[Sean Nevins]

Hi

I once had this problem with FCP 7 and then not again–until now, but this time using itunes on a macbook pro w/ mntn lion AND listening to a 16 bit 44 khz CD through Itunes. I quit i tunes and started playing a file thru Vox file player and after a while the loud blast of tearing, ripping, high volume digital distortion. Then i shut down the computer pulled out my phone jack and restarted. I also checked audio routing in preferences, deselected headphones and reselected. I restarted the mac, opened itunes and imported same file and it played ok for 1/2 hr or so, no problem, but i stopped listening and watched a movie instead–i was so spooked, and i still am.
My guess is that there might be a conflict between Vox player and Itunes–and this did not happen until after in Vox’s prefs i selected ‘hog mode’, which gives exclusive access, yet the sound also occurred in Vox. Also, Vox is a recent install and I never heard the sound prior, which leads me to suspect that there is a conflict between audio programs–and FCP is an audio program as well a s video. I don’t really need Vox, though I like it better than Itunes, I can’t uninstall itunes, so i’ll uninstall Vox and see how that goes.
So as to a solution, in old mac OS’s you could have different sets of preferences to manage potential conflicts–that was a good idea–current OS’s don’t have that feature, it seems–so you might check to see if you have any other audio related programs on your mac and if you don’t need them, uninstall.
This is a serious problem, so it needs to be solved.
What about mac software update? I’m going to look into sample rate and clock source. But the upshot here is it’s deeper than FCP. It has to do with the sound engine itself.