Nothing changed, my MacBook Pro 16 2021 gave back to Apple to change the speaker and battery, the cklicking still exist, but sometimes, depends if you open a browser with a sound content etc.
thought at beginning it is a hardware issue, because the crackling sound appears even when booting up, before booting up, before loading the MacOS, i still think this has nothing to with the MacOS version, even not with speaker, because they changed it, so the problem is really somewhere else.
just my personal advise, use it as it is, don’t focus on sound, otherwise you will get crazy, and hope that the next versions of Hardware are much better.
still we have to accept the other way, this MacBooks are the ***** of the technology these days and nothing can beat them, I do any tasks you imagine in within few seconds compare to the much expensive Windows crap machines.