Mac Mini Playback probs

[foxwelljsly]

Having major playback probs with my computer audio, wondered if anyone might suggest an easy fix before I undertake the next, rather arduous, stage in my investigation.

I have iTunes, Audirvana and Bitperfect on my Yosemite mac Mini (core 2 duo 2.4ghz, 8gb ram). All software is fully patched to the latest version.

Native iTunes play back is fine.

Audirvana normal mode, my library keeps corrupting and I lose all tracks, but not the album entries.

Audirvana itunes compatibility mode keeps jumping to random tracks when I'm trying to play an album and not displaying the currently playing track correctly.

Bitperfect keeps dropping out (the icon keeps flashing green on and off with concurrent dropouts and repeats).

I've spent a time with the software vendors investigating the above, but I'm now receiving an embarrassed silence from both Audirvana and Bitperfect, which I'm not pressing as I suspect the root cause is probably hardware or peripheral related.

My music is stored on this usb hard drive.

I suspect that there's something weird with the drive (it has a proprietary USB connector and came formatted in NTFS with suspicious NTFS conversion software for the mac - I've now formatted this in mac os in the right format with no probs).

I have a naked 2tb SATA drive and a USB SATA docking station that I could use to prove this.

Before I do, though, any other thoughts on anything else that might be the common root cause of the above probs?

cheers

 

[Darth Vader]

I am using Amarra under 10.10.3 without any problems. You can employ it either with or without iTunes and I use the former. There are no problems. I suggest that you get a free trial as if this plays well as it should it will eliminate the MAC. I also use cache playback this means that all tracks are loaded into and played back from memory and the USB drive goes to sleep.

I formatted my USB drive to FAT32 so that it can be used with both PCs and Macs.

Linky http://www.sonicstudio.com/amarra/amarraproducts

Cheers,

DV

PS this is the formatter I used and its PDQ.

Linky http://www.verbatim.com/index/searc..._form_submit.x=0&basic_search_form_submit.y=0

 

[Purité Audio]

Amarra does seem pretty stable these days, ( not always the case ) I think the Dirac tie up is also worthwhile.
Keith.

 

[Darth Vader]

Amarra does seem pretty stable these days, ( not always the case ) I think the Dirac tie up is also worthwhile.
Keith.

Well it still has some unusual 'features' but is much improved. BTW I still can't get over the big improvement in sound quality going from my 2010 Mac Mini with 8GB ram with a 2012 i5 Mini with the same amount of ram. OK the early model ran SL and the newer Yosemite but still was completely unexpected.

We live and learn.

Cheers,

DV