New 16" Speakers Popping

[hippomatic]

Same problem on my 16" M1 Max. It comes up on Youtube when I'm seeking forward or back, or closing the video midstream.

It seems like I can recreate it by seeking through a sine wave sweep video on Youtube.

 

[Sitti]

I also noticed this popping when video starts playing on YouTube. However, this only happens with safari. Doesn't happen with Chrome and Firefox.

 

[skardvin]

I also noticed this popping when video starts playing on YouTube. However, this only happens with safari. Doesn't happen with Chrome and Firefox.

Weird. I only notice the popping sound in Chrome and Firefox! Sigh, Apple needs to get this fixed. -_-

 

[Esopus]

I've been getting this randomly about once a week for the past couple of months. Each time I'm able to "fix" it buy changing the sample rate in Audio MIDI Setup but the issue has never completely gone away even after updating to 12.1.

I'm now a couple of days out from the date I can return the computer for a full refund. Is this more likely to be a hardware or a software issue? I don't want to be saddled with a lemon that will need to be repaired at some point in the future so I'm thinking that a return might be on the cards.

 

[smithdr]

Hi All,

Are you sure it is popping? I have a similar issue on my 2021 16 M1 Max and suspect foreign material inside the case. Apple declined to open the machine at the store.

Another MacForum participant had a similar issue. Apple traced his problem to foreign material inside the case at the store level. He describes it as a “small stone” about 2x the size of a price of rice.

Here is the URL: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...eird-rattley-noise-from-left-speaker.2329193/

Don

 

[UBS28]

I have it now also but it only happens on the MacBook Pro speakers. With headphones, no problem.

 

[DeadeyeM]

Yep still an issue on M1 Max. Even tried lowering Hz. But doing SMC reset does help for a bit then it starts again. Killing the coreaudio while playing sound is good example that something wrong with drivers, don't think this is hardware issue.

 

[HeraFlight]

Yep still an issue on M1 Max. Even tried lowering Hz. But doing SMC reset does help for a bit then it starts again. Killing the coreaudio while playing sound is good example that something wrong with drivers, don't think this is hardware issue.

Couldn't it be hardware if people are not hearing it on headphones? Or is that just the speaker driver

 

[DeadeyeM]

Hardware could be the speaker it'self but i don't think thats the issue because we would constantly have this issue, it's software issue

 

[embotix]

Same here.

Also, I've noticed it the most while and after playing Minecraft, and until I found this thread, I thought maybe it was specific to Minecraft (but I didn't install it until after upgrading to 12.1).

This is on a 16" MBP M1 Max.

Just wanted to provide an update on my particular situation --

I'm not sure if anyone else experiencing this issue had MS Teams installed - but I did, and, after a weird suspicion that maybe my speaker popping/crackling could be related to it, I completed uninstalled it.

So far, it seems to have resolved my issue. I'll continue monitoring, but, I've already gone much longer than normal before I hear the crackling/popping while playing any kind of audio.

I happened to be running a version of MS Teams that installed a Core Audio driver. I happened to be using a preview version of MS Teams, which enabled the option to share my Computer Audio during a meeting. Uninstalling MS Teams doesn't remove this driver, so you need to do it manually (via these instructions I found):

1. Open Finder
2. Use the menu “Go” -> “Go to folder…” (or press Shift + Command + G)
3. Copy the following path: /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL
4. Click “Go”
5. Delete the audio driver. You will need to enter the administrator password or use your touch id.
6. Restart your computer. After it, the driver will disappear from your system sound preferences.

One thing I noticed was that the Core Audio Driver was showing as "Intel" in the Activity Monitor. Perhaps that was a contributing factor? The only other two Core Audio Drivers that I have running are for Zoom and Telestream's ScreenFlow, and both show as "Apple" under "Kind".

Perhaps the common factor here could be rogue Core Audio Drivers, possibly running in emulation?

Will continue to monitor for the rest of the day and post back if the fix seems permanent.

UPDATE: This seems to have had some effect, but I do still experience the popping. So this wasn't the end-all be-all I was hoping it would be. Hopefully the upcomiing 12.2 Monterey update will address this.

 

[UBS28]

Thanks man. I did the same and I found some stuff from Apogee there (audio interface) and I removed it and it seems I don't get the popping anymore I think.

I will keep monitoring the situation too.

 

[sb in ak]

I had a similar popping sound happen yesterday on my 16" M1 Pro/16GB. I was working in Lightroom while playing Spotify and accidentally opened Photoshop. It largely happened after opening PS, so I assumed it had something to do with the increased load/maxing out physical ram.

The speakers on my 16" don't pop (at least not yet), but I have noticed that the bass is amped up a bit too much. While these speakers are more powerful than the speakers in my previous 16" Intel MBP, the amped up bass muddies some of the sound it outputs at times (with certain songs crossing many genres) making the speakers in 16" Intel MBP sound slightly more clear (at times).

It's hard to explain, really. I don't see Apple giving us the option to change sound EQ output OS wide, but each individual app may have EQ options. In the Apple Music app, I always use the 'Electronic' preset in the equalizer which reduces mids (where they're supposed to be, IMO), and amps up some treble, which will always compliment bass heavy outputs.

This echoes my experience, too. Sometimes they sound great but the bass often muddies the mix. I feel like the equalization or whatever could use some fine tuning.

 

[samuelp13]

Thanks everyone for input on this. I recently bought a MBP M1 Pro 16" and am having the same problem, big loud pops regularly on my speaker. I've sort of just accepted I might need to put up with it, awful though considering the cost of entry here.

To support the audio interface comments, my issues seem to have cropped up after installing a RME firewire driver for my fireface 800. Can't really uninstall it as need the interface. In order to install it I had to open up startup security utility and change to reduced security.

Will update from 12.0.1 to 12.1 and see if that makes any change and update.

 

[Kafka]

I'm having the issue too on my 16" M1 Pro. It usually happens when I'm scrolling a heavy page in Firefox or use Mission Control, while watching a video.

 

[samuelp13]

Since changing to Brave from Firefox I haven't had any further issues on this.

 

[embotix]

Has anyone tried installing the new 12.2 Monterey RC release from today to see if it might help with this issue? I may give it a go over the weekend if I have some time.

Update: taking the plunge and in the process of installing 12.2 Release Candidate right now. Here's a link to the Public Beta program in case any other brave souls are similarly suffering from insomnia on a Saturday night.

 

[embotix]

Has anyone tried installing the new 12.2 Monterey RC release from today to see if it might help with this issue? I may give it a go over the weekend if I have some time.

Update: taking the plunge and in the process of installing 12.2 Release Candidate right now. Here's a link to the Public Beta program in case any other brave souls are similarly suffering from insomnia on a Saturday night.

FYI - 12.2 Release Candidate did not resolve the speaker popping/crackling issue for me. Am now going nuclear and reinstalling macOS from scratch.

UPDATE 1: Well, the nuclear option seems to have worked. I have nothing installed. Am using the Music app to test (which, fairly reliably reproduced the static/crackling/popping). Good news is that, it does seem that this issue was software-related (at least for me), therefore no need to lug this thing back to the Apple Store. Bad news - I need to begin re-installing all my apps. I'll try to see if any particular app causes this issue to re-appear.

UPDATE 2: The crackling eventually returned. Not sure if it was a specific app that I installed that contributed. But, I picked up on a tip from another thread that suggested using the "Audio Midi Setup" tool to change the output format to 48,000 Hz. This seems to have worked for me! Interestingly, others have found that setting this to 96,000 Hz worked for them. In my case, every single other option in dropdown caused the static/crackling. Only the 48,000 Hz option worked for me. Hopefully this will provide a long-term fix!

 

[jmaluso]

I have a 16" MacBook Pro M1 Pro and I have tried everything in this thread including installing 12.2 yesterday and the popping still occurring for me when using the built-in speakers. Bummer.

 

[skaro]

I've got the same issue but weirdly only experiencing it in Apple Music. Watched something for an hour on Amazon Prime, no issue - put Apple Music on and it pops/crackles every few minutes. Tried the MIDI change others have mentioned and no different. I'm on the 12.3 beta.

 

[ThisIsStapes]

So I noticed this issue a lot when I first got my M1 16" 32GB. Seemed to happen at least twice a week and just resetting the machine would get rid of it. Was a fresh install from factory. But after a month or so it seemed to disappear (I just didn't notice it at all so didn't take note of any OS version updates).
I have since fully set this machine up as my main development machine including adding iStat Menus which I use to track CPU usage and temps amongst other things.
I'm currently on MacOS 12.1 and often have Spotify playing through the speakers without issue. Yet today the popping was back and I noticed that 2 of cores were maxed out with the temperature steadily rising well above the usual average for the workload of the machine.
I then saw in here about changing the sample rate (listed as 'Format') in the Audio MIDI Setup. I then changed from the 44,100 Hz to 48,000 Hz and back again. This immediately got rid of the popping and the core usage dropped followed by the temperature.
In conclusion, I think that this is definitely a software issue over a hardware issue, I'm just not sure what kind of software is to blame here.

 

[pavvel]

It's this long term macOS/Logic Pro/Core audio glitching, popping, spiking rubbish that Apple refuse to acknowledge. It's very very frustrating. They act like they have never heard about it when you call support but there are reports of it literally everywhere. It's been running back years now. Terrible on Apples part considering these are marketing as pro audio machines.

 

[Sanpete]

It's this long term macOS/Logic Pro/Core audio glitching, popping, spiking rubbish that Apple refuse to acknowledge. It's very very frustrating. They act like they have never heard about it when you call support but there are reports of it literally everywhere. It's been running back years now. Terrible on Apples part considering these are marketing as pro audio machines.

More people calling and filing bug reports will help fix that. Be the squeaky wheel.

 

[dakeeper14]

Same here. Brand new MBP 16. Crackling on speakers and AirPods Pro. ******** for the money and what they claimed.. best audio on a laptop. Er no...

 

[dakeeper14]

Apple support just told me to try safe mode. Seems to have at least temporarily fixed it. Still not happy I spent $4.5k on something with known issues for at least enough people that the company should own up in advance you may have problems

 

[sionell]

I'm on a 16" M1 Max, playing Cities Skyline, which has some background music. It's crackled a few times at me tonight. Avg CPU temp is around 57 C, CPUs don't seem overly pegged per iStatMenus. Super annoyed at this type of issue. Otherwise so far the machine is flawless.