Has anybody been able to use Airplay 2 without the clicks/crackling sound?

[PeterOo]

After a lot if emailing back and forth HK customer support acknowledged the problem in the Citation Amp and is now investigating the cause.
Strangely they would not make this decision based on sinus tones, but insisted I produce a music track that resulted in the same crackling.
So I pointed them to the sonar beeps in the opening of Echoes by Pink Floyd. The sound is fine over. Chromecast, but showed some distortion/crackling over Airplay.

 

[tunamelt]

I had a very similar issue with my Airport Express. It had reproducible distortion/crackling over AirPlay--I realized I had a serious problem when listening to "Won't Get Fooled Again" at high volume--the floor was so noisy during the synth/organ intro I had to turn it off. I worked backwards down the chain, starting at my speaker, to isolate the problem. I was surprised that the culprit was the AE--digital out or analog out, didn't matter. The signal had poor resolution. I replaced it with a WiiM Mini two weeks ago and it's made a world of difference.

I do get the occasional micro dropouts using my phone to AirPlay to the WiiM (I have to use AirPlay for Apple Music). The glitches are seldom but very annoying. Streaming other sources directly from the WiiM has been flawless.

 

[PyramidElectric]

A just got an AE A1392, reverted the firmware to 7.6.9 and plugged it into a SMSL DO100 DAC via Toslink, and yep crazy dropouts straight away. I changed the DPLL setting on the DO100 to 9 and it's completely fixed it, zero dropouts since.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

For a while, Airplay was an afterthought for me. I only used it, from my iPhone to the TVs or to the bedroom SONOS Soundbar. Not for critical listening. For some odd reasons, the algorithm in SPOTIFY which has been serving me very good music for the past several 7 + years, has become ..lazy, serving me with the same cuts weeks after weeks: Suggested playlists have been basically the same, stale ... Not pleased..

Anyway, I have been using Apple Music more ... My takes:
Not pleased.
Apple Music doesn't have the equivalent of the simple and elegant Spotify connect.. Only that Airplay2 thing.. which is not too evident if you ask me.. You don't always find it on the screen and have to resort to a specific screen for the ApplePlay icon, to appear... And yes it crackles... on music whether I use iPad (latest "Air") or my iPhone 13 Pro. Wi-Fi is as good as it can be, with a dedicated AP in the listening room. No bandwidth issue, the speed from my 2 local providers has increased to 30 Mbps and the other to 105 Mbps, while jitter is small according to Speedtest... UNder the same condition, no problems with Spotify Connect.. On Apple Music, crackling problems are clearly audible whether I send the stream to an Apple TV 4K, 2 Gen connected to the media player input of the Denon, or directly to the Airplay-compliant Denon AVR. Same. Another weird issue with ApplePlay is that it becomes unreliable if you use Ethernet.. It works or ..not. I would have considered Tidal or Qobuz , if it weren't for the ever increasing streaming bills... Hovering now around $100 for Netflix, Apple, Disney, Amazon Music
FWIW, Apple has not been good on its software rollout the past few months.. There is an ongoing debacle, that started when they adopted a "new" HomeKit architecture with the 16.2 IOS release: Items that were functioning well before, are no longer discovered or become unresponsive.. Automations, that were rock-solid, henceforth, fail. A mess that is not yet fixed after many weeks, and I still do not comprehend Appel Music interface. Not to the usual good standard of Apple UI, definitely inferior to Spotify's ... And to make things more annoying, Apple has not yet integrated Primephonic Classical music Interface. They had acquired Primphonic, since August 2021 ...

Annoyed.

Peace.

 

[ubik3000]

I only have problems with audio using strictly Apple Music with direct Airplay destinations... No problems with Spotify Connect, no problem with Tidal while using Airplay as System Audio Out. No problem with Vox player while playing mixed gapless music from a local drive. Apple Music seems to have way less problems with audio (micro) skips when using Airplay as System Audio Out. So I blame this directly to Apple Music. I have reported some time ago the problem to Apple, no answer, Apple's style of having a good relation with the clients.

 

[Carlton80@0]

i don’t use airplay much but my wife lives by it. She doesn’t have any problem using airplay 2 around the house Streaming to my Arcam ST-60 or Sonos Port.

 

[dufferdan]

We use Airplay at the cabin to play music from our iPhones and iPads via a Russound streamer and Russound distributed audio. We also use it at home to stream via a Topping D70S MQA DAC to our home stereo. Never experienced any forms of dropouts over wifi. The source is definitely Airplay 2 (iPhone XS, new iPad Pro), not sure if the Russound is Airplay 1.

The new Denon receiver has Airplay 2 as well, but I haven’t tested it through that as yet. But so far, no issues that I can recall.

 

[Jazz]

Never had it happen.

 

[robo]

Just adding my datapoint to this:

Bought a used A1392 Airport Express to use as a (I hoped) reliable AirPlay receiver with TOSLINK output into going into my MiniDSP DDRC-24.
At latest firmware, was getting the clicking/popping noises with music played via the Apple Music app from my iPhone (which is basically what I use to stream all my music). Like many people, I never suspected the Airport Express at first, thinking it was the amp having a bad solder joint, or the DAC, or physical damage to the speakers, etc.
Finally isolated it to the Airport Express, and found that it was the same with analog or optical output (interesting that some people have said the analog output was unaffected).

Anyway, based on suggestions here, I tried downgrading the firmware to 7.6.9, and the problems are seemingly solved - audio output via TOSLINK sounds clean again. I guess this means AirPlay 1, not 2, but I think for my usage that doesn't really matter.

At least I can say that Apple made it super easy to upgrade/downgrade to arbitrary firmware versions with this device. Surprisingly un-Apple of them (well, as is continuing to update such an old device... even if the updates are buggy).

 

[JoetheLion]

There are numerous reports on ASR about clicks/crackling sound when using Airplay 2. Most thorough discussion seems to be this.

Is everybody with Airplay 2 devices (still) having this problem?

It is exactly as you say! I bought a used AirPort Express because I switched from Tidal to Apple Music and leen at Ken Rockwell that this box provides good quality for little money.

I installed it over the weekend and was thrilled. Even through the analog output, with good headphones (Focal Clear) through a good headphone amp (Lake People G111), I didn't notice any difference from the optical signal and a high quality external DAC (Topping E50).

When I listened to the Gnossiennes by Eric Satie, I also heard the crackling described here. I tried all possible combinations, other headphone amplifiers, other cables, LAN, WLAN, it was always audible. What surprised me the most was that it was audible on both analog and digital signal. I bought a second box, exactly the same.

Then I read this thread here, made a downgrade of the firmware and lo and behold: the crackling was gone. (Glad by the way that the connection with Airplay 1 comes much faster).

I am very grateful to you for this solution in particular, and @amirm for this forum in general. Alone I would never have come up with this solution in my life.

PS: Firmware version 7.6.9 has a security issue that was fixed with 7.8.1. But I think as long as you just connect the device to an existing network via LAN, it's not a problem.

So thanks again.

 

[infinitetie]

I too had the same issues with AirPort Express and airplay 2. Will try the downgrade.

I thought WiiM mini was perfect but I could hear some noise again today like cracking of a dirty volume pot.

 

[Mat]

Tried the 1000hz tone because thought I was immune. On my 1st gen airport express I could definitely hear the clicking but it was inconsistent and not as bad as the OP example. I dont think I'd ever have heard it without looking for it. (Side note but the jitter is so bad one of my dac's cant lock on and it skips constantly)

Downgrading to 7.6.9 did not change anything fwiw

On my Wiim Pro the crackling wasn't there. Didnt bother testing 3rd gen Apple TV because it has enough inherent noise and drop out issues.

 

[ando420]

I just got a new Sony TA AN-1000 AV - and unfortunately have also been experiencing a lot of small 'popping' noises when listening to apple music (its easily noticeable when listening to classical) over airplay 2.

Before people suggest WiFi signal issues - I've wiring up the AV unit directly to my router with an ethernet cable and it makes no difference. I've tried using:

• macbook pro (2023)
• iPad mini 6th gen
• iPad pro 5th gen

- and no matter the source apple music suffers from consistent pops every 5-10 seconds. I've also tried turning on / off lossless and fiddling with the sound quality options and it makes no difference.

I know there are no issues with my speaker connections, as chromecast audio from android devices is absolutely perfect, as well as TV / HDMI. I'm hoping that these are early issues that will be patched (as the sony unit is a new model released last month) - however its quite disconcerting reading the other responses in this thread where people are having the same issues on completely different hardware.

 

[buzzy]

I also have this problem with noise on the Airport Express, it's interesting to find a discussion of exactly the issue I experienced.

I have an A1392 that I used to use in the kitchen. I connected it up again to test a new pair of speakers, using the analog jack. I ran test tones from Apple Music (Audio Test Tones, Audiolab). As noted, the issue is very noticeable with a 1000hz test tone - several pops over a few seconds. And one of the tracks on my test playlist is solo piano, it shows up there as well, though less frequent.

The same issue appears on another A1392.

Using my iPhone with an Apple headphone jack adapter as the source, the popping or crackling does not appear.

One easy way to test is to plug headphones directly into the Airport Express.

I haven't yet found a way to downgrade the firmware on an Airport Express using a Windows computer or an iPhone. If that's possible, I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction.