USB to DAC suddenly stopped working

[Billyb521]

I connect my 2012 MacBook pro to an external Schiit Dac via USB. This has worked just fine for years. Yesterday I suddenly had no sound and the speaker icon on the menu bar was greyed out. If I alt click on the speaker icon it shows the Speaker-Schiit USB Audio device in the device list, so I guess the USB port is still recognising the DAC. Just for completeness, some years ago I broke off a headphone jack in the headphone socket, but that's always been fine with me as I've used the USB to DAC to get sound. But no longer. Any help much appreciated.

 

[Fishrrman]

Might be time to try "cleaning out" the headphone socket...

 

[Duncan68]

I connect my 2012 MacBook pro to an external Schiit Dac via USB. This has worked just fine for years. Yesterday I suddenly had no sound and the speaker icon on the menu bar was greyed out. If I alt click on the speaker icon it shows the Speaker-Schiit USB Audio device in the device list, so I guess the USB port is still recognising the DAC. Just for completeness, some years ago I broke off a headphone jack in the headphone socket, but that's always been fine with me as I've used the USB to DAC to get sound. But no longer. Any help much appreciated.

Sometimes macOS will mute the sound of a DAC for some reason. Go into System Preferences/Sound, look under Output for your Schiit DAC. Make sure that it isn't muted. If it is, see if it lets you uncheck it. If not, reboot your Mac.