Itunes crackling, popping sounds...

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Level 1

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Itunes crackling, popping sounds...

Hi all,

I have been having annoying clacking/popping sounds in iTunes 8.02.20.

Please do not direct me to the link intitled "iTunes and QuickTime: Audio does not play or plays incorrectly" since I checked and tried everything there.

The problem affects only songs played in iTunes (not Media player or sounds in games or streaming online). Not all songs are affected but I am not going to systematically go through my library to figure out which ones are not working. Interestingly, I noticed this problem for songs downloaded from the iTunes store and more often then not its classical music.

Lenovo W500, Windows Vista

Posted on Mar 4, 2009 9:20 AM

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Answer 1

Lowpro71

Level 1

4 points

Mar 16, 2009 7:51 AM in response to Myrkorr

I installed iTunes for the first time this weekend on my XP Pro machine and was having the same problem. After much trial and error I discovered what was causing the crackling/popping sounds with all my songs in iTunes and in my case Quicktime also. Quicktime's default audio size was set to 8-bit and the rate to 32kHz. Both were the lowest settings available. I changed the audio size to 24-bit and the rate to 192kHz, then applied my settings and closed out of Quicktime. This completely resolved my issue. No more crackling/popping sounds in iTunes or Quicktime.

The Quicktime settings in question can be accessed via the file menu in Quicktime per the below...
Edit->Preferences->Quicktime Preferences->Audio->Sound Out->

Good luck! I hope this simple change in Quicktime settings resolves the issue for you as it has for me. In my case I was installing these applications for the first time and was only doing so in order to use iTunes as I'll be purchasing my first iPod in the next month or so. As such, I didn't think to check the settings in Quicktime right away as I was initially troubleshooting this problem.

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Answer 2

Lowpro71

Level 1

4 points

Mar 16, 2009 12:38 PM in response to Lowpro71

Well apparently my so-called fix was nothing more than a fluke. This afternoon the crackling and popping started again with iTunes 8 and Quicktime! Still not a crack or pop to be heard using the latest version of Windows Media Player, Rhapsody, or SoftSqueeze (java based player used in conjunction with SqueezeCenter). This is starting to get on my nerves. After taking all the time to import my music collection to iTunes it would be nice to use iTunes for more than just syncing said music to my yet to be purchased iPod. I guess so long as I don't have this crackling/popping issue with my iPod I can deal with it. From everything I've read online so far per this particular audio problem it does not carry over to iPod playback as well thank goodness.

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Answer 3

Myrkorr Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 16, 2009 12:59 PM in response to Lowpro71

I have been ignoring this problem lately and it seems to have gone away with the latest update of iTunes (8.1.something).

Although I was getting so use to it that sometimes I am hallucinating it but I am pretty sure it is really gone.

Seeing that my laptop is lenovo w500, i have been following this issue on their side also. Someone suggested a solution that i have not seen else where. I have not implemented it since I dont need to for the moment. It had to do with intel matrix storage driver. Of course you probably have a different machine but it might point you in the right direction...

I include the link to that forum for you:
http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=W_ThinkPads&message.id=3041# M3041

Good luck!

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