Questions & Answers

Quantum 4848 on Macbook Air Apple Silicon M1

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asked May 3, 2021 in Thunderbolt - Quantum by pbwlmlnu (280 points)

Does Quantum 4848 works for anyone on Macbook Air M1? After the M1 support I bought a unit, bought the Apple thunderbolt 2->3 adapter, a 2m thunderbolt cable, and 6 DB25 breakout cable. I downloaded the driver, enabled third party kernel extensions (even disabled SIP).

The interface connects, works for a period of time (1 to 15 minutes) and then it disconnects as an audio interface. Still shows up in the system report as a thunderbolt device, but the blue link light turns dark and the power button turns red. I need to disconnect the cable, restart the interface to get back to reconnect, but then it is dropping even faster. Mac restart helps for little, but it disconnects again. Sometimes its even plays a 2-4 seconds long high pitch sound while disconnecting. Really strange. Absolutely unusable for work this way.

The unit does not seem to be defective. When I connect it to an Intel Macbook Pro 16 inch from 2019, running Catalina it works correctly.

Any ideas? Anyone made this interface work on M1 correctly? Can you share your secret?

Obviously, I contacted support, they started to ask for System Profile export spx files, which I kept sending. They also asked for a video of the disconnect sound it makes. I managed to capture that, sent the video. But it seems like the support is "stateless", a new support engineer took my case, send me a link about why my speakers could be noisey - which is clearly not the case if you read the support ticket or watch the video. Now they ask me to write my problem statement again. It is unbelievable. I am fighting within to wait for the driver/firmware fix or return the unit and ditch PreSonus forever for this level of support. But I already have all the cables and the device is amazing when it works.

1 Answer

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answered May 4, 2021 by pbwlmlnu (280 points)
 
Best answer
Apparently, the new Apple Thunderbolt 2 cable was to blame. The support recommended to contact the retailer (basically return the unit), I even started the process, when a friend brought over a 0.5m thunderbolt cable and for my biggest surprise, it resolved the issue.
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