MacBook Pro 2018 - Speakers Crackling

[jaack]

Anyone else noticed their speakers randomly crackling on the new MacBook Pro 2018? It happens every so often for me. Only saw one other report so far here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8466796

===============

Edit by Weaselboy

Moderator Note:

Also see the discussion in the news thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ners-experiencing-crackling-speakers.2131577/

 

[Brookzy]

It happened once to me for a split second. Was playing iTunes at high volume at the time and re-played the track to see if it was a glitch in the recording, but the second time there was no crackle.

It sounded literally like scratching a record, it wasn’t like a background crackle or anything - it completely distorted the audio.

 

[Bob1985]

I had a similar issue with my external DAC/AMP. Lots of hiccups.

Once macOS had finished with its iCloud downloads, indexing, and whatever else it does, the issue went away completely.

I think macOS has a bug related to prioritizing audio streams during these background activities.

 

[Newtons Apple]

No crackling from mine, so far. I do not play a lot of music though, not through my MBPro.

 

[jaack]

It happened once to me for a split second. Was playing iTunes at high volume at the time and re-played the track to see if it was a glitch in the recording, but the second time there was no crackle.

It sounded literally like scratching a record, it wasn’t like a background crackle or anything - it completely distorted the audio.

It's happening every 10-15 minutes when I'm listening to music. Is it still happening for you?

 

[mr.anthonyramos]

It's happening every 10-15 minutes when I'm listening to music. Is it still happening for you?

Haven’t heard it on mine (yet). Possible to record the sound and post it?

 

[stailey]

I'm having the same problem. I was playing audio in iTunes and maybe about 15 minutes in it made this weird metallic scratching sound. I called Apple Support and they think its a hardware issue.

 

[ksj1]

Haven't had that issue yet. i9/32/512

 

[tianhuailiu]

I have the same issue and think that my speaker is broken. I am not even in bootcamp just in macOS..... SAD.

 

[zshane1125]

get it replaced.

 

[Ocias]

Just had my new 2018 15" MBP replaced after experiencing severe regular crackling/popping audio, but the new one shows the same initial symptoms.

Wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same problem.

How to test:
- Open a youtube video in safari
- Hold shift and press the volume up/down buttons repeatedly
- Does the volume change sound play consistently for you? Or does it skip, and the audio crackles and pops occasionally?

Video demonstration using an Audacity tone:

If you run into this, you may want to get your machine checked, as this was the most obvious initial symptom, and it got worse to the point where the crackling was constant on both input and output and made calls impossible after just one week.

Other notes:
- It happens on both speakers and through the headphone jack
- Happened for me on both 10.13.5 and 10.13.6
- Resetting SMC and NVRAM do not help the issue
- The crackling and distortion occurs even with nothing playing and volume low, it's just much more difficult to make out

 

[macpro2018]

I heard crackles/pops from right top while I was watching a film today.I paused for a minute then it disappeared.
I am worried if that is gonna happen again.

 

[GerritB]

Yes I have this issue.

Together with other issues I'm experiencing, I'm quickly moving into the territory of bringing it back to the store unless some quick update releases that fixes most of them.

 

[markusberger]

I experienced similar issues (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...litch-freeze-can-someone-please-test.2129323/) ... does your mouse freeze on some websites with a lot of media? I had to return mine...

 

[SaintBol]

Have same issue (MBP2018 15" i9).
After a long moment, it starts and occurs every 11 seconds exactly. It can occur in iTunes, or in web videos, and so on.
Under VLC, when it happens, the logs are full of "playback too late", so it's not a speaker problem.

 

[Ocias]

Yep, I have the same issue: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2018-15-macbook-pro-audio-issues.2129691/

Not just speakers, the headphone jack gets the same crackling. Got my first machine replaced and the new one has the same symptoms already, and the display models at the store share it too.

 

[Ocias]

I experienced similar issues (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...litch-freeze-can-someone-please-test.2129323/) ... does your mouse freeze on some websites with a lot of media? I had to return mine...

I haven’t experienced any mouse freezing yet, no (but I’ve seen a lot of other strange behaviour )

 

[Bill Gates]

I haven't watched your video, but I have had a couple audio stutters/drop-outs with my 15".

 

[volumeWindow]

I am noticing the same thing, but only (so far) while playing games. It happens after just a couple minutes in CivVI which is a DX10 game. M$ support site says to download the latest Realtek drivers, but device manager says it's an AMD sound driver?

 

[Bill Gates]

I have the same issue with my 2018 15". If I were using Windows, the first thing I would look at would be the DPC latency. I don't know what the equivalent would be (if there is one) under MacOS. From the multiple user reports, I expect this is not a hardware defect, so I see no reason to exchange/replace the machine, although that would certainly help bring the issue to Apple's attention.

 

[stylinexpat]

If you listen to cracklin Rosie then they crackle a little

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YhumCu3fzMI

 

[SaintBol]

 

[Aea]

"Crackle?" Sounds like it just ripped a big one.

 

[zshane1125]

disturbing! I haven had any issues.
[doublepost=1532742317][/doublepost]

"Crackle?" Sounds like it just ripped a big one.

AHAHAHA that's hilarious.

But yea man, check your macbook's diet bro. i9 too much power, too much protein shakes...

 

[volumeWindow]

I have the same issue with my 2018 15". If I were using Windows, the first thing I would look at would be the DPC latency. I don't know what the equivalent would be (if there is one) under MacOS. From the multiple user reports, I expect this is not a hardware defect, so I see no reason to exchange/replace the machine, although that would certainly help bring the issue to Apple's attention.

I installed a latency check tool (https://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml) and everything is in the yellow, for the mostpart. The tool seems to think there shouldn't be a problem.

Nevertheless, I went through and disabled a few drivers (wifi cards etc) and it didn't reduce the latency.

Where the bar chart turns red is where the crackling started. Where it returns to yellow is where I exited CivVi.

https://i.imgur.com/ZVIjpG3.png
[doublepost=1532743378][/doublepost]Well, I found the problem. And... it's an Apple driver. So not much to do about it since we need that driver for audio.

https://imgur.com/a/vI9nIVt