[philipus]

Hello everyone

I hope this is the right subforum for this question.

I'm listening to music from my music server over wifi and began to notice yesterday that the pitch of certain music sometimes becomes lower. It's best heard on music with strings in it. It sounds a bit like when one puts the finger against a turntable and slows down the spin a bit. The effect is fairly quick, lasting 0,5-1sec. The pitch always drops, it never increases.

I'm streaming from a home-shared iTunes library on a Mac Pro and use Etymotic ER4XR if that matters.

Has anyone experienced this? I don't find any settings and I'm pretty sure I haven't ticked or unticked any random music-related boxes on the computer lately.

Thank you kindly in advance
Philip

 

[NA Blur]

Perhaps the buffer is too low and having trouble keeping up. Can you increase the buffer size in the player?

 

[Roseval]

Pretty weird problem.
It looks like "wow" as we know it from tapes and turntables.
There are plugins available to emulate this but I expect you to know if you have installed one.

Can you reproduce it?
Say it always happen at a certain point in a certain track or is it completely random?

What is the playback chain?
If you use a file located on the MacPro using its headphone out, so plain local playback, do you have the same problem?

 

[NA Blur]

Is there a low-latency mode you can try?
Do you have any extensions enabled that might be causing this issue?

 

[philipus]

Thank you both very much for your replies and your suggestions. My apologies for not responding until now. I've been testing various configurations and then work decided to interfere.

According to the internet there was apparently a setting in iTunes a few versions ago to change the streaming buffer size. I've seen posts that it can be done in Terminal but also that doing so won't actually change anything. It's odd though, because I when I stream from the same iTunes library over the wifi to my phone and then to my Minirig speaker I don't hear this strange effect. Granted that speaker, as good as it is, doesn't resolve anywhere near the level of detail of my Etymotics but I'm pretty sure I would have heard pitch changes, and there is none.

Apologies, but what does low-latency mode mean?

Perhaps the buffer is too low and having trouble keeping up. Can you increase the buffer size in the player?

Thank you very much for your suggestions. Unfortunately it doesn't always happen at certain points of certain tracks. It seems to be totally random.

The music library is on an Mac Pro 2,1 which shares an iTunes library over the wifi using home sharing. I listen either on my main computer, which is a Mac Pro 3,1 or on my Macbook, and then sometimes on my phone.

I've only ever heard this distortion on the Mac Pro 3,1. I've been listening a lot to music while working the last several weeks, pretty much the whole workday every day. The only pattern I can recall, if it can be called a pattern, is that the wow appears after quite a while of listening/streaming on the 3,1.

In terms of plugins the only thing I have installed is the Eqmac equaliser. I'm beginning to wonder if that might not be the culprit. Searching around I found posts on Github that people experienced degraded audio after a while of playback. Not specifically a wow-type distortion but still.

Best
Philip

Pretty weird problem.
It looks like "wow" as we know it from tapes and turntables.
There are plugins available to emulate this but I expect you to know if you have installed one.

Can you reproduce it?
Say it always happen at a certain point in a certain track or is it completely random?

What is the playback chain?
If you use a file located on the MacPro using its headphone out, so plain local playback, do you have the same problem?

 

[castleofargh]

Your description made me think of a sample rate being played at another one. Like say, 48kHz signal played as a 44.1kHz file. But what could cause this only from time to time? I have no idea.
A wild guess would be some weird mix-up when another audio device connects or disconnects from BT? I really don't know. Sorry.

 

[philipus]

Thank you very much for replying. I appreciate it a lot. The main suspect at the moment is eqMac. Given how intermittent the problem it's difficult to test it, but I'm trying with and without the equaliser active.

Your description made me think of a sample rate being played at another one. Like say, 48kHz signal played as a 44.1kHz file. But what could cause this only from time to time? I have no idea.
A wild guess would be some weird mix-up when another audio device connects or disconnects from BT? I really don't know. Sorry.

 

[NA Blur]

Any updates on this issue?

 

[philipus]

Any updates on this issue?

I believe it is eqMac. After the last few updates I've not experienced it anymore.