Audio Stuttering/Skipping

I have the same problem. It seems random even in the same song played over again in iTunes. Also has been happening in playing movie trailers. The audio will just start breaking up and distort. Sometimes dropping out entirely but just for a few seconds. I reinstalled the X.5.2 upgrade but the problem still persists. Using Harman Kardon Sound Sticks with my 17 Core 2 Duo MacBookPro.
I don't ever remember audio problems in any other Mac OS or any other of my many Apple computers.

Well the problem was solved by going back to my OS X.5 disk and reinstalling. It seems that X.5.2 definitely has some advantages but also has some glitches. One major glitch is in how the OS processes audio. I have not had any dropouts or break ups of any audio played since I downgraded back to X.5.0. In addition, my internet connection is much faster. I do not have stalls when streaming videos. So I will stay at 5.0 this time until 5.3 is released.

I am having the same thing. Random and cannot be duplicated. Happens both with movies (from a DVD) and randomly in itunes as well. Getting pretty angry. This computer is only 3 weeks old. It is obviously a software bug since it is random and can't be duplicated. VERY frustrating. I would honestly prefer less whiz bang things I don't use (like "Spaces" and "Stacks" - I mean WHO CARES??), and more stability in things I really need...like watching movies and playing music. Lord, a crappy $500 Dell will do those things without issues. I certainly hope Apple gets on this problem. There are tons of people all of=ver the internet having this issue.

Chris this is very frustrating for me too and I have been using macs since 1985. This is the very first time I have ever experienced any kind of audio glitch like this. I have been under the hood trying to diagnose this problem and have tried several cures. The only sure way to solve this issue is to go back to a previous version of the OS. I used my original Leopard disc to reinstall OS 10.5 (actually 10.5.1) and the audio anomalies are gone. I am using Time Machine for backup so it was easy to migrate all my 3rd party apps and all my documents back to my laptop from my external drive. When you reinstall from the original system or computer disk, as soon as your computer boots up, it will ask if you are migrating information from an external source. This is a little time consuming but gets you right back to where you were and with an operating system that is absolutely stable and trouble free as OS 10.5.1. I assure you that once you get past this small glitch, you will be glad you own a mac instead of a $500 Dell.

*What a joke.* I cannot believe Apple has not fixed this yet. Doug, I am about to downgrade also..(downgrading an operating system?!) just so I can enjoy music.

So frustrating.

I am also having problems with iTunes pausing, but I am running Tiger. It does not pause on every song, but when it does, it normally happens several times on the song. I do not believe it has anything to do with the operating system.

It, unfortunately, has (in my tests) everything to do with the OS. I was running Leopard, then downgraded to 10.4.6 (bummer) and it stopped. I then upgraded to 10.4.11 and the skipping started again. This was all with basic installations nothing but a few mp3s installed. The skipping has stopped, but has come at the price of running what feels like an outdated system. Thanks Apple.

I have exactly the same issue. My MacBook Pro with 10.4.11 has an audio stutter that makes it all but useless as far as watching videos, etc. It does not seem to be processor load related as I have minimal running under activity monitor. I have then shut done most everything via activity monitor and still have the stutter. It must be related to OS 10.4.11. I have Leopard installed on an external drive and when I boot from this disc - no stutter. Please provide us with fix, Apple.

If it just started happening, do this...

kextstat | grep -i airport
if you come back with atheros... than check this out...

http://dot.cult.bg/esem/index.php?p=131#comment39

I am not running wireless. Also, my Mac has the old PowerPC chips. I do not know if that matters. I deleted my iTunes library and rebuilt it from scratch. That worked for about a week. The stutter has now returned.

I've been have a very similar or possibly the same problem. At random times, whether playing audio or not, I will start hearing a popping noise. If I'm playing audio, it cuts in and out. If I'm not, I just hear the light popping. My speaker icon will fluctuate from whatever level to (apparently) full. If I click the speaker icon to get the volume control, it goes from enabled at whatever level to full and grayed out. If I go to System Preferences>Sound>Output while this is happening, the output will jump from Internal Speakers to various other output options in a seemingly random order.
This only started happening after one of two events but not immediately afterwards: 1) The release of 10.5.3 2) Upgraded hard drive.
I can't say exactly when it started, but it was definitely a short time after those two events which occurred within a week of each another.
Further, this doesn't happen every day. It seems to happen a couple of times a week at random times. It will last for anywhere from a few seconds to as much as a minute and then cease.
For sake of showing that I haven't lost my marbles, I even made a video of this strange happening and have posted it here:
http://www.g2web.com/mac/Mac-Audio-Weirdness.m4v
What's odd is that the audio from iTunes all recorded perfectly to video while all this was happening even though what came out of the speakers cut in and out.
Any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! 🙂

You'll all probably appreciate this. Not sure how many of you are using SoundSticks, but I am and am anxious to see if this is the problem. I'll check back after I upgrade.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1446353

I'm seeing the same thing after upgrading (ha!) to 10.5 from a completely stable 10.4.11. What was I thinking?
Now any music streamed (for instance demoing from eMusic) stutters.

Worse--I do a fair amount of moving music from old LPs and tapes to digital, using Bias Peak. However, now, if I try to apply an Audio Unit plugin to the music to clean it up, this produces the stuttering, AND the stuttering is embedded thereafter in the track. It's actually creating dead spaces throughout the music. So now I can't so much as clean any old analog music, which pretty much makes the OS useless to me. I regret having not archived my 10.4 setup, but have cloned the current 10.5.4 and now, it seems, must begin the laborious task of re-installing 10.4 and moving back the data files. I wonder if Apple will give me a refund for the family pack of Leopard that's now utterly useless.

Message was edited by: Gregory Frost

I have the exact same problem on my 15" MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.4. The sound stutters and skips every now and then in every running application. I also noticed that whenever this happens, the process spindump is running and taking 20% CPU. After the skipping stops, spindump is no longer running. I have yet to try killing spindump to fix the sound, but I think that it is the cause of the problem.