I can tell you for sure I'm experiencing this issue daily. I've also been testing the issue aggressively. It happens system-wide, (on my machine at least)... Logic, Live, iTunes, Chrome, Finder...
And I'm finding the issue happens in headphones, not just the speakers. It seems to happen after sound has been playing for an extended period of time, no matter what app... (Just watching a movie in Hulu can kick it off.)
Next time you go out for the evening try this:
- Leave iTunes playing while your gone. See if you have distortion when you come back.
(Leave it playing when you'll be out for at least a few hours...)
Happened for me...
And, the last time I tested this I left iTunes running while I was answering emails and doing housekeeping on my machine... iTunes started distorting after about an hour, and the distortion was identical to distortion I get in Logic. It's a system-wide issue period... I suspect people who only encounter it "occasionally" are just people who aren't working with sound running for long periods of time...
Since I work in Logic and Live I'm working with sound daily for hours in a row, and I encounter the issue every single day... The most obnoxious part of the issue is that Console doesn't report it unless you use Logic, (Live as well). iTunes, Finder and Chrome don't print an error to Console. Logic does however...
The most infuriating part is that I documented this heavily and went back and forth with engineering for a couple weeks. They blew me off because I'm not on Mojave. However...
- Users told that upgrading to Mojave are reporting this does not fix the issue.
- This does not explain why people who bought new machines with Mojave pre-installed have the exact same issue.
My advice would be to call in to Apple, get a Sr. Advisor ask to log a complaint referencing your case. Once it's logged as a complaint they may be able to give you some more options you can do to get the issue looked into...