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On the newest Ventura beta, release candidate. Nothing as pervasive as it used to be, but I just heard a crackle during loud volume.
 
Same here, latest update still has occasional cracking/popping sounds, especially when speakers are almost at maximum or when the system is using a considerable level of memory.

I honestly don't know what to think or expect anymore, I'm glad some improvement has been made but this is just unacceptable for a machine at this price point.

I'm a music producer and this has been a real nightmare for me, I can't even send it back to apple for an overview coz I rely on this mac for work.
 
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Seems the issue with the speaker popping now is memory related now on Ventura. Whenever it happens it's because memory usage in Activity Monitor turns yellow, so when that happens some programs gotta get closed to free up memory.

Looks like 32 gbs of RAM is gonna be mandatory in the future.
 
I have 64GB and still experience it. I reckon memory pressure is one cause, but I think there are others too.
 
I have a MBP 16" Intel (i9) with 32GB and still experience it in Ventura (as well as it was apparent in Monterey).

One remark: On my side it only happens if I have more than one output selected (in my case I output to the internal speakers as well as to the Sonos One .... as soon as I select my internal speakers only (from within Apple Music), all is OK. No more popping/crackling sounds then.
 
I have a MBP 16" Intel (i9) with 32GB and still experience it in Ventura (as well as it was apparent in Monterey).

One remark: On my side it only happens if I have more than one output selected (in my case I output to the internal speakers as well as to the Sonos One .... as soon as I select my internal speakers only (from within Apple Music), all is OK. No more popping/crackling sounds then.
Does it also happen in Boot Camp? Mine pops, but I'm not on the latest firmware, afraid to update.
 
But what do we do in this case? I mean.. I'm still under the warranty (till May next year) and I'm ok to wait for an update with a fix ... but if it doesn't come and never get fixed I need to change this Macbook to another mac without any cost... I can't accept having a machine with this infernal popping noise, Apple should do a recall.
 
so weird. i have 8gb ram mac mini M1 and i do professional audio production often using 13gb of ram with big memory pressure and never have audio popping. maybe its a macbook pro issue only? makes me scared to get one
 
so weird. i have 8gb ram mac mini M1 and i do professional audio production often using 13gb of ram with big memory pressure and never have audio popping. maybe its a macbook pro issue only? makes me scared to get one
It’s only on the laptop speakers, if you use an audio interface or the headphone jack it’s fine.
 
But what do we do in this case? I mean.. I'm still under the warranty (till May next year) and I'm ok to wait for an update with a fix ... but if it doesn't come and never get fixed I need to change this Macbook to another mac without any cost... I can't accept having a machine with this infernal popping noise, Apple should do a recall.
use external speakers or next time don't buy an Apple macbook for audio sensitive work.
 
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Thought I had it solved by following the suggestion made (I believe in this thread) about removing the driver "MJAudioRecorder" from the system. I somehow had that one installed on my system (maybe as part of the "MS Teams" installation I did last year, don't know) and could select it as output in the list of sound output devices.

Restarting the laptop after having removed to driver I at first thought that it did the trick but then, after a while, the crackling/popping is back. Could it be a resource issue? I can imagine that after a restart there are lots of resources free and the system has no problem "keeping up" but after a while, after having run lots of applications, those resources are consumed (and maybe not properly returned to the pool) and the system starts to struggle.
 
Does it also happen in Boot Camp? Mine pops, but I'm not on the latest firmware, afraid to update.
I pulled the trigger and updated firmware after a lot of trial. However firmware version 1916.40.8.0.0 (iBridge: 20.16.411.0.0,0) that is included with macOS Big Sur 11.7.1 and current Ventura releases didn't solve random popping sound issue on 2019/2020 16-inch MBP with Intel CPU and T2 security chip in Boot Camp running Windows 10 version 21H2. No such issues on 2019 iMac with Intel CPU and without T2 security chip in Boot Camp running Windows 10 version 21H2.
 
Thought I had it solved by following the suggestion made (I believe in this thread) about removing the driver "MJAudioRecorder" from the system. I somehow had that one installed on my system (maybe as part of the "MS Teams" installation I did last year, don't know) and could select it as output in the list of sound output devices.

Restarting the laptop after having removed to driver I at first thought that it did the trick but then, after a while, the crackling/popping is back. Could it be a resource issue? I can imagine that after a restart there are lots of resources free and the system has no problem "keeping up" but after a while, after having run lots of applications, those resources are consumed (and maybe not properly returned to the pool) and the system starts to struggle.
I can say for sure now that there is no popping when I output only to the MacBook internal speakers but as soon as I add another speaker (from within Music) to the party (in my case a Sonos 1) the crackling/popping starts immediately (and really bad as well). This is really a bad experience on such an expensive piece of hardware.
 
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Today I noticed the loud popping during a Slack call while using their "huddle" feature. It probably happened 10 times over the hour call. I didn't notice any lagging or choppiness in the video call when it happened.
 
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Today I noticed the loud popping during a Slack call while using their "huddle" feature. It probably happened 10 times over the hour call. I didn't notice any lagging or choppiness in the video call when it happened.
Exact same issue on MBP 16 (2019 / Intel) with macOS Monterey.
After an update to Ventura - the cracking quantity during the calls was reduced. But after the call is finished - cracking can occur from time to time randomly. Therefore I restart Slack after each call, to avoid the issue.
 
So I haven't had my speakers pop in ages (so happy that got fixed) but you're not gonna believe what happened: The speakers of my iPad popped last night watching Youtube.

...tbh I'm okay with this. If my popping curse was in the iPad instead of the Mac, that's fine by me lmaooooo
 
I got my MBP 2021 M1 Pro 16gb 1TB swapped for a M1 Max 32GB 1TB and the issue has returned for me after several months... both are 16" and I don't recall having the issue with AirPods, only seems to occur with internal speakers when memory pressure/swap is happening. Might try using Safari for a while instead of Ram hungry Chrome but reasoning with this issue on a $3,300 laptop for over a YEAR is beyond pathetic.
 
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I got my MBP 2021 M1 Pro 16gb 1TB swapped for a M1 Max 32GB 1TB and the issue has returned for me after several months... both are 16" and I don't recall having the issue with AirPods, only seems to occur with internal speakers when memory pressure/swap is happening. Might try using Safari for a while instead of Ram hungry Chrome but reasoning with this issue on a $3,300 laptop for over a YEAR is beyond pathetic.

Try Orion Browser. It's basically Safari but with proper plugin support
 
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Has there been any updates or fixes? I'm about to purchase a MBP 2021 16 M1 Pro 16gb 512GB and I would hate to run into this issue. I had one for a few weeks a couple years ago so I'm no stranger to it. Is the 14in affected too? What about the MBP 2023 M2s?
 
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