FYI - Presonus Quantum series audio interface owners - Pops and Crackles solution

[Robert Bone]

Hi - I just ran into this, helping a friend who just bought a new Intel-based laptop with a Thunderbolt 3 port, and a brand-spanking new Presonus Quantum 2626 Thunderbolt 3 audio interface (BEAUTIFUL, and a beast).

Anyways, he reported to me hearing pretty evident pops and crackles for anything running through the Quantum 2626 headphones, so after trying a few obvious things, effects, latency, ASIO Buffer Size, etc., I had him run both the laptop and the interface up to me, so I could take a better look into things, and work through Sweetwater tech support, on his behalf, if needed.

SO - after confirming the rather horrendous pops and crackles for myself, I did some digging, and found a promising article on the Presonus web site, which is at the following link:

Presonus article on Quantum series interface pops and crackles

Sure enough, when I followed the steps in the above article, downloading the little freeware utility program, and disabling a couple C-State Idle settings, and applying the changes, the pops and crackles instantly went away, so I consider the issue resolved and that should be that.

I just thought I would post the issue and its solution here, in case anybody else had purchased one of the Presonus Quantum series Thunderbolt interfaces.  (the new 2626 is brand new and really just starting to ship, as of 2 weeks ago).  The article was from 2019, so may apply to earlier Quantum series audio interface models.

Hope this helps someone else, too 

Bob Bone

[Robert Bone]

By the way - I can take the ASIO Buffer Size all the way down to 32 samples, which results in about 1.6 millisecond latency - WAY kewl.  Not sure if my friend is going to get his laptop and interface back....... well, the interface, anyways (kidding - besides I have a UAD Arrow Thunderbolt 3 interface for my laptop, but WOW is that Quantum 2626 T3 NICE too)

Bob Bone

[William W. Saunders, Jr.]

Hi Bob,  

Thanks for the tip.  I have the original Quantum 26x32 and just bought the 26x26 for another studio.  Still building my new DAW for that studio and waiting for the Thunderbolt 3 card so haven't tried the 26x26 yet.

One question:  Doesn't disabling C-States in the BIOS take care of this or do those Windows updates ignore/disable that setting?  I have always done that and haven't had any trouble with click and pops.  Then again, I don't run my 26x32 at 32 samples!

Thanks,

Bill

[John Downing]

Just got off the phone with Sweetwater.  I was also hearing pops during playback and recording on three different interfaces.  They had me change buffer size, which fixed it for both.  I have also had Cakewalk crashing and it seems to have fixed that. 

I applied the fixes in the Presonus article but the problem is I have to run at 256 block size.  What buffer is everyone using? 

BTW, I love the Presonus and my Grace M101 pre.

[John Downing]

Been having problems now with Cakewalk By Bandlab freezing with the Quantum.  I decided to go back to Sonar Platinum and it is working like a charm.  No freezing or pops.  I changed all C State and Speed Step etc back to on in the BIOS (I had disabled because of the Presonus article referenced by Mr Bone) and now Platinum works flawlessly, even at 16 buffer and 96000 sampling rate.  Guess I will just go back to Platinum. 

Bandlab worked pretty well for me until recently with my RME, but it now freezes also, even at 512 and 44.1.  Not sure if the last update to Cakewalk is causing this, but I see no reason to leave Platinum again.

Was really hoping to stick with BandLab and will maybe try again after the next update.

Dell XPS 13 2-in-1

I7 1065 10th Gen

16GB RAM

Thunderbolt 3

Windows 10 64 Bit

 

[Colin Nicholls]

In the market for a Quantum 2626 to replace a venerable PCI audio interface. Thanks the info above - I realize it is a few years on and people are reporting good results with the latest drivers for Windows 10.

However, if anyone has any recent horror stories about this combo, feel free to share!

[Noel Borthwick]

@John Downing were you able to resolve this? If it still hangs in CbB please capture a dump file and send a link. That may shed light into the cause of the issue.