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Audio popping and crackling problems across the board with Mavericks

I have a mid-2012 Macbook air.


Is anyone else having popping and crackling issues with Audio after upgrading to Mavericks? (I have read through various discussions but haven't seen this particular issue) Note: popping and crackling is not present when playing audio with Quicktime.


Audio is popping and crackling. I'm a musician and DJ and this is terribly impacting my business . . . This includes when played on Youtube, in iTunes, on Djay, Serato DJ, flash, any audio.


It doesn't matter is I am playing audio through a USB mixer, through headphones, internal speakers, audio jack to speakers, DJ console. All of the above snap crackle and pop. I have tried the following:


1. Turing off wifi

2. Restarting

3. removing playlist files (.plst) from /Library/Preferences/Audio

4. shutting down all unused applications


I sure hope there's a new update coming out soon . . . any ideas?

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9), DJay, Serato, iTunes

Posted on Nov 5, 2013 10:55 AM

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Posted on Feb 18, 2017 8:30 AM

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.


Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.


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41 replies

Mar 31, 2014 2:33 PM in response to robbennion

I am having the same issue -- brand new MacBook Air. Sometimes it plays fine but more often the crackling and distortion begin and it continues to deteriorate no matter the volume level. Checked the headphones separately, no problem. Checked the audio files, they play fine from the phone. Playing the same audio files from the Air will sometimes degenerate with the crackling and distortion that sounds similar to when a pre-amp is overdriven.

Apr 6, 2014 1:30 AM in response to robbennion

The crackily audio issue seems to have something to do with the built-in QT player in Mavericks.


I am getting crackling audio when playing, for example, mp4 files with QuickTime Player 10.3 (727.3).


However, when playing back the same file with QuickTime Player 7 (Version 7.6.6 (1709)) the audio/video plays absolutely fine with no audio crackling.


Download here: http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL923/en_US/QuickTimePlayer7.6.6_SnowLeopard. dmg

Apr 13, 2014 11:03 AM in response to Questionable Sanity

I'm just reporting back that my previous report of success was premature. Bit rate and integer / floating point vlaue changes didn't make a difference in the end. I was faked out by the fact that changes sometimes seem to work briefly but not permanently. This is a serious bummer that so much music purchased from iTunes is rendered practically unplayable from the laptop. I've given up and only play back from my iPhone now. Perhaps there will be a fix in the next major OS release.

Apr 20, 2014 12:41 PM in response to robbennion

MAMADEO UPDATE: !! - AFTER WORKING FOR A WHILE (AN HOUR OR SO), I SHUT DOWN... AND NOW THE PROBLEM HAS RETURNED - AFTER ONE SHUT-DOWN OVERNIGHT, AND REBOOT THIS MORNING - SAME OLD STATIC - SO, NOT CLEAR YET IF THE SHUT-DOWN MADE THE PROBLEM RECUR, OR JUST SOME AMOUNT OF PASSED TIME... YOU GET THE IDEA...


NEXT STEP ON MY PART - 1) ANOTHER INTERNET RESTORE, TO SEE IF IT ONCE AGAIN FIXES THE ISSUE, AND 2) IF IT DOES, WILL LET MY MACHINE RUN, AND SEE IF IT RECURS ANYWAY -


WHY DOESN'T APPLE ADDRESS THIS ISSUE??!! $200 DOWN THE DRAIN, THANK YOU (NOT!)


P.S. ANOTHER CTL-OPT-P-R DID NOT HELP... NOTHING HAS... MOVING ON TO INT. RESTORE..AGAIN... 😟

Audio popping and crackling problems across the board with Mavericks

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