[cosmotic]

If the output idles, digital SPDIF signals lose sync. Re-syncing once playback starts is not instant, and you lose the first second of audio or so. I wrote a program that kept open an output withought dumping any data to the line, just to prevent the output from idling.

Doesnt make much sense in the context of a laptop though, so energy savings make sense there.

[russelg]

This annoyed me to no end with my FiiO K3 DAC on my Macbook. System sounds like dings etc would basically not play because of the delay.

On their Windows drivers, you have an option to set the stream as Always On. I wish this was available on macOS as well...

[IIsi50MHz]

Can you mitigate or prevent the issue by installing something like eqMac? I use it for basic response levelling for various headphones and the built-in speakers.

[PeakKS]

Hah yeah I used to do the same thing for my USB DAC, except I just did had `play -qn &` start when I logged in.

[cosmotic]

That's a much more elegant solution that what I made.