Audirvana Studio vs. Apple OS 11.6: what's going on?

Did you try the Audirvana forum? Pretty helpful for these kinds of questions. 

I also use a MacBook Air with the new M1 chip running Aurdirvana Studio, no issues at all and sounds great. I think your comment "Apple is on a war path with Audirvana and is blocking them out" is misleading. You probably have a software or settings issue. Try upgrading the OS from 11.6 to 12.1.

Goto the Apple store now.

I will not criticize your "warpath" comment because that is their m.o.

Apple Store, yes.  But also copy your above description of the problem as a ticket item to Audirvana Support.  My experience has been that you'll get an informed response within 24 hrs, and followup.

Good luck.

For what it's worth (@sandstone) I've found posting on the Audirvana forum to be quicker than a request for support, perhaps time zone or weekend the cause- sometimes, other users know exactly what the problem is, and can provide the solution and Damien or one of his employees will ask for the debug info right on the forum and go from there. Not criticizing you, just sharing my experience. 

Thanks, Whart.  Good info.