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[Bluemoon]

This is a hit & miss thing. It happens seemingly random. I use usb audio converter (Audiophilleo2) to coax to amp on a Mac mini.

MC plays normally and I quit it normally; no error messages from MC. Then when I check the default audio device in the Audio Midi utility it's HDMI, not the previous default device which was Audiophilleo2. Funny thing is I cannot set it back to Audiophilleo2 again. Audio Midi utility simply refuses to go back to this device. My guess is MC is not freeing the active device after quit. I would appreciate any guidance.

Other info: OSX 10.9.3, file type to play is FLAC, no up-sampling. JRiver is set to exclusive access, integer, memory play modes.

[mwheelerk]

I've noticed this but I'm not sure it's any kind of a problem at least anything I have noticed. I just went through this exercise.

• I opened Audio Midi first. My DAC was highlighted and the information in the screen showed my DAC as the selected device. However the little speaker icon was next to the HDMI
  I then opened JRiver and began play. All information in Audio Midi remained the same as described above.
  After closing JRiver I opened Audivrana/iTunes and began play. Again all information remained the same.
  I shut down Audivrana then did a restart of my Mac Mini. After the restart I opened Audio Midi again. This time all information remained the same except the little speaker icon was no,longer showing.
  I opened Audivrana/iTunes and began play and in Audio Midi the speaker icon reappeared next to mHDMI but all other information remained the same.
  Finally closing Audivrana/iTunes i opened JRiver and began play. No information changed in Audio Midi
  

[Bluemoon]

Actually my situation is really simple:

1. Boot the system up (2011 Mac Mini)
2. Check default system audio device; it's my external DAC as expected
3. Run MC; no problems. Quit MC; no error messages
4. Check default system audio device; it's HDMI, not my DAC anymore.
5. Run Audio Midi utility to set the default back to my DAC. Audio Midi utility simply refuses to set it to my DAC
6. Restart Mac Mini. Back to step 1

As you can see MC is the only audio app (actually only app) running during this process thus my suspicion of MC is not releasing the DAC after quit.

If it helps I also have MC running under Bootcamp win7 on the same Mac Mini using the same DAC and I have no audio device issues. I use Wasapi device driver under Win7.

[mwheelerk]

As I said I've tried the sequence with both JRiver and Audivrana/iTunes and the results are the same.

[druism]

I sense there are some people having similar problems but nothing seems to be getting any clearer for me. Here is a description of my music playback problem:

When playing mixed file play lists in exclusive / integer mode, playing from memory and with tracks below 44.1 being upsampled to 44.1 and tracks above 192 being downsampled to 192. The Audio Device is correctly selected. The skin is default. When moving from one type of file to another (say aif to m4a, or vice versa) output to the DAC sometimes ceases and music is played through the internal speaker in the Mac Mini.

If I look in the Audio Midi Setup window the system sounds icon and the sound output icon are adjacent to the Built-in output in the list. I cannot change this in the AMS window. If I quite MC the icons bounce back to where they are supposed to be i.e. sound output adjacent to the DAC and system sounds adjacent to the internal speaker.

Also, when playing music from MC and if the music manages not to bypass to the internal speaker, I still get output in the AMS window changing. If I open MC and select audio, nothing changes in AMS. If I select a track and press play, the sound output leaps to adjacent to the Built In output, even though the sound is coming out of the system (see image)

This happens constantly and I cannot really use MC as a result. There appears to be a problem with MC which relates to the display of output in the AMS. I have posted several times on this subject but nothing I have written so far has prompted a “me too” or any response for that matter. However, as I mentioned above, I think there are others having similar problems.

I don’t think it is pilot error and I am fairly sure it is just MC which has the problem as I can play my music without any problem with BitPerfect and with Pure Music. Well I say without any problem, there is one problem; they’re not MC :0|

For the record the system is: Headless Mac Mini 2.3 i5 with 8GB RAM running OS X 10.9.2 connected by USB to a Gold Note DAC-7 and controlled by Screen sharing on nearby Mac Pro or iPad or iPhone using JRemote.

[adamt]

I'm not a mac expert, but I'll see if I can understand this correctly.  One thing to keep in mind is that in exclusive mode, Media Center pays no attention to what devices you select in the Audio Midi Setup. Sound out of MC is not reflected by that symbol either. 

When you set Media Center to exclusive mode, it wants complete control over that device.  If the computer is currently set to the same device you set MC to, when you start playback it bumps the computer's sound output (reflected by the speaker icon in Audio Midi Setup) away from that device to some other device.  In your case, it sets the computer's output to the internal speaker.  Media center then plays normally through the device you've selected in MC and sounds from other programs (like a web browser) will play through the internal speakers.  If you want MC to behave differently, you could try turning off exclusive mode.

I haven't yet been able to reproduce the problem you had with switching tracks.  Also, whenever I quit MC I'm able to switch back to the correct audio in the system settings.  I'm not sure if it was me or not, but a couple times it was muted. 

Sorry if I'm not very clear.  If I'm understanding you correctly, I haven't yet been able to reproduce the problem.  Is any of that useful?  Any clues on how I can reproduce your problem?

[adamt]

I was finally able to reproduce the original problem of MC not releasing the device from exclusive mode correctly.  We're working on it.

[Bluemoon]

I was finally able to reproduce the original problem of MC not releasing the device from exclusive mode correctly.  We're working on it.

Great news! Thanks

[Isaacc7]

I was finally able to reproduce the original problem of MC not releasing the device from exclusive mode correctly.  We're working on it.

Oh good! I hope this will cure my issue of MC locking onto airplay as well.

[JHR]

I reported a similar issue back in February that still occurs. If you have integer mode enabled, MC grabs the output and doesn't let go (Mac Mini, DragonFly):
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84657.msg599850#msg599850

Don't know if this will help folks or not, but it might help reproducing the issue. Only started with integer mode.

Oh, one final thing: the latest version of MC has integer mode enabled by default So the first time I used it it grabbed all audio and would not let go; I needed to deselect integer mode and reboot, and now all works ok again.

[Bluemoon]

Interesting as I do use the Integer mode.

[JHR]

Interesting as I do use the Integer mode.

Yeah--it might be DAC-related, too (I'm using the Dragonfly) but it happens consistently for me across two machines. So there's some combo of hw and software that does this, and it might help to point to an underlying problem.

[adamt]

Track changes and stopping tracks in integer mode would cause the device to not be released correctly on some DACs.  This will be fixed and in the next build.  Thanks for the help!

[Bluemoon]

This will be fixed and in the next build.  Thanks for the help!

Just to provide feedback on this issue, I'm happy to report that my issue has been resolved.
Thanks for the fix guys.