Same issue here, 'Scratching Noice' coming from my brand new MBP 16 inch which I just opened and setup today.
*To clarify, this is not the popping noise from the speakers. I experienced the speaker 'popping' on youtube videos right when the computer started up the first time (I knew about it from the news and wanted to hear it for myself). However the popping noise in my case seems to have been completely resolved after installing the latest Catalina OS update 10.15.2.
This other 'Scratching' noise that you speak of, I agree it sounds exactly like an old non-SSD hard drive making read/write actions. It doesn't sound anything like 'fan noise'. Someone on another thread described it as this: "Sounds 'electronic' and quickly varies in pitch, kind of like higher pitch Morse code when you put your ear near the keyboard."
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250902536
The noise in the YouTube video posted by another user on this thread sounds exactly like what I'm experiencing. I upgraded my MacBook pro to the 2TB SSD drive, so I wonder if it's this particular drive that has the noise issue. I have a 500GB SSD in my older 2012 MBP and NO NOISE even when reading/writing a lot of data. I also have a 1TB Samsung T5 SSD which I'm using to copy files to my new MPB 16 inch 2TB SSD; while copying, the Samsung makes NO NOISE, whereas the MBP is scratching away.
I am curious...
- Is this an issue that occurs in the first couple days of using the MBP while "filling up" the MBP 2TB SSD from data migration?
- Is it specific to the latest 2TB SSD that apple is using in its 2019 16in Macbook Pros?
- And has anyone noticed whether the scratching noise problem went away over time?