MacBook Pro M1 pro 16inch

It's hard cause I work but yeah I have an appt after work next week. I'll get back to you guys thanks.

No software update has fixed this for me, or changed this, no factory reset, nothing. This machine is 100% immaculate.

own a Macbook Pro 16" (Intel) from 2020 and also have cracking noises on the speakers since day one. After a lot of research on the web my summary of all this is that for my machine there is currently nothing i can do to fix it. It looks like to be a problem with core audio. There are many people complaining about this.

I use my mac for music production and thought i could sell my intel and go with an M1 in the hope they fixed the problem.

But obviously it`s still an issue.

loved my macbooks (had different ones over years) but i am now at a point where i will switch to PC next time, i guarantee!

How can a Macbook pro be "pro" if it can`t handle easiest tasks like playing music without popping noises from the speakers???

I literally had the same problem on the very first day of using my new 16inch MacBook Pro (M1 Pro) shipped in January 2022.

I neither noticed any specific software causing the issue nor any moment time when the problem was not present.

For me it is a distorted sound within the lower frequency range. I could easily tell that it comes from the bottom right corner of the MacBook, exactly the place where the new small subwoofer is located. Any louder, bass-heavy music resulted in a distorted sound on the right speaker set. The speaker-array on the left side works perfectly fine, though. As even the Mac's start-up chime was affected I do not regard it as a software-related problem. I have to note that all speakers sounded fine to me on the very first test when I initially used the MacBook, so it actually took a couple of hours to trigger the problem.

(Temporary) Solution for me: Since it did not appear to be a software-related issue, I experimented a bit and realized that when I press the chassis of the MacBook on the lower right corner, the distortion was reduced. So it might be a loose part or some dirt or small crumbs trapped next to or on the woofer. Likewise I noticed that the distortion was less of an issue or completely disappearing when I tilted the MacBook on its side, i.e. left side pointing to the floor. After some further tests and gentle shaking of the chassis while being tilted the distortion seems to be completely gone - at least for now.

Since I currently don't have access to appropriate tools to open the case, I cannot do any further inspection. In case the problem returns, I will certainly do that, since I guess it was only a piece of dirt trapped next to or on the woofer. The woofer is closely located to the larger vents on the MacBook's sides, so I might have just been unlucky enough to let dirt enter the MacBook within a few hours of usage.

Maybe that helps also in other cases, but I can only highlight to be gentle when shaking or applying pressure on this expensive piece of technology ;)

This worked for me, no scratching or crackling anymore.

The command was: sudo killall coreaudiod

I was runnung the command, while the crackling was very annoying and after i typed the command it was gone.

Actually, I just encountered popping during a simple 20-person google meet, using only safari and no active 3rd party software.

Please get back to us about what they do at the apple store and if they can fix it.

Its happening to me on on my left hand bottom side, my computer is less than 2 months old.