[ShortcutToMoncton]

Okay. Is anyone else really, really pissed off at M-Audio for their software to go with the Revolution series?

I have the Revolution 5.1, which I bought a little over a year ago, and stuck in my Quicksilver 867 MHz. I was originally quite happy with it, but as Panther was upgraded to 10.3.9 and I finally got Tiger, I've been getting massively frustrated with the software aspect. Don't get me wrong; I love 5.1, and I splurged on my cheap student budget and bought a half-decent set of Logitech 5300e speakers for $185 Canadian on a great Future Shop sale. They sound pretty great considering how much I paid, and when I turn down the ridiculously overpowered bass.

But anyways: the software. It drives me insane. In Tiger, the drivers are still only beta, and they obviously have some problems. I have to actually OPEN the M-audio control panel for my customized sound controls to take affect upon startup (I've turned down the centre a bit as well as lowered the bass, etc. etc.). In addition, for some reason lowering these speaker settings slightly ALSO lowers my overall system volume by two "squares"...and then, when I use the keyboard volume to increase it to full power, my control panel settings are all set back to full power. Then you have the random pops or distortion that actually just happened as I typed this – if I happen to do something that requires some processing power, such as opening Mail as I just did, all of a sudden the audio will go all distorted for a few seconds (much like the AAC file is corrupted), and then it'll go back to normal. Of course, replaying that spot shows the file is fine. There's also a porblem when sometimes starting to play audio, such as an iTunes file, a movie (browser or standalone) or the like, will play all distorted and stuttering. Starting and stopping again will fix it. Very strange.

Of course, I've emailed M-Audio about this. Their customer support is atrocious, and it usually takes about a week at the minimum to get a response to an email, from the 4 or 5 times I've tried. Of course that's usually something basic like "have you tried reinstalling?" so you have to wait another week after telling them you've already done that AND a clean reinstall of the OS. Then they emailed back to tell me that "Panther 10.3.9 is not supported by our drivers" which was hilarious...they're only for SPECIFIC point releases of Panther! Anyways, since upgrading to Tiger, I'm seeing the exact same problems, but these drivers are STILL in beta – so I'm not gonna bother wasting my time emailing them, just to have them tell me "the drivers are only in beta." No shi† Sherlock.

Anyways...yeah. It really pisses me off that solid surround-sound audio is still not supported in the Mac, or is supported in such a crappy way. Sigh. I just had to rant.

greg

[hotani]

I have the same setup as you and just ordered those speakers. My experience has been about the same, and on their site in regards to software for Tiger, there is no download, just a note that says "we're working on it...."

I get the pops, delays, distorted sound during playback (especially when moving around in the file), and have experienced the 'resetting' effect when changing system volume. And yes, it sucks. For most of the time the card works fine which is fortunate, but the annoyances cannot be ignored and M-Audio needs to get with it on the software.

This card was purchased as a replacement to my on-board sound that died - interesting that PCs can get 5.1 sound for about $20 while I got the cheapest possible solution for mine and it ran me $80.

[hotani]

Just to make things worse (can't wait to get rid of this system and the horrid M-audio driver issues), the last update seems to have added a "feature" where sound is muffled down during certain areas of playback. Voices are practically inaudible, then effects are super loud. Sometimes it is fine. I am constantly wrestling with the settings on this software.

Do not, under any circumstances order this card. I wish I had known how bad the driver would be when I decided on it... not like I had a lot of options though. Consider it a "Windows-Only" audio card and leave it at that. M-Audio has no apparent interest in making this work for mac.

[peter myson]

Hi I'm looking to buy a 5.1 sound card for my g5. I noticed a release on the M-Audio site saying they've fixed the issues, is this true? or are you still having problems? any advice would be welcome. Thanks

[OwlBoy]

Originally Posted by peter myson

Hi I'm looking to buy a 5.1 sound card for my g5. I noticed a release on the M-Audio site saying they've fixed the issues, is this true? or are you still having problems? any advice would be welcome. Thanks

Where did you see this?

As far as I know, the drivers for the 5.1 are still all ****ed up and it never works right.

I have had all the issues described above ever since 10.4 things fell apart, and all they do is give us the run around about drivers.

-Owl

[OwlBoy]

Die M-Audio! DIE!

-Owl

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Alright. I haven't been here in ages, but I just looked up this issue again and found the thread, so here we go.

How does one get 5.1 Surround working on the Mac, anyway? If I use M-Audio's Revolution software, I can check off their SRS CircleSound II option and it does "fake" surround for me, with the rear speakers being quite soft. However, this doesn't work very well to be honest, especially when watching movies, and if I do it on some DVD applications like VLC it seems like a whole "layer" of sounds are cut off (eg. it plays all the sounds of what the characters are doing, but you can't hear them speak).

AFAIK M-Audio is still dicking us around with their software. I have the same problem with not being able to manually control speaker volumes in the control panel (the drag bars just automatically reset to "full" when I switch panes), and when I have emailed them it took days to get the response of "the newest OS X is not supported with this card...that may be causing your problem." Never mind that their online driver downloads page says

We are currently verifying compatibility of our hardware with Apple's new Tiger operating system. No device manufacturer can predict the compatibility of their hardware with a new OS until the final version has been released. We value your time and user experience, and want to ensure that our Tiger drivers are as robust as possible before providing them for download. We thank you for your patience while we verify these drivers, and we will post them shortly.

The idea behind the card is great. But M-Audio is the worst company in the world, at least concerning this product. Stay away, because you're just wasting your money.

greg

[analogika]

Any multi-channel interface is fully supported for surround sound.

Open Audio/MIDI Setup in the Utilities folder and go to the Audio Devices tab. Select your audio interface and click "Speaker setup".

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that part. The Audio setup pane keeps sticking my Audio Output from 6ch-24bit back to 2ch. Happens regularly. Even better, occasionally my speakers just stop working completely; oftentimes the sound just disappears, or there's a slight audio 'pop' and it goes. (I can play iTunes, and the song plays, but the speakers just don't get anything.)

After trial and error I found out that re-opening the Revolution control panel can fix this, or if that doesn't work my "Default Output" setting in the Audio MIDI setup panel have been switched from the Revolution 5.1 card, and must be changed back.

Either way, I still don't get 5.1 sound in DVD Player. Anyone else with the card have this problem?

Again...nothing but headache. Thank you, M-Audio.

greg

[analogika]

My (albeit limited) experience with the M-Audio Firewire 410 was also less than stellar, and unnecessarily complex and jumping-through-hoops-ish, with ridiculous restarts.

The M-Audio MIDIsport 2x2 MIDI interface, however, has performed absolutely flawlessly for years now.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

The other hilarious thing that happened while I was fiddling with it last night: suddenly, Firefox won't play movies (eg. Youtube, nba.com, etc) if the audio format is at 48k Hz. The thing is, iTunes, or other sound applications play just fine. You don't get sound out of Firefox, that's all.

......

greg

[badidea]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Either way, I still don't get 5.1 sound in DVD Player. Anyone else with the card have this problem?

I had the Revolution 7.1 and never had this problem! Do you have the option "use SPDIF if available" (or something similar) turned on in DVD player?

Wait - do you have an analog 5.1 setup or a digital one?

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Analog (the Logitech 5300e series noted above).

greg