Crackling sound on MacBook Pro 2018

Theres a Youtubevideo where the guy explains how to fix this problem, with quitting the coreaudioprocess.

• Go to Spotlight
• search for the activity Monitor and open it
• filter to "coreaudiod"
• double-click the process and quit it

The audio should run normal.

Here is also the link to the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dedxf5dOzkY

This helped me instantly, but its not a real solution. Apple should fix it with an update!

As I posted yesterday with regard to the irritating intermittent buzzing, crackling sound, I followed the advice of one responder and used the Audio MIDI Setup app to change the format for the MacBook Pro speakers from 44,100 Hz to 48,000Hz and have been listening to music all day now with no buzzing or crackling. That seems to resolve the problem. Maybe that info should be passed along to the support folks. It's really a simple fix.

I'll respond again with the recommendation I followed and that has 'cured' that buzzing, crackling sound completely on my new MacBook with theHigh Sierra MOS. Go to theUtilities folder in Application and open the Audio MIDI setup app. In that app, change the Format from 44,100 Hz to 48,000 Hz. Close out that app and restart. I listen uninterrupted for hours to streaming radio now.

Good luck!!

I have a 13" MacBook Pro 2018, running High Sierra, and this issue is very painful. It's annoying to pay so much for a new laptop, and not be able to perform a simple task such as play music on it.

The issue can be fixed (temporarily), by killing the coreaudiod process through the ActivityManager. I found that once this process is killed, the crackling will then disappear for a few hours or so, until it returns.

The above fix is not ideal, but it's better than rebooting the Mac. I was nearly at the point of returning my Mac, wondering if my speakers were faulty. But once I discovered this, it seems proof that it's a software/OS issue that Apple need to address through an update.

I did end up upgrading to Mojave a few weeks ago and haven't experienced the issue since.

You can change this setting in the "Audio MIDI Setup" app, located in the Utilities subfolder of Applications (/Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup.app).

The setting can be found in the "Audio Devices" window (press ⌘1 to open/close this window). Make sure the speakers are selected on the left, then on the right, select the output tab, and change the sampling rate in the Format pull-down menu to 48,000 Hz. Perform the same change for the Microphone on its Input tab.

On the two main threads I follow (one of them having 1300+ posts) there are many people who've replaced their machine 2 or 3 times, and discover the same issue on the replacements. (Many reporting discovering it the same week they replaced it). If the issue was uncommon, the odds of the same person getting 3 machines in a row with the same issue are insanely low.

How low? Apple sold 5.3 Million Macs between July and September 2018.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/

The odds of many people reporting this same experience are even lower. It does not appear to be 'only a few machines having the problem.' Even if you had the worst luck; (luck isn't real); in the world, if the issue were uncommon the odds are incredibly low that you would get 3 different machines with the same problem.

If anything it points to either user behaviors or software combinations that reveal the issue.

yes until Apple were to fix the issue at the software or firmware level, all macs may very well be susceptible to the issue.

I went round and round with Apple Support a few months back regarding this issue, and eventually it seemed that the problem went away with my initial Mojave upgrade.

However, in recent weeks, and especially with the release of 10.14.2, the crackling and popping has come back more frequently.

I think we need to resurface attention to this issue, as there is something seriously wrong with this 2018 round of MBP's.

Awaiting further developments...

I got this problem too, only with Spotify, and it starts around 30 min Spotify has been plating in the back. As a hint for @apple this issue started only after I executed garageband for the first time a couple of months ago. The problem arises even when garage band is not being used.

I've timed how long it takes after I start listening to music before the crackling starts and it's right at ±50 minutes. Moreover, the sound )music and speech) becomes momentarily garbled at that point so I'm wondering if this isn't a 'buffering' problem in the software. The buffer becomes overfilled and 'spits back'. I just changed over to 48,000 Hz and am interested to see if that helps, as has been suggested by some.

You know guys , since I've upgraded to Mojave I haven't experienced this crackling somehow... when crackling happened before it happened also during long video conferences and I had one for about 2 hours and nothing.. though I didn't listen to spotify lately so long but for now seems the problem stopped... will report back if anything changes

Can also confirm that this issue has gone away - for me at least - around the time of updating to Mojave. It had gotten sparser anyway, but now I had all but forgotten it. Still, would be nice to know about what the root of the issue was/is (as some ppl have reported this still happening in Mojave).

Glad this is working for you. Using Audio MIDI set to 48k is fine for general music listening in iTunes... The problem is that some of us work in Logic, Live, Pro Tools or various other DAWs where we use different sample rates, and setting a sample rate in a DAW changes the Sample Rate settings in Audio MIDI Setup... 48k's is used mostly for video editing and film scores, 44.1, 88.2 and 96k are mostly used for audio, depending on the musician or engineers preferences. (That isn't to say some don't use 48k, but most of the time it's one of the other 3...)

I'm at the Apple store right now returning my THIRD 15" macbook pro in 45 days. I've had the issue with multiple apps (zoom, itunes, netflix, chrome, etc.) and have only found temporary relief by restarting my computer. They keep telling me it's an anomaly, however that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm so upset.... I don't want a different laptop, AND I'm sick of being at the Apple store constantly getting a new laptop and having to take time to set up new laptops constantly. So I'm downgrading because I need a laptop that works - unfortunately that's more important than having the laptop I want at this point.

Just chiming in to report that this has been happening to me for about as long as I've had this MBP - maybe two months for now. Haven't upgraded to Mojave yet, but multiple reports seem to confirm that it doesn't fix the base issue. It kicks in multiple times a day, rebooting usually helps for a while. Spotify and Youtube audio are unlistenable but surprisingly Ableton Live doesn't suffer from this at all (fingers crossed).