Mac Mini M2 crackling audio

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Mac Mini M2 crackling audio

I just received an M2 Mac Mini and have been setting it up -- primarily as an audio workstation. I find that the audio is crackling badly at random times (audio from the internet, audio from my DAW, music downloaded to the music app AND streamed to the music app, basically all audio).

All software is updated and running native Apple silicon versions.

This happens independent of load -- even a single app will crackle at random times. FYI, it's 1TB mini with 24GB of RAM. Sometimes I'll get 45 seconds to 2 minutes of fine audio, then crackling and pops and sometimes wild distortion happens for a second or two.

I've ensured that all the bit rate settings conform to each other and tried both 44.1K and 48k. No help. My audio interface is an Audient EVO16. I'll try with other interfaces but the EVO16 works flawlessly with my Intel MB Pro. The volume is low so I'm not peaking and generating distortion.

I've reviewed the threads on crackling audio that affected M1 Macs and tried those solutions. Because this is intended to be a music workstation, the audio problems are virtually disabling.

Anyone else experienced this? Any ideas? This glitchy audio is super frustrating.

Mac mini, macOS 13.2

Posted on Feb 9, 2023 02:00 PM

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Answer 1

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RSC23 Author

Level 1

17 points

Mar 30, 2023 10:08 AM in response to Greenteabefree

Hi, I think I've resolved this problem on my end (to Apple: it has nothing to do with users and groups).

I had a an external thunderbolt hard drive attached to a thunderbolt hub AND had the audio interface's USB C connected to the same hub.

Even though the external drive was not being used when the crackling was happening, I figured that maybe the Mini was doing background things like checking the hub connection, etc. When I moved the audio interface to a different USB port on a separate hub, the crackling vanished.

So the answer appears to be -- don't have an audio interface on the same thunderbolt hub as a hard drive. I'm personally baffled at that and I suspect it's an operating system bug. Thunderbolt should have plenty of bandwidth to support a thunderbolt drive on the same hub as an audio interface so something the OS is doing behind the scene s with the external drive is creating significant transient spikes in bandwidth -- enough to disrupt the audio.

But in any event, that solved the problem for me. Hope you get some relief too -- the since I got the mini for doing digital audio with the crackling rendered it useless until I found a fix.

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Answer 2

Mar 30, 2023 03:23 AM in response to Lissy_12

Same thing is happening for me. Mac min M2, 16Gb ram, 512Gb HD.

I created a test account like you recommended but the audio issue was the same for that account.

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Answer 3

Lissy_12

Community Specialist

Feb 12, 2023 07:55 AM in response to RSC23

Hi RSC23,

Thank you for using the Apple Support Communities! Does the issue also occur in another user account? Being able to see if the issue occurs in another user account will to identify if it is something that is affecting your entire system or just one particular user account. To do this, you'll want to set up a Test User account and then try to replicate the issue in that account.

1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Users & Groups.

2. Click the lock icon, then enter an administrator name and password.

3. Click the add button (+) below the list of users.

4. Complete the fields shown for a Standard or Administrator account, then click Create Account (or OK).

5. Go back up to the Apple menu in the upper left of the computer and select "Log Out". At the login screen, choose the "Test User" just made.

6. Once inside the Test Account, try to replicate the issue to determine if it just occurs in one account or on the whole computer.

Thank you.

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Mac Mini M2 crackling audio

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