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Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

social.treehouse.systems

41–50 of 62 posts

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#41
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These devs didn't even notice it until they tried to rip into the inner workings. I mean, considering the source isn't open. Yeah, you need to do that.

Well, for audio bugs that actually matter , you can just listen to it, or if you want to get all sciencey, throw the output and input onto a scope and compare them, or send the input and output sample values into the analysis software of your choice. Code isn't necessary to judge the quality of an audio system. You can pretty much treat it as a black box if you want. The fact that no one has apparently even noticed t…

He posted a video in the thread comparing an M1 machine (they don’t have the bug) with an M2. It’s rather obvious in that simple sine-wave test.

This isn’t one of those things like the difference between 128 Kbps MP3 and FLAC, where there is a difference but it can be kind of subtle depending on the listening equipment.

It’s clear in that demo.

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#42

> They have a stupid off-by-one bug in the middle of their bass enhancer AND NOBODY NOTICED NOR FIXED IT IN OVER A YEAR. The mocking tone of this post is really not necessary. An engineer made probably one of the most common coding errors that nobody noticed because real world impact is minor to non existent. The devs should be trying to build a relationship with Apple, not mocking then each time they find a minor bu…

Unfortunately, it appears that the Asahi Linux team carries this holier-than-thou attitude everywhere. Their GPU driver reversing had similar snipes at Apple; and we also have the whole HN/asahilinux.org referrer debacle.

> Their GPU driver reversing had similar snipes at Apple; and we also have the whole HN/asahilinux.org referrer debacle.

Yeah I didn’t like the way the GPU stuff was presented. It was purposefully antagonistic despite absolutely no need for it.

That said, they’re 100% right on the HN issue. That’s not them overreacting or being mean. That’s avoiding abuse that HN refuses to do anything about.

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#43
post #6

This seems like a needlessly aggressive and poor take. Its a cool bug that they discovered; but going into "Apple's audio engineering team is, at least on some level, incompetent (or incompetently run; I'm not blaming the employees here, but rather the organization)" is just unproductively mean. "and obvious in a sine sweep frequency response test, which is the most basic test you can run end-to-end on a completed au…

but ironically this communication style would make steve jobs look tame

Not really if his biography is remotely accurate.

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#44
post #6

This seems like a needlessly aggressive and poor take. Its a cool bug that they discovered; but going into "Apple's audio engineering team is, at least on some level, incompetent (or incompetently run; I'm not blaming the employees here, but rather the organization)" is just unproductively mean. "and obvious in a sine sweep frequency response test, which is the most basic test you can run end-to-end on a completed au…

It's just that marcan is a pretty mean person in general. He is technically very capably but always hating on everyone that is not in his in group of friends.

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They should do their job. They did their job. They delivered a sound system that has been called the best available in any laptop. Nobody, and I mean nobody , noticed this bug in the last three years. Apple is doing just fine without your couch coaching about what they should have done. I might as well harass Apple for having 99% P3 color certification but not 100% accuracy certification.

I'm sorry, dropping samples is a pretty egregious signal processing cock up and one I'd be ashamed to have made. I think the market assessment is pretty meaningless in the face of objective evidence like this. By all means, you can keep buying Apple, but I'd have no trust they're doing things properly under the hood.

[deleted]

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Asahi Linux team carries this holier-than-thou attitude everywhere. Their GPU driver reversing had similar snipes at Apple; and we also have the whole HN/asahilinux.org referrer debacle.

> Their GPU driver reversing had similar snipes at Apple; and we also have the whole HN/asahilinux.org referrer debacle. Yeah I didn’t like the way the GPU stuff was presented. It was purposefully antagonistic despite absolutely no need for it. That said, they’re 100% right on the HN issue. That’s not them overreacting or being mean. That’s avoiding abuse that HN refuses to do anything about.

It has been my experience that dang doesn’t respond to feedback emails of the kind Hector claims to have sent (and I’ve sent a few of them); and I kinda see why: because any disagreement on said feedback leads to more arguments, which is terribly draining for the recipient.

That being said, if the feedback provided had the same quality as the post linked above, one can justifiably see why not engaging with it at all is the best option.

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#48

At Apple we would see this tone all the time from people on the VLC project. It got so bad that the senior people would refer to them as DCS, Drunken College Student. It got so bad that we mostly ignored them. It wasn't good for either VLC or QuickTime.

You made my day with this comment.

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#49
post #6

This seems like a needlessly aggressive and poor take. Its a cool bug that they discovered; but going into "Apple's audio engineering team is, at least on some level, incompetent (or incompetently run; I'm not blaming the employees here, but rather the organization)" is just unproductively mean. "and obvious in a sine sweep frequency response test, which is the most basic test you can run end-to-end on a completed au…

I agree that this is not a charitable view on this bug

> "and obvious in a sine sweep frequency response test, which is the most basic test you can run end-to-end on a completed audio system to ensure it is performing properly. So they didn't even run that."

Do they want a list of all the stupid bugs there are in Linux/Desktop Managers/common apps?

Yeah an off-by-one error happens.

Funnily enough, I recently tried a PC laptop, and it had a non-obvious audio (possible hw-defect) bug as well. But the UEFI self test worked almost perfectly. Because of the frequency ranges it would use for the test

Re: Asahi dev found off-by-one bug in M2 MacBook Air bass enhancer

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bug that shouldn't have happened though. One hopes that they have a well verified reference implementation for all their signal processing pipeline (and ideally both a high level and a bit accurate model) and they're testing the output of any optimised implementation against that, with random input data. This is Apple, one of the most "valuable" companies in the world. They should do their job.

> They should do their job. They did their job. They delivered a sound system that has been called the best available in any laptop. Nobody, and I mean nobody , noticed this bug in the last three years. Apple is doing just fine without your couch coaching about what they should have done. I might as well harass Apple for having 99% P3 color certification but not 100% accuracy certification.

Nobody noticed the bug in the last three years because it’s more recent. You can hear it clearly in real world usage compared to the M1. Harassing Apple over 99% P3 certification is not remotely comparable because that’s neither perceivable, nor incorrect behavior. It’s clearly a bug, an egregious one at that and it will be fixed no matter what you think about Marcans choice of words.
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