Spotify Premium Crackling on Windows 10 only

[nlowell]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device / Operating System

Windows 10 Desktop with Realtek sound on motherboard

My Question or Issue

I have tried seemingly everything for weeks with no resolution to Spotify crackling on my desktop.   Both the app AND the web player crackle.  No other audio is crackling including youtube, games, itunes, etc..  I have tried reinstalling, updating audio drivers, changin codec rates, changing firewall settings - nothing works.  I have 900mbps internet connection....what have I missed??? 

[Sebasty]

Hey @nlowell 

Audio issues could come from a number of reasons, it's odd that it's only Spotify having that issue.

What antivirus software do you run? Some AV software may actively scan traffic which could result in delays in audio and ultimately, crackles or dropouts.

Another thing I would try is to reboot into safe mode with networking (msconfig helps here). If there is no crackle there, the issue is in the installed software. If it's there though, then drivers or something of that nature.

Do these audio glitches happen more when you move your mouse or when there's more load on CPU?

Let me know 🙂

[nlowell · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the response and attempt to help!

Safe mode didn't work.  With no other applications running and no mouse movements the audio still crackles. 

JUST this morning I plugged in a USB C DAC (Digital to Analog) headphone adapter and used that as an input into my speakers and guess what...no crackling!  For some reason it appears to be an incompatibility with Spotify and the Realtek chipset/drivers on this ASUS ROG Strix motherboard.

I have no idea what that is but for now I'm going to enjoy crackle free music with this DAC as I've already wasted a ton of time on this issue.

Thanks again!

[heyitsbort]

I was able to solve the crackling / distortion playback issue in Spotify by disabling Audio Enhancements in the Properties tab of my default playback device (Speakers)

Try this:

- With the Start bar open type 'Change system Sounds'

- Once the Sound panel opens go to 'Playback'

- Then find the listed device with a green tick, this is your Default Device, or the one Windows will send sound to

- Click 'Properties' in the lower right

- With the Speaker (or whatever your device name is) opened go to the Advanced tab

- There is an area at the bottom called 'Signal Enhancements' with a tickbox called ' Enable audio enhancements'

- Disable this box if it is ticked

This might not be the solution for everyone but it definitely worked for me.

Good luck all, hope this helps.