If I disable power saving for my Intel HDA by putting "options snd-hda-intel power_save=0 power_save_controller=N" in my "/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf" then the crackling / sparking noise goes away. FWIW, this is a stationary computer so I don't even care about power saving that much. Sure it's nice but only if it can be implemented with zero sparks/noise side effects.
If I disable power saving for my Intel HDA by putting "options snd-hda-intel power_save=0 power_save_ controller= N" in my "/etc/modprobe. d/alsa- base.conf" then the crackling / sparking noise goes away. FWIW, this is a stationary computer so I don't even care about power saving that much. Sure it's nice but only if it can be implemented with zero sparks/noise side effects.