I have never even sat in front of a system with a Metrum Octave, so I may have no business posting here, but I do want to comment that I have had many files sound garbled with different DAC's depending on bit and conversion rate. I use PC, so I also can't speak toward MAC, but in every case, switching from Wasapi to Kernal output or vice versa. Overall I have been able to get the file to play with a clean output. Overall Kernal has worked best for me. You may want to give that a try and I hope it helps, Tim