Windows 10: Windows 11 garbled USB audio--popping and crackling

For the last couple of weeks I've experienced popping, crackling, and distortion on USB audio. I've used USB audio since Windows 7 with no problem. It happens when playing music. Game audio works fine. Analog audio through the motherboard works fine.I have tried quite a few fixes including: Rolling back the last two updates to a point before the audio problem started; Uninstalling and reinstalling the USB audio driver. Uninstalling and reinstalling all of the USB controllers. Tweaking the power management settings on USB and CPU. Uninstalling the HDMI audio driver. Trying different US

:)

 

Crackling audio. Skyrim + other games

USB headphones have never been kind to me. They always hiss, pop and crackle. The fact that you can hear it when no audio is being played suggests it's a power /connection issue.

Do you have any 3.5mm or RCA based headphones you can try?

 

Crackling audio. Skyrim + other games

No idea what either of those are.

 

Having issues with crackling/popping audio on W10

Hi. So I've been having a hard time trying to resolve an issue with crackling and popping audio that's been plaguing me for quite some time now. The crackling is only present when sound/music is playing. If nothing is running or playing then there is 0 crackling
or popping. When I move the volume slider up and down in Youtube or Spotify the crackling can be heard clearly. Same goes for playing and pausing a video and audio. All of which where not present until I updated to a newer version of Windows (1903). I have
since updated my Windows to 2004 and the issue is still present.

I've tried all the steps listed here at Fix sound problems in Windows 10. None of
them have worked. I tried using different headphones and even a pair of speakers. All of them produced the same crackling. I tried testing this with a laptop that I keep with me which also happens to run the same version of Windows 10. Same crackling and popping
whenever I listen to music or play games.

I'd like to provide a link to a sound file as another example of this
here via a game's wiki page. Prior to these issues there was no pop. Following a series of updates beginning with Windows version 1903, a crackling/popping sound can consistently be heard at the tail end of this sound file and many, many others across different
games and applications.

I've tried tweaking and reverting settings in the registry regarding settings such as "PerformanceIdleTime" with no sucess. I've also tried disabling/enabling Dynamic Tick and using DISM command prompts such as "dism
/online /cleanup-image /restorehealth" with no luck.

At this point I feel like I've exhausted all possible solutions and I'm out of ideas. I'm hoping that someone who is more knowledgeable than me might know what my problem is and help me find a solution
to this rather frustrating problem. Thanks in advance.