Does Apple Music cuts off the beginning of songs on your Macs?

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Does Apple Music cuts off the beginning of songs on your Macs?

A few days ago I replaced my old Mac mini 2014 (macOS 10.14) with a new Mac mini M4 (macOS 26.1). I have a huge collection of music in my Library and I used iTunes on an old Mac mini without any problem. On the new one, of course I use the Apple Music application.

What I immediately noticed is that there is an annoying bug when playing songs from the new Apple Music application. The bug occurs when a song is clicked to play and any of the sound processing options in this application (Sound Enhancer or Equilazer) are turned on. In this case, the beginning of the song is cut off and not heard. According to my tests, the initial part of the song that is cut off is always the same and lasts about 0.3 seconds.

What can make it difficult to notice this bug is the fact that many song files contain an introductory silence that is longer than 0.3 seconds, so this irritating defect is not heard on all songs, but only on those with this introductory silence of less than 0.3 seconds.

This bug only occurs when the user clicks on the song they want to play. When the user plays songs (playlist) and the application continues to play the next songs after the first one we clicked on, this bug is no longer heard on those next songs. So once again, the bug only applies to the song that the user clicks on and chooses to play it. If we click ten times on a song, we will hear ten times that the beginning of the song has been cut off.

The way audio is processed in Apple Music has definitely changed compared to iTunes. In iTunes, after turning on Equilazer, it takes about 3-4 seconds to hear that Equilazer has started working, while in Apple Music, Equilazer works much faster after turning on (eg after 0.3 seconds - maybe this change is where this bug originated).

Also, it seems to me (subjectively) that the Equilazer is much stronger in Apple Music than in iTunes (although the Equilazer itself looks identical in both applications).

Since this is very annoying, and I like to have the Equilazer on while listening to music, the workaround for me is to use the Audio Hijack application and adjust the Equilazer for Apple Music in it.

I hope Apple will fix this as soon as possible.

Mac mini (M4, 2024)

Posted on Nov 24, 2025 6:38 AM

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Answer 1

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Hoki-Boy

Level 1

10 points

Nov 26, 2025 8:25 PM in response to korolija

I agree. I have just upgraded? to Apple Music from iTunes and transferred all my music files.

I have edited a lot of my content to remove excessive silence to 200ms, and I've noticed that when I click to play a song its trimming the front. Not huge but enough to go What The #

In my experience disabling Sound Enhancer does not fix the issue (I don't use it).

It's not a Bluetooth issue as I'm using wired headphones.

I've found that if you turn the Global Equalizer off it stops it happening. Windows > Equalizer > Preamp.

Adding an EQ setting to the individual track does not seem to trigger the issue.

Poor design and QA by Apple.

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Answer 2

Nov 25, 2025 7:41 AM in response to korolija

I once had a similar experience with a 2018 Mac mini (Intel) where playback of the first moments of music would be cut off by the Music app. The files were intact.

In my research I found guidance regarding a relationship to the Bluetooth speakers. Some cause the problem.

Removing that my Bluetooth speaker from use resolved the issue.

I now use a wired speaker connection and no longer use Bluetooth speakers on that Mac mini system. I can't say if different speakers will reintroduce the problem.

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Answer 3

Hoki-Boy

Level 1

10 points

Nov 26, 2025 8:48 PM in response to korolija

I've just done some testing to confirm I'm not imagining it and created a file with silence and a small blip if white noise and then trimmed it until I found the point where Apple Music was cutting it off.

If the silence preceding the blip is less than 350 ms (0.35 Sec)it trims it off.

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Answer 4

Nov 25, 2025 7:14 AM in response to korolija

Same here - thought I was going mad tbh, but yes turning of 'Sound Enhancer' appears to have fixed it (though not solved the issue obviously).

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Answer 5

Nov 24, 2025 11:46 AM in response to korolija

Yes, I have this issue on many first tracks in an album or playlist, even when I download the music locally. If I move that song down in a playlist, it does not cut off at the very beginning. It's random across artists and doesn't happen with all songs, which is a bit maddening.

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Answer 6

Hoki-Boy

Level 1

10 points

Nov 26, 2025 8:26 PM in response to Hoki-Boy

Also I've just found out it won't accept WT# (that's an F)

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Answer 7

korolija Author

Level 1

28 points

Nov 25, 2025 5:02 AM in response to Gary Mattson

It is not random. Those songs that are being cut off, you can open them in audio editor in which you can see waveform. When you zoom in begining of waveform, you will see that their introductory silence is shorter than 0.3 seconds.

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