Comment 12 for bug 103025

Reproducible for me with a

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)

sound chip (ASUS P5B onboard sound).

Actually the problem seems to be a little more complex, though. Apparently the outcome depends on what audio driver is set as system default. For me, forcing VLC to "ALSA" would cut the crackling. However, it did turn out, that when forcing the default system audio drivers to ALSA (apparently, the default setting is OSS for the above mentioned soundchip), this would change, so forcing VLC to OSS did the trick. Leaving the audio to "Default" in VLC does always produce crackling noises (if volume is set to >50%). Note that after changing the default audio driver, you'll have to save settings in VLC again (even when not changing anything) and restart it, as otherwhise the described behaviour is not reproducible (for me at least). Also, the VLC audio settings might jump back to Default after changing system defaults.