@Steve:
I know we may never agree on this one but I have just copied 492GB of data, my LP album recording files, to my external USB hard drive. As I have two drives for backup this operation was actually performed twice and I have not seen any issues or the dreaded USB sync problem. I would have thought transferring almost 1TB of data would show a number of sync issues considering Sombunya is seeing this issue quite frequently compared to the amount of data he is transferring. Also, my desktop HD is 500MB so 492MB of recordings meant my HD was almost full before the transfer and there were no recording issues.
You, and others, have stated many times the USB interface needs to be reset if this ‘noise’ symptom occurs. Could you please confirm, or otherwise, the USB interface is reset by stopping and restarting a recording in Audacity as per Sombunya statement. The reason I ask the question is Sombunya’s problem only disappears by stopping and re-starting the recording in Audacity. If the USB interface is not reset by the action of stopping the Audacity recording then it begs the question as to what is reset by his action.
I have now transferred 152 albums (and rising) to my HD, admittedly using VS and a different M-Audio interface, without any recurrence of the sibilance problem (see post https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/lp-rip-with-distortion-at-the-end-of-side-one/25334/1). I have an end in sight of my mammoth recording task and, when completed, I shall return to using Audacity with the new M-Audio interface to see if the sibilance issue recurs or has been fixed. Obviously I will report my findings in this post for the benefit of all, myself included 