specify). For example, it looks like this doesn't happen if no player is started.

Has anyone encountered this type of problem? Is it resolved?
Thank you very much in advance

Hi, I've been sitting on one of the same interfaces with the same issue for a year now and can't get any help.
I totally know what you mean about the sound as it does work but there is weird noise like a filter and bit crusher at random times.

I keep reading and hearing online that using THROTTLESTOP does the trick but yet it hasn't worked for me.
I asked support but they mentioned maybe i need to rewrite my system BIOS which is rather scary for somebody who isn't a coder and just bought a brand new custom build from HP (Z book with everything but the kitchen sink).