Since my clean re-install more than a month ago I only had the crackling happen exactly once. I restarted the laptop immediately and had no distortions since then. I have some friends who upgraded to apple silicon too and had no issues with the sound. Might be just a coincidence, but all of them did the clean install when they bought their devices. So there's that. If you are really desperate, I say give clean re-install a go. Cheers

I am on my third week with no issues. So if you are desperate to fix this, you should do a clean macOS install/reset (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/132423?answerId=719939022#719939022)

Just FYI, I wiped my mac on Thursday (3 days ago) and had no distortions since. Started as fresh as I possibly could. Made a list of all apps installed and reinstalled most of them manually one by one. Only synced the keychain to my iCloud. The rest of the files (like .ssh folder, projects folder, save states for openemu, etc) were restored by manually copying them from my latest TM backup. Today had to load the system memory heavily by running lots of docker containers and no distortions appeared (when in the past they would appear just before memory pressure turned orange). I still suspect that this bug is somehow related to unsuccessful software (config/driver) migration from Intel to Apple silicon. Will let you know if the distortions come back (fingers crossed they won't :)!

Ok, after a few weeks of playing around, I am convinced that this is related to memory pressure somehow. I no longer need to restart to eliminate the problem. Whenever I get the distortions, I open the Memory tab in the Activity Monitor and sort the processes by memory used. I close/restart the apps that are top users of the memory until the memory pressure is back in the green. This resolves all the distortions until the memory climbs back to orange which will happen as quickly as you make it to. Now I have to micro-manage my f****** memory like in the olden days. I regret downgrading from 32gb ram to 16gb so much right now. Thanks to all the damn influencers praising how good the memory management of the new chip is.

As someone mentioned here already if I keep my memory pressure in the green, then I get no distortions at all. Still waiting for someone to confirm that starting/resetting to a clean OS without restoring backups fixes this bug for good?

I get three types of entries on my machine while listening to Spotify: CAReportingClient.mm:508 message { "HAL_client_IO_duration" = 83708; HostApplicationDisplayID = "com.spotify.client"; cause = PageFaultsOffIOThread; deadline = 161036694; "input_device_source_list" = ""; "input_device_transport_list" = ""; "input_device_uid_list" = ""; "io_buffer_size" = 512; "io_cycle" = 24644; "io_cycle_budget" = 11354125; "io_page_faults" = 0; "is_prewarming" = 0; "is_recovering" = 0; "issue_type" = overload; lateness = 13; "other_page_faults" = 42; "output_device_source_list" = "Internal Speaker"; "output_device_transport_list" = BuiltIn; "output_device_uid_list" = BuiltInSpeakerDevice; "safety_violation" = 1; "sample_rate" = 48000; "scheduler_latency" = 11045416; "smallest_buffer_frame_size" = 512; }: ( 1726576852993 ) CAReportingClient.mm:508 message { "HAL_client_IO_duration" = 1210958; HostApplicationDisplayID = "com.apple.CoreSpeech"; cause = PageFaultsOffIOThread; deadline = 148418110; "input_device_source_list" = "Unknown, Unknown"; "input_device_transport_list" = "Virtual, BuiltIn"; "input_device_uid_list" = "AOP Audio-1, BuiltInSpeakerDevice"; "io_buffer_size" = 512; "io_cycle" = 122873; "io_cycle_budget" = 11354125; "io_page_faults" = 0; "is_prewarming" = 0; "is_recovering" = 0; "issue_type" = overload; lateness = 297; "other_page_faults" = 57; "output_device_source_list" = "Internal Speaker"; "output_device_transport_list" = BuiltIn; "output_device_uid_list" = BuiltInSpeakerDevice; "safety_violation" = 1; "sample_rate" = 48000; "scheduler_latency" = 15415416; "smallest_buffer_frame_size" = 512; }: ( 1726576852994 ) CAReportingClient.mm:508 message { "device_is_aggregate" = 0; "input_num_tap_streams" = 0; "input_scalar_volume" = "1.000000"; "io_buffer_size" = 512; message = StartHardware; "output_avail_phys_formats" = "{ [32/96000/2 lpcm], [32/88200/2 lpcm], [32/48000/2 lpcm], [32/44100/2 lpcm] }"; "output_avail_virt_formats" = "{ [32/96000/2 lpcm], [32/88200/2 lpcm], [32/48000/2 lpcm], [32/44100/2 lpcm] }"; "output_bits_per_channel" = 32; "output_bytes_per_frame" = 8; "output_bytes_per_packet" = 8; "output_channels_per_frame" = 2; "output_device_source_list" = "Internal Speaker"; "output_device_transport_list" = BuiltIn; "output_device_uid_list" = BuiltInSpeakerDevice; "output_format_id" = lpcm; "output_frames_per_packet" = 1; "output_num_tap_streams" = 1; "output_scalar_volume" = "1.000000"; "sample_rate" = 48000; }: ( 1726576853029 ) Reported to Apple, though I doubt anyone will look into this. I read somewhere that starting fresh (resetting the os and not recovering from a backup) fixes this bug for good. So I think I will have to do that instead.

This is really frustrating. Sadly, none of the methods mentioned here (or elsewhere) worked long term... It just keeps coming back. I think I will just reset my mac and set it up from scratch without restoring it from the time machine. I suspect that this bug has something to do with the migration process from Intel to m1. Did anyone else try starting fresh?

Here's what worked for me: (Menu Bar): Go > Computer > Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences > Audio Delete the com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist and com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist files Empty trash Shut down the laptop and wait 30 seconds Turn it back on