My MacBook Pro 2018 version speakers are crackling.

If they say they are unaware of the issue the are flat out lying. The amount of people in this thread alone who say they have reached out to them about it is proof of that. I mean have been articles on news sites about it getting around for a few days now.

I have the crackling sound on my MBP 13" 2018 Touchbar i7.

I believe it's a audio clock sync problem, it sounds like that (more like a glitch interrupted sound with a bit of digital distortion and and time/pitch shifting, rather than a "crackling", at least on mine).

If i open/Applications/Utilities/Audio Midi Setup and change the input or output sample rate to 48 khz and then back to 44 khz (or viceversa, depending which one you currently use) it will get back to normal.

I will do more tests, but this seems to solve it for now. Obviously it's always a good idea to check with Apple directly, but to me it looks like a software problem. This is also different from the popping sound that some users are reporting.

EDIT: This does not seem to happen with my external sound card, but more testing is needed.

The way you describe it as a pitch shift is mainly what mine does, including an occasional abrupt increase and decrease of volume. It isn't super common on my computer but it happened before. As for the videos stopping themselves from playing and then playing with no audio, no idea what that could be for me...

I noticed this on my 15" 2018 MacBook Pro also. For me I've noticed it on music I've played through iTunes. It happens with any volume setting and any song. I don't think it's an issue of the range of the speakers. The crackling/popping happens around 50 seconds to a minute into a song and persists.

I don't see a way to edit my post to add this information so I have to reply to myself. I just want to say I've also noticed this occasionally when the MBP plays alert sounds. So it's not just music but sound in general.

Yes, that's what I observed on my MacBook Pro too. On my MacBook Pro, it can also happen when I trigger system alert sound to be played (from System Preferences - Sound) and/or sound effect from notifications (i.e. Mail).

You may want to have a look at csross1's post. There's a potential workaround through Audio MIDI Setup. For some reason, my MacBook already had the same sampling format so I was unable to follow the suggestion exactly, but my MacBook Pro has been crackling noise free for two hours after setting sampling format to 48,000 Hz for MacBook Pro Speakers (also see my previous post).

I have just noticed that if I place my iPhone next to the speakers, the Mac starts crackling. Then I change the sample rate to 48k it returns to normal and now I am not able to reproduce it. I am back to 44k now and it is not crackling.

Weird, but this does not seem good at all.

You know the sad thing is they are actually saying they havent heard about this issue. The told me that it was my time machine back up which was the issue. but you know They gave me a new laptop on wednesday and on thursday it started crackling again so i decide to back up my back , wipe it to factory settings and then try and see if i could hear anything and sadly i haven't heard anything yet which makes me wonder what the **** i am going to say to the Apple tech when i see him.

Hi

I too am experiencing the crackling sound problem on my 2018 MB Pro as well, though I have noticed what makes it happen on my machine. When I'm using Blender and the machine is being pushed hard, it seems to mess up the sound which results in the crackling sound that everyone is reporting. As soon as I shut down Blender, the sound returns to normal with no problems, so it looks like it's a software problem which I hope there's a bug fix coming soon, or maybe we have to wait for next month when Mojave is released which will hopefully fix the problem as many have reported while using the beta version.

Fingers crossed! 😉

I have now had 2 brand new 2018 MacBook pros 13 inch 2.7gig, 16 ram 2018 models with the same crackling issue. I have only one program on the Mac which is Traktor and some music, thats it. The machine is not being pushed. With the first one it was intermittent and with the headphones in I would get a sort of crackling sound. With this second one the sound problems are more consistent and it echos as well as crunches. I am so annoyed at Apple, this is a Trillion dollar company, and this is a £3000 machine. This machine should be flawless at this price. The first time I called them they tried to deny this was a known problem, that was 4 days ago. The guy must have been lying, there are article all over the web about it and pages of forums talking about it (check Mac Rumors). There are a whole bunch of other issues, like my drag and drop function suddenly not working. Yesterday my Mac crashed when I was DJing. It didn't seem to be to handle my hard drive being plugged in. My 2013 Mac worked so much better. I feel that greed has consumed this company and it's fast losing my trust.

"MacBook Pro has beautifully balanced, high‑fidelity sound that takes listening to new levels with wide dynamic range and more bass for maximum boom. And the speakers are connected directly to system power, enabling greater peak amplification. So you can mix a track on the fly, edit video on location, or enjoy a movie on the go."

Didn't know cracking sounds were part of the deal.....

Following up on my own post.

I set sampling format for MacBook Pro Microphones and Speakers to 48,000 Hz and I have been able to play music with iTunes without any crackling noise for at least an hour (so far). I'm not sure if both sampling format really need to be set to the same, as mine was originally set to 44,1000 Hz and produced the crackling noise after an hour of playback.

Since setting the sampling format of the MacBook Pro Speakers, the crackling noise appears to be gone. You may want to experiment with the sampling format in Audio MIDI Setup like csross1 suggested if your setup/workflow allows it.

I'm also get the crackling sound using YouTube and the repeating effects. Also on Facebook and my Ableton Live. I called Apple Support and they had me reset my SMC settings which helped for 20 minutes and now I back to crackling. I just replaced my previous 2018 15" Macbook Pro because it was having flickering screen and slow track pad issues. Now crackling sound. Not good luck for me. Might have to return it again. Hoping it's just a software update issue. Really disappointed with the new Macbook Pro bugs/issues.

OKAY so i just got back form the apple store where i had an appointment with the Apple Genius bar technician. Now i have had this issue for awhile , got a replacement laptop and basically because its a problem that only happens every now and then i will let you all now that when i went in i couldn't prove the sound BUT the technician said to be that were many forums and people saying that they were having this issue BUT because apple havent released a statement about it yet nothing can be done. They are still trying to tell me that it could be my time machine back up and they told me that i must try an restart my laptop as a new one and i said thats absolute rubbish that i pay this amount to loose my data and start from scratch. ANYWAYS his opinion one what i should do is "wait it out"

bro i can relate to this so much! I am now on my second 2018 MacBook pro and im still having issues and i have been told that its my Time Machine backup. I have over 15K songs and all my production on my laptop and they are trying to tell me that the solution for now is to either , "wait it out until apple acknowledge it" OR restart my laptop from scratch without a time machine backup and see what/if the crackling occurs.