Ezbus/audio Midi Setup Weirdness, Anybody else experience this? Options

[Levon River]

For some weird reason that is entirely beyond my ken, Apple's Audio MIDI Setup will *not* retain the EZBus as the "Selected Audio Device." It's startin' to get on me nerves.

In the "Default Input" dropdown it has EZbus. In the "Default Output" dropdown it has EZbus. But for "Selected Audio Device" it has "Built-in audio controller" showing in the dropdown. If I drop it down, EZBus is there to select. So I select it (which then opens a whole "Input Section" that wasn't there before I selected it). So I quit Audio MIDI Setup. And *every time* I go back into it, it has changed "Selected Audio Device" back to "Built-in audio controller."

I've tried changing it, then rebooting. No go. I can't find any preferences file that I can trash. So now I'm at the end of my rope.

Does anybody know what in tarnation is going on here and how to fumigate the gremlins?

[Levon River]

Have you tried setting it as default out device in the "sound" panel of system preferences, instead of in Audio Setup?

Yeah, buserror, I had checked that. The EZbus is the what is selected in the "Output" pane of the Sound panel (although "Built-in audio controller" is in the list, too.) The EZBus is also selected in the "Input" pane of the Sound panel (but there is no other option there). None of this changes the odd behavior of Audio MIDI Setup, though.

This brings me to *another* rant: Why can't these schizoids collect all the %&$^#@*%ing settings for this audio stuff into ONE place, instead of scattering them all over Hell's half-acre?! But that's another rant for another time and place.

I'm not particularily fond of that piece of "modern" cocoa programming. Seems it has a hard time to keep up with the 30 or so controls that it manages.

Nor am I particularly fond of it. (30 or so controls? )

Maybe Audio MIDI Setup (AMS) wouldn't be quite so bad if they bothered to provide ANY documentation at all worth a damn. Part of what I can't comprehend is why they even have a "Default Input" and "Default Output," yet *also* have a "Selected Audio Device." "Selected" by *whom*? And *where*? Because the very thing I'm complaining about is that the damned thing won't RETAIN what *I've* SELECTED in the drop-down next to "Selected Audio Device."

Sheeeeeeeesh!

Another wrinkle to all of this (like we need a few more) is that in AMS, right below "Default Output," is another dropdown called "System Output." I figured that must mean alerts and that kind of stuff (maybe even including the Startup chimes), so I'd prefer that to go through the computer speaker and not blasting out my studio monitors.

Sure enough, if I select "EZBus" *there,* next to "System Output" in AMS, it changes the dropdown in the "Sound Effects" pane of the Sound panel in System Preferences to "EZBus," and if I change "System Output" in AMS to "Built-in audio controller," then it changes it in the "Sound Effects" pane to "Built-in audio controller." So those two things ("System Output" in AMS, and "Sound Effects" in the Sound preferences panel--named differently in the two different locations, of course ) apparently are hard-wired together.

But none of this makes AMS retain the EZBus as "Selected Audio Device," even though the EZBus is available as an option. If I could just find out what the hell "Selected Audio Device" even means, I might find some peace.

It's made doubly annoying by the fact that when I select EZBus there, in AMS, as "Selected Audio Device," then under "Input Section" I get a whole new set of parameters showing up where only a "Device does not support input" statement is when "Built-in audio controller" is selected. But in those new parameters for EZBus there is yet another enigma: an "Input Source" dropdown that has NO options available--only the greyed-out word "none." (That's about the point where I get fed up with wandering around this house o' mirrors.) There's also a "Current Format" dropdown set to "2Ch-44100.0 Hz-16bit" where I can select another option of 24 bit. But as soon as I quit AMS, all that goes away apparently, because when I come back, "Built-in audio controller" is sitting there staring at me like a haint as the "Selected Audio Device." I just don't know who selected it.

If you know or find out who's responsible for this nonsense, will you kick 'em in the shins once for me next time you see them? I'd be much obliged.