Macbook Pro 13-inch 2020 speakers crackling and distorting sound

My Macbook Pro 13-inch 2020 speakers keep randomly crackling and distorting sound when played from Spotify, Youtube etc.. Restarting fixes it but it's happened twice in less than a week of me owning it. Seems to be happening when I open it, once first thing in the morning and just now at night after using it periodically throughout the day. I don't understand.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jul 15, 2020 5:23 AM

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Posted on Aug 5, 2020 8:29 PM

I took my Pro into Apple as I tried everything they had suggested (updating etc.) and it was still doing it randomly. They said it wasn't a hardware issue (they ran an analysis and everything came back as working), they restarted the T2 chip in my Pro as apparently they have issues with the chip sometimes. I am waiting to see if it happens again, and if it does they said to erase the disk and reinstall MacOS (they emailed me step by steps on how to do this).

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Feb 15, 2021 5:12 AM in response to tdferreira84

This was suggested by the Apple Support agent.


Try deleting these files first, by running these commands in Terminal:

> sudo rm -rf /Library/Preferences/com.apple.soundpref.plist (Note: if this file is not present, continue to the next file below.)

> sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.soundpref.plist

> sudo rm -rf /Library/Preferences/Audio/com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist

> sudo rm -rf /Library/Preferences/Audio/com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist


If this doesn't solve the crackling sound issue, we should use Capture Data app (see below) to record the system state when the issue happens and then send it to Apple.


Please follow these instructions on how to do it:

1. Download this disk image.

2. Open the disk image, then open the application it contains. The application will automatically locate the requested files.

3. To send the files, contact Apple Support online service and ask for a link to send the files.


On top of that, it's also good that you make a small video that clearly shows the problem and also send it to the Apple Support service.

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Macbook Pro 13-inch 2020 speakers crackling and distorting sound

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