AudioFuse 8Pre - Barely usable on linux

[oliver]

Hello,

I purchased an AudioFuse 8Pre for its claimed linux compatibility through class compliance.
Unfortunately so far it is the worst performing interface for me. I tried different computers with different distibutions (Arch, Manjaro, Ubuntu Studio).

On my workstation on all USB Ports (2.0, 3.1, 3.2?, USB-C) but two there is a constant clicking when playing sound. The clicking is faster when the samplerate is higher, somewhere between 0.5 and 2 times per second.
On two USB 3.1 Ports (I think those two are not connected to the USB Controller in the southbridge) the clicking does not occur. On those ports the interface sometimes disconnected when any access to it happened. When using JACK, after a while sound starts to crackle and gets close to being very distorted.

On a Windows-based machine I had no problems so far, although I used this machine mostly for configuration and firmware updates (latest one 1.0.2 is installed of course).

While typing this post I listened to Spotify through PulseAudio (no JACK) on Arch on a Mac Mini Late 2012 and there too are issues (clicks with PulseAudio, short breaks in the audio stream...). Switching to my Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6, it works absolutely flawlessly for hours, on the ports which produce the clicking in the 8Pre, with even around 2ms latency at 88200Hz according to JACK...

Thanks for your input

Best regards,
Oliver

Edit: Opened a support case as well.

[Terrym]

Hi  I do not have a linex machine  what latency are you using as 2ms seems too low. have you tried higher latency settings.
the 8pre uses usb2 protocol only the connections are usb-c

[oliver]

Hi,
thanks for the reply.

The 2ms are currently with the Komplete Audio 6. With the AudioFuse, I had 48000Hz with 128 or 256 buffersize which results in 8 and 16ms latency.
As far as I know the issue is independent of the settings and can still occur with incredible high buffer sizes like 4096.

Best regards,
Oliver

[oliver]

Well, the situation improved alot.

I disabled pipewire (audio server for linux, like coreaudio on mac), and the Jack server started to behave, so far no errors on startup, the crackling did not happen for a while and I have around 2 XRuns a day with 88200Hz@256samples, which probably could be lowered even more.

[oliver]

I switched mainboards to a gigabyte itx board (https://www.gigabyte.com/de/Motherboard/B450-I-AORUS-PRO-WIFI-rev-10) from a msi (https://de.msi.com/Motherboard/B450M-MORTAR-TITANIUM/Overview). So far no disconnects, the error in the kernel log after connecting is gone.

But, unfortunately, i still have random clicks and artifacts in the audio and xruns, which are according to jack coming from alsa itself.

The interface is connected to the chipsets usb. The USB ports connected to the CPUs usb create a looooot more xruns.

Still, I was unable to determine which interrupt is responsible for the interface. there are only "IR-PCI-MSI 524288-edge xhci_hcd" in /proc/interrupts... I guess it is the one with the most interrupts?

I compiled a realtime kernel with alsa debugging enabled (i think?). I do have the xrun_debug file, echo'ed various numbers in it, but have yet to find out where the hell to find the debug output. I have not found anything in dmesg. Any hints on that?

https://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/XRUN_Debug

[martibs]

Hi, you should try asking your question on the Linux Musicians forum.