Hi, I've been dealing with cracking sound for months (Macbook Pro M1 14" 2021). I found out it occurs when there is some system load (high usage of RAM and CPU) and it affects any audio source (Spotify standalone app or web application, Youtube, Netflix...). After reboot it was ok, but as soon as there was more load, it started to happen again. I keep the system up to date and there was no difference after any update (macOS Monterey 12.4 right now). I've tried changing output format from 44100 to 96000 Hz, closing some background apps but keeping other, restarting coreaudiod after every step, but the issue was still there. Looks like I've finally found the cause on my side! I've noticed "MSTeamsAudioDevice.driver" (running as Intel process), so I tried to remove it. Uninstalling MS Teams didn't help, I needed to delete /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/MSTeamsAudioDevice.driver and force kill it. It's already few hours and no cracking sound (it was every 1-2 minutes before). I even tried to open more apps to use more RAM and started some benchmarks to put some load and so far so good, finally I'm enjoying a music :)

Unfortunately the issue is not fixed. I still can hear cracking sound almost every time when I connect/disconnect USB dock (power delivery, monitor, keyboard, mouse, Android tablet). And now I hear the cracking sound about every 10-15 minutes, without any idea what's causing it (I tried to quit some Intel processes, but that didn't help). After getting rid of the Teams audio driver it's much better, but definitely not solved. Next week I will be travelling, so I will use macbook without connected USB dock. I will update you whether this will make any difference.

The issue is not solved on my side, but now the audio can work fine for days after a reboot. With the Teams audio plugin I started to get the sound issues within 2 hours after a reboot. Killing all Intel processes won't resolve the issue, but it still may be the cause, as I didn't try using macbook without any intel process since boot for a couple of days. Once it starts to have the cracking sound issues only a reboot seems to solve it (restarting coreaudiod helps just for a couple of minutes).