crackling sound when equalizer enabled

[travnick]

While equalizer is enabled, then any quick repeatable system notifications are crackling (like volume up, down). Without Equalizer, everything is fine.

While it's not nice to hear, it sounds like in the case speakers are not able to handle the sound. In this case, I do not really know if such glitches are because of equalizer, or I have to adjust presets/volume to not break the speakers.

[Neightro]

I notice that even when using the Flat preset, the volume level is naturally raised for me. Reducing each channel by about 1dB solved the problem. I'm using a generic Intel HD Audio chipset over analog output.

[tyler-wright]

I think it's caused by clipping. I get this on bass and it just seems to be a clipping issue. I've gone through a couple of sessions with Claude Code to try and just pin down exactly what the issue, but it ended up just wanting to significantly reduce the gain on each of the equalizer settings. If I figure out a better solution, I might be back with a better post.

EDIT: Yeah I looked into it more and it looks like idea is to switch over to pipewire so when you use the equalizer settings you get more fine grained control to prevent clipping. I'm just going to do that. Sorry cant help more.