MacBook Pro 2018 Crackling Speakers

I had a Sr. Apple Care Advisor log my case about this issue as a complaint.

I also called Corporate Relations regarding the issue and was given advice on how to escalate the case up the chain to the corporate level...

Anyone experiencing this issue might consider trying the following:

Call the Corporate Office

https://www.apple.com/contact/

(Scroll down to where it says Corporate Address and call the phone number listed.)

• Hold for the operator and ask for Corporate Relations.

• If for any reason that doesn't work you can ask them transfer you to a Sr. Apple Care Advisor. Once they connect you with one, you can either ask to speak to the Sr. Advisor's supervisor, (Corporate Relations), or...

• Add some more information to your case first, (recommended). After they document your issue further you can ask to log a complaint referencing your case. Ask for a case number if they don't offer one. (I also find it's useful to have them verify that the calls are monitored.)

• Once you've filed your complaint ask for Corporate Relations, (or their supervisor). Reference the case number given, explain the issue to them.

• Ask if you can FAX or mail a letter to an Executive. (Be sure to get the FAX number and mailing address, and reach out via both, and be sure to send your letter certified or signature required. (Corporate Relations tend to be more sympathetic to the issue... Go easy on them, it'll benefit you.)

• I was also advised: 'Use FedEX if you want to insure a letter gets there'. (Apparently this is how Apple sends and receives mail in Cupertino.) And, I was advised to be direct by bullet pointing the letter, and keeping the tone level-headed and fact-based.

*** I'd recommend having a previously well documented case about the issue before attempting to contact them.

If you want Corporate Relations to take your complaint seriously you'll want a record of documentation they can refer to. ***

*** Be sure to ask anyone documenting your case to have you upload files displaying the issue clearly. (The more info you can add to your case the better... iPhone video, screen captures/screenshots of software errors generated when the issue begins, (Logic does this on my machine), Console reports, crash reports or logs indicating any info related to the issue, etc...) ***

*** Keep a cool head when filing a case, grievance, or documenting the issue.

You catch more flies with honey as the saying goes... ***

Considering the initial poster says their previous post about this issue was removed I have archived this thread on the Wayback Machine. ;)

Archived Thread:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181223210258/https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8515136?answerId=250048213022

If you feel it's necessary to archive similar/related threads go to the link below and paste the link to the discussion into the box where it says "Save Page Now":

https://archive.org/web/

1. Wait for The Wayback Machine to refresh the page and copy the link to a text file.
2. Screenshot the discussion thread as well and keep a folder or archive of both.
3. You might also consider printing the entire thread to both physical copy and PDF... (with links)
4. Uploading PDFs or text files of the relevant threads as part of your complaint documentation.

They can't keep deleting pages about the issue forever, doing so is a liability for Apple.

I'd actually be surprised if Corporate policies don't actually forbid moderators from deleting threads, since technically that puts themselves, and Apple in an awkward legal position... I'm going to guess it was an overzealous moderator who took something personally... (Not saying that's what happened, just trying to be practical...)

Anyway ~ Carry on!

I have the same issue with my MBP Pro 2018 (i9, 32GB RAM, 512SSD). I can listen to music or watch videos for (mostly 40-60min) when the error starts to occur. At the beginning i solved this by restarting the computer. After the error showed up nearly every day, i started to search another workaround.

I plugged the Headphones in and out and the error was gone. Belive this should be an software-issue.

As i searched the internet for this issue i saw many people with this issue and many many many videos on youtube. Apple really needs to accept and fix this issue!

There's a new update to MacOS High Serria out today. Please install that and report back. My MacBook Pro 2018 is performing perfectly with no sound issues whatsoever (even under heavy load using Blender).

Still having this problem with the newest MacOS Mojave Update, when i.e. using the Xcode iPhone Simulator. Is this a software or a hardware problem? Still not sure if to contact Apple Support on this. Really annoying.

I have also spoken to Apple U.S. via "Chat" support.

I have also spoken with Apple Support via call in India.

The former has acknowledged that there is an issue and provided me with a temporary fix but the latter has absolutely no idea about the issue to which my response was "You'll should be aware of it"

Anyhow I was eagerly planning to purchase a MacBook Pro 2018 13" 512GB S.S.D. but now I have decided not to do so and have even cancelled my prebooked order for it !

The representative for Apple U.S. via chat indicated to me that the engineering team is working day and night but frankly it's too slow ! And I feel Apple should publicly acknowledge the issue !

They should also "FIX AND OVERHAUL" their Quality Control program !

TO THE OTHERS IN THE FORUM !

Earlier in the year multiple users of iPhone X experienced iPhone X Crackling or Distortion which I also had experienced and I reported it in Dec 2017 and the process of getting a replacement was repeatedly denied as they said my iPhone X passed diagnostics ! I then sent e-mails to Tim/Craig/Apple Executive Relations as well as the head of Apple India Operations since I purchased it there. And finally in March I obtained a replacement !

It was a painful process that NO APPLE USER SHOULD ENDURE!

This is a very long message but I felt necessary that everyone knows how Apple Q/C program and the quality of their devices have fallen !

I hope Apple gets their act together to fix this ! Steve Jobs would be very upset about all the issues !

I have same issue. I left my 3weeks old new mackbook pro at the apple store for repair yesterday but today they said that they couldn't find any issue so asked me to just pick my computer up.

What??? ha... this is absurd. I pay $4k for this laptop and has seriously annoying problem but because "they couldn't figure it out", I have to live with it??

Hi there. I just bought 4 days ago, my MacBook Pro 2018 Touch Bar 15 inch, i7, 8th gen. First time with Apple.

I am in UK.

Learning my way with the system and all related, I haven't yet installed any software.

I Have a crackling sound as well in the speakers. I recorded it for evidence.

I have to mention that I followed the standard setup, and even done all the updates available in my AppStore.

First time, yesterday (3 day having the laptop) just playing around finding my way in Garage Band, started the crackling sound. I thought, what a ... might be something I did with the sound while messing around with the instruments in the track. Ok; left it and closed down not paying to much attention, as after that I went on music and Youtube to see if really is a speakers issue or not. For the moment not hearing an issue noise anymore, carried on with my learning around.

Next day (today), I played some music from my external hard drive via iTunes and I am not sure how long after the first song, must have been at least 1 hour for sure, I had the crackling sounds, regular at every about 10 seconds or so, had recorded them on my phone.

Turned off the music, had a lunch break while I was thinking of what I will intend to do next: went o the forums, and for my surprise to find out many, many other users and many forums that complain with the same issue. A small relief, that is not my machine only.

I truly believe that is a software issue, or some incompatibility of settings between the components. Just my first opinion.

While I was looking on the net for this, I played some more songs, with no further issues. Indeed was not over 1 hour though, ....will keep on testing next day.

I will write or contact on phone Apple support as well.

I will try to look into how to change the audio sampling from 44 to 48Khz as others were suggesting (how do you do that??)

Further more, I will NOT update to Mojave until more of the users with the same issue, will confirm 100% that this solved their issue definitely.

I will not give it back for exchange because that will not solve the issue, (I have experience from previous situation with some other big brand product) that you are giving back something, and get a second one with the same or an extra issue. ...more, I have learned that even the big brands, they are not giving you for exchange on warranty a brand new machine, but a revised, refurbished one that was returned, they "fixed it", cleaned, repacked and here you go..

...no thanks. Not having any other issue, I will wait a bit patiently for Apple's solution....and if others will confirm that Mojave solved their speakers crackling issue, than I'll go for the Mojave.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Hi jordanp7.

I see less people answering here in the last 2 months, and if they found a cure for the cracks is a bit selfish not to come back and share the solution.

Some suggest the Mojave upgrade, but I couldn't see older users with the same issue to come back and confirm the Mojave as a cure.

Some others said Mojave didn't fix it. (seen more on this side "Mojave didn't fix it" than on the "Mojave fixed" side).

So no luck, just hope.

Myself I managed to find somehow where to change the sampling for the speakers from 44000 to 48000 but din't really had full time available to test it properly. For me it took over 1 hour of music to start the cracking sound.

Please, boys and girls who had this issue and reported to apple or here on the forum, please let us know if you found a fix and what was it?

Thank you all.

My 2018 MacBook Pro (purchased in August) and running on Mojave 10.14.1 just started with the crackling speakers issue yesterday. I did a restart and things were fine until this morning. Awful crackling. Now I see others are experiencing the same problem. Following this thread. I hope Apple will figure out how to resolve this problem.

I bought this computer yesterday and I am seeing the same issue, it has HighSierra by default and I agree that if there is no confirmation that Mojave fixes it, it doesn't really makes sense to update.

Do Apple really monitors this forums? It is really embarrassing to see this annoying and frustrating noise on a new computer considering all the impact that goes after the name Apple in terms of audio and design

Hi, my MacBook Pro 15 inch Touch Bar 2018 bought on last October suffers from the same issue. I reported it to Apple custom assistance and they just suggested updating to Mojave. I said no sirs, you sold me a machine with High Sierra installed , Mojave having been released prior to its assembly notwithstanding, I already had lot of trouble recovering my data and they way they were organized and appeared and I refuse to carry any risk by upgrading. The machine was born with High Sierra and with High Sierra it has to work. They just didn't give me any further support. I have several others problems and at Apple just made me waste time on the phone and sending data without any results. I've been on Mac over 30 years. I think it's presently not worth half the money it costs and will explore any chances to shift to different brand if painless for data recovery.

Same here. Mine started crackling immediately after I installed Security Updates 2018-002 and 2018-003. The machine restarted, and within 15 minutes the crackling began. I used the machine for 3 month prior, no distortion whatsoever so I can say, (at least for me), these updates broke something in the OS... I also get distortion in headphones. In my case it's system-wide.

Logic has been regularly spitting out errors saying an external source is trying to set weird sample rates but I don't use an external device. The more streams of audio the more unrecognizable audio becomes. Not only does it sound like jitter, the Logic issue makes it pretty obvious that it is jitter, and it's happening at the system level. (At least on my machine...)

Bought this machine strictly for audio work, it's been nothing but headaches. First mac in 12 years I actually regret buying... (First time I've posted here in 12 years of owning a mac... I truly hate this thing. First mac I've regretted, and at this rate it may very well be my last one...)

I thought this had been solved with Mojave but I just heard it again today. I don't do any audio work so in my case the audio crackle/cutout happens with streaming video while working in other apps like Adobe Illustrator. I did not expect to have this problem on any MacBook. In my case it's a 2018 MacBook Pro I9, 32GB ram, 1 TB SSD, running Mojave, on a Radeon Pro 560x which was the best GPU option when I purchased it. I noticed the problem when I first started using it and thought it had been fixed with the Mojave update but it continues to happen and just did again today. Love Apple products but like everyone else purchasing Apple premium computer products I do not expect this kind of issue to go on unaddressed.

Please apple.. please fix this issue. I'm tired every (less) 1 hour listen to music than my macbook pro 2018 13" got speaker crackling sound.. This issue i got less than a week after i buy my laptop. i already go to a service center, but they said my software is fine.. but i don't believe it. i believe there's something wrong with my macbook.. I'm very sad because this is my first macbook that my mom bought for me because i need macbook for designing . This laptop is so expensive. When my mom knew that my new macbook got some problem, she look sad.. :( We collect money to buy this :'( . please help..

You could try mojave beta.