Anyone successfully using Blackhole for external app audio?

Doug · January 15

I have been "playing" with Blackhole for 4 days now and the only thing I have gotten is 4 days older. DOes anyone know the magic incantation to make it work? (MacOS 15.2, trying to drive fldigi or wsjt-x) Thanks

K3SF · January 16

Hi Doug

well i am going to be DEBBIE DOWNER…

i have been trying for months to get MaCos 15 to work with loopback, fldigi and wsjtx…the whole mac audio is messed up….

my setup is macbook air M1 with macos15.2 (Sequioa ), loopback 4.5.2, and current fldigi 4.2.06 and wsjtx 2.7.1 rc8

and using xdax and xcat with flex 6600m

i am able to receive audio but no audio gets back to the flex radio during transmit….

….xdax seems to be one culprit as it doesnt have mic privileges,,,i have been trying to contact Mario the developer but i have not heard back from him…

even been trying to find a way to force Macos to give xdax mic privileges

one other down side note, is i have icom 7300 which has similar issue

..codec interface will send audio from radio to mac for fldigi and wsjtx to receive but in transmit doesnt work…i get millisecond burst then never transmits again…peopleon group.io for 7300 have seen this too with no fix in sight

on a positive note

if you run macssdr you can use its dax and cat interface with loopback and with fldigi and wsjtx.

and i do not need use the digital apps of macssdr…

i have done this it and it is ok but i lose the capability to use front panel slices of 6600m of digital modes ;-((

and

it does take a bit of careful setup to make it work

Knowing this works i have even emailed Marcus ( author of Macssdr) if he would make available DAX and CAT that macssdr uses as stand alone apps…

on positive note

i have on another mac that is a mac mini M1 but it runs macos 14.x (Sonoma) and all works well there…

The real solution would be to have an xDax that is Sequioa compliant…at this point i am not sure how to make that happen…

Paul K3SF

Doug · January 16

I've been using SmartSDR Mac for about a month now (after 5 years of trying to use SmartSDR Windows and never getting it to be reliable). It's been a game changer. Rock solid reliability and ease of use.

The ONLY thing that is a weak point is the DAX audio for external apps. (when did they stop being programs????) The DAX problem may be a limitation in the API or how the Mac handles things. But I do know that, since I'm mostly a ragchewer and used a Drake TR3 for decades, I don't NEED any of the external programs and can easily live within all the built in tools and still be much happier than in the previous 5 years. (It's one thing to have all the bells and whistles but not if they will not fully function each and every time.)

That said… Marcus calls out Blackhole in the manual so I will "assume" it does work….. somehow. Even tried it with xDAX with no success.

BUT…. I'll just keep plugging away. Have found the magic incantations and am now looking for the secret handshake. Game on!! ;-)