There is a cracking/popping sound when I play music/video using the mbp speakers, and jump to next song/video

I’m on Big Sur and haven’t heard it yet. Maybe this is the “update” they were talking about.

This appears to be a widespread issue. There are 30+ other people who have the same issue here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/any-one-notices-the-cracking-popping-sound-of-new-16-inch-mbp.2211902/page-3

Considering that people have only just started receiving this laptop, we'll probably see more people with similar complaints in the coming days.

I got my 16 inch MBP last Friday and I noticed popping sound when skipping video or closing tabs. Also, see the thread of Macrumors. From the vote we can see this issue is widespread.

I believe it's a software issue since if I play some music in background and keep it muted, then the popping sound disappears no matter what I do. So there may be some issues with the audio driver or related codecs, I'm not an expert of this. I hope Apple could investigate this and give an official explanation.

Also getting this under the same circumstances. It is definitely related to the power/signal being cut from the speakers. I'd bet it's a hardware issue that could potentially be rectified by software (OS/Driver) issues, but that's just speculation. Taking mine in to the Genius Bar tomorrow for them to take a gander.

Let's get an official response here Apple, that's all I want. I don't want to return the computer, I'm otherwise quite happy with it. But some communication would be great.

Not sure if this helps, but every time there's a pop when you skip in YouTube, this error appears (tens of times) in the Console:

default 17:35:04.917068+1100 com.apple.WebKit.WebContent SourceBufferPrivateAVFObjC::enqueueSample(89250002) prerollDecodeWithCompletionHandler failed

I don't see this error on my 2010 MBP (macOS 10.13.16) when skipping around in YouTube (with no pops of course).

There is a "stupid" workaround: just put an empty mp3 files in background, I mean a long mp3 file of "silence".

If you are lazy like me, this could be automated with crontab that run "afplay" shell command every hour (my mp3 is 1h long), or with automator that run same command.

Losing 1% of cpu, but problem is solved.

Hope that Apple fix this issue with a more elegant solution.

Bye from Italy.

This may be part of the problem or it might not be. I was able to reproduce your error in both Safari and Chrome. But both of these browsers are webkit browsers. When I switch to Firefox (which is not a webkit browser), I still hear the clicking noise but I do not see the error in the log

I have the new MacBook Pro 16 inch and I have the same problem I took it to Apple and the told me that the can't do anything so I'm going to give it back

cracking/popping sound when I play music/video

its bad and all the 16inch coming with this problem !!!!

I had the same issue, it was very obvious when playing video on Chrome and Final Cut Pro.

I received a replacement MacBook 16 Inch in store after a thorough inspection and I still had the same issue in the new MacBook 16 Inch. I got support through Apple Chat and they got me on a call with a senior technical advisor who promptly asked me to submit files through a link so it goes through to the engineering team. I submitted several screen recordings of this popping noise on multiple programs, some more apparent than others. I also mentioned the YouTube videos/threads and the advisor did reassure that they will be looking into this issue and get back to me within 4 days. He said that over time they will be either be developing a software update or creating a new replacement model depending on the findings by the engineering team.

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Same here! Here's a video: https://imgur.com/DOY8m9a

Having certain apps running, such as DaVinci Resolve, makes the problem temporarily disappear. Easily reproducible.

16 inch MBP, 32GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 2.3 GHz i9, 8GB GPU.

Seems to me this can be fixed in software.

I feel like all of us that have been having the same problem should contact apple support and give some light to this problem (I just contacted them today and the senior technical advisor said he wasn't aware of this issue at all)

I can confirm i too am getting this issue on my 16 inch MBP, 32GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 2.3 GHz i9, 5500M 8GB GPU.

I am concerned i am slowly damaging the speakers from hearing this popping sound, especially on higher volume.

I have the same issue - i9 2.4, 64gb ram, 2tb, 5500m 8gb. I have only heard it in Youtube. Seems to be 50/50 every time I skip to a different point in the video. Got the machine a couple of days ago. Hopefully it gets sorted in the "easy return" window, otherwise she is going back. Real shame, as it's a really awesome machine otherwise. Apple please fix this, otherwise you'll have a ton of returns!!

I have the same issue. I send already a bug-report to Apple.

Interesting is that the issue doesn't appear when I playback a video in QuickTime or VLC-player.

With the same video I get those plopping sounds when I use Final Cut Pro.

Same here.

Got my 16" 2,4GHz, 32GB Memory, 5500 8GB, 1TB SSD, 2 days ago. Popping sound while jumping around in a YouTube video.

I hope Apple will fix this very soon! This device is too expensive to accept such an issue.