I’m struggling with persistent audio crackling, when running Steam and/or Moonlight. The audio is fine otherwise, albeit a bit flat compared to MacOS. The crackling is present both through the headphone jack and through the speakers, with audible cracks and pops continually, not a second goes by without one. However with Steam or Moonlight not running, the audio is perfect, no cracks no pops.
Additionally the crackling is present after a reboot, and at all volume levels.
Output of asahi-diagnose is below, and pastebin of output file here. Help would be greatly appreciated!
Collecting system diagnostic information...
Saved diagnostic information to /home/<USER>/asahi-diagnose-20250209-131954.txt
Pipewire macaudio profile is "".
Headphones and speakers will not work. Select the "Default" or "HiFi" profile.
This post is about a month old but I figured I’d give it a shot anyway.
The flat sound you’re experiencing is probably a standard/default compression applied by the drivers. Now for the crackling problem, if a certain software is causing this issue then it’s most likely due to the buffer size. While running either software, type in pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantumand check the buffer size. I’d generally set it at 2048 for good measure but you can try a lower size if you want to. pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 2048 and then check again to make sure. You can also just overwrite the pipewire config to not give you any low buffer sizes. Definetly try the first step first before overwriting anything. Also set your pipewire profile to either default or hifi (as mentioned in your diagnose.
Please note that I am not an expert or anything. Any criticism is very much appreciated
That said, if you do happen to try my solution, please let me know if it works!
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