How to Fix Cracking and Popping Sound ?

I'll join in and say it's been happening on my M1 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro too. The issue started happening around December 2021, and I pretty much always have to restart my laptop as a countermeasure. The issue always comes back after about 7-9 days.

The issue still exists on macOS 12.5.

On a similar note, my Mac Studio M1 Max is now randomly disconnecting ethernet when using cable. It's the only computer in the whole office with this issue, checking the router, it shows no reason for this to happen in the logs. This ALSO happened on my previous Mac Mini 2018 (T1 chipset) which also had this sound issue. So something is definitely wrong with how T1/T2 chipsets handle IO/Network.

MB pro M1 pro, 16 GB, macOS 13 Ventura Beta 4, problem is still there.

Well, maybe it's time for a class-action lawsuit... Apple refuses to make a statement on any channel about this and they don't seem to work on it either... Those are expensive MULTIMEDIA devices WITH AUDIO CRACKLINGS! *** Apple.

I have a REALLY interesting development. My network connection kept dropping now and then, I use a high-end Mikrotik Router. So instead of buying a new one, I switch RouterOS to OpenWRT on it and lo and behold, the network never disconnects any more - HOWEVER, it ALSO fixed the sound popping and crackling issue! It's TRULY GONE!

It seems that streaming media causes this issue to build up over time, some issue with the way MacOS handles media over the network.

This is why this issue followed me through Mac Mini, Mac Studio and Macbook Pro, because I always used the same router.

Please try with a different router (Or switch router OS) and see if this fixes it for you too and hopefully, Apple will see this and fix the issue!

I've had the M1 Max 64 for a few months without a hiccup running lots of plugins like Spitfire, Cherry Audio, Arturia, etc, between two or more DAW's. Suddenly, I'm getting all kinds of popping, clicking or volume jumps in my main two DAWs.

I've tried different configurations of buffers and sample rates within the DAW's as well as changing settings within Apple's Audio options, (Speakers at 44,000Khz, 48,000 Khz, etc) to no avail. I've tested the output with headphones, external speakers and the laptop speakers themselves. They all do it. That tells me it's coming from Apple's side.

Considering this is relatively new since my purchase a few months ago, I'm perplexed as to what could be causing it. Was there a quiet update in the background? Can't say. But Apple really needs to get on this. Between the Apple products and third party products, I've put out a lot of money to get my studio up and running. Right now, I cannot deliver any product and I'm losing money.

Apple, please respond and at least give us some kind of insight.

Is Apple going to do anything about this? I have 3 different 2019 16” and EVERY ONE of them has this same issue. Shouldn’t this be a recall issue like the keyboards? How call Apple keep expecting me to pay $4k+ for computers that have flaws. At least they fixed my keyboards for free, but that’s the exact reason I switched to the 16” models for me and my employees. Now this. Very disappointing. And of course, happens right after Apple Care+ expired. Planned obsolescence?

More of the same, apple promises a solution, to crackling speakers, when I spoke with senior adviser few weeks ago they said the engineering dept is aware of the problem and to give it a week, here we are few weeks later, still no fix, we currently have 44 2019 16” MacBook pros in our office, out of the 44 units 7 of them have speakers that pop and crackle, making them not usable for conferencing and teams / zoom / etc, video play back, music files are also distorted, apple is aware of the problem, yet they do nothing, software update isn’t going to fix problem, there is a short on the logic boards Problem seems to be the right speaker that fails, atkeast in all of ours since speakers are glued in, can’t just swap them out, we replaced the top cause on one of them, brand new speakers, keyboard battery touchbar etc. surprise it didn’t help fix the issue, waisted $400 for a repair that was never going to work, we also have 5 units that have sleep wake issue, close the lid or let MacBook sleep, and they crash, apple is also aware of this issue but once again do nothing.

please release a repair program for thiese issue, on the 2019 16”inwould hate to go back to windows or chrome books, but as a business owner can’t afford to replace $3000 MacBooks after only a year or 2 of use, we went with the 16” pro because staingate and keyboard issues were resolved, in this model although they still get staingate but it’s not as bad as the 2014 models main issue is the known crap logicboard apple refuses to fix

Just experienced this crackling yesterday, and I tried all the solutions I saw online. It was only until I removed apps like Mac Keeper and such that the sound disappeared, I'm not too sure if it's permanently gone but we shall see.

It's really really really bothering me now!! I don't seem to get the crackles much now, it seems like coreaudiod is auto resetting itself though. It's extra annoying because every time this happens (probably every 10 minutes or even less) my volume level resets to a very low volume. It's making this £2300 machine practically useless for my day to day work!!!!!!

Apple, we pay you big money for your products so we don't have to deal with these insanely stupid bugs. It was first reported 2 YEARS ago for goodness sake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone should submit bug feedback here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

Couldn't we imagine a command that lists our installed applications and that we would share to see if there are obvious similarities ? I know, it's lame... but I don't have any more ideas so that this problem doesn't end up driving me crazy!

We must have some common points ! since it's been happening to people for several years (and it doesn't happen to everyone)

This worked for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGD9sd_sih4

Mine was still cracking and popping on 48,000 Hz, so I knocked it down to 44,100 Hz and working fine so far.

I have been hearing audio crackling under a couple different conditions:

• When RAM usage is high. I usually experience this when a heavy YouTube livestream is open in a Microsoft Edge tab, or generally when many tabs are active. All audio playback is affected: YouTube videos in Edge/Safari, Spotify, local audio files, etc. The crackling occurs though the laptop speakers, Bluetooth earbuds, and through an audio interface, though with the latter two it sounds less like a crackle and more like a brief stutter/click during audio playback. No idea if RAM is the actual cause, but the observation is that when the crackling does occur, RAM usage is usually up there (memory pressure in the yellow or upper green region).
• When my digital audio workstation, FL Studio, is running. Interestingly, RAM usage does not have to be high for crackling to happen when listening to sources outside of the DAW. Audio within FL Studio, however, sounds generally wonderful and free of crackles. My guess (as a layman in this area) is that FL Studio hogs most of the audio buffer — as it rightfully should, to keep music production free of interruptions. The same behaviour seems to happen with Ableton Live 11 Lite, though I haven't used it as much as FL Studio.

System: 14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, 16 GB RAM.

Changing the sample rate in Audio MIDI Setup doesn't seem to work, and if anything worsens the crackling. I have not tried disabling the Core Audio service and don't intend to — I don't completely understand what the consequences of doing so might be, and anyway it sounds like only a temporary fix.

@tmikaeld's post looks like an interesting update to this topic. Since I don't have another router handy, I might do some tests at a coffee shop?

Adding my name to the list. This issue just started happening to my MacBook Air M1. I've tried all the fixes listed in all 19 pages of this thread and none of them have stopped it for more than a few minutes. Any set of headphones I plug into my headphone jack "click" every second or so intermittently while doing anything audio such as streaming youtube, using Unity3D, Unreal Engine or Ableton 11. It is literally maddening to the point where I am going to hook up my old PC to get work done.

Model Name: MacBook Air

Model Identifier: MacBookAir10,1

Chip: Apple M1

Total Number of Cores: 8 (4 performance and 4 efficiency)

Memory: 16 GB

System Firmware Version: 7459.141.1

OS: macOS Monterey 12.5