Mac Mini - Headphone jack defect - research before you buy

Upon purchasing a Mac, I noticed a faint popping noise whenever I am refreshing a YouTube tab in the browser. This also occurred when seeking within a YouTube video or scrubbing through video in Final Cut Pro. Notably, the noise persisted even when the system was muted.

The issue is present through the headphone jack, and the only solution I’ve found is to use a sound card. Another hack is to open a DAW(Logic/reaper) software in the background with the device selected as the output.

Could somebody tell if this is a hardware or software issue?

Anyone else facing this?