Hi @BSK80.

Welcome to the Sonos community and thank you for reaching out and for submitting a diagnostic. 

Crackling sound on any speaker regardless if it is a Sonos device or not is not a good sign. It is an indicator of a speaker ware/torn inside the device it self. I would also like to share with you that the diagnostic submitted does not show any hardware failure. This is normal since physical damage on the speaker it self will not display any data on the diagnostic unless it is a wireless card failure which in this situation is not. 

I would try to reach out to our  customer service phone support for some more in-depth troubleshooting steps or a possible replacement. They are open Mondays through Fridays from 10:00 AM to 10:00PM EST. Before doing a Factory reset on the Beam as a last resort.

Please let me know if you still need further assistance.

Thanks,

Hi - I’m having the same issue. Ordered a Sonos 5 and finally got a chance to listen to it in a quiet room. It crackles intermittently and is particularly noticeable on quiet tracks (happened to be listening to a string arrangement by Max Richter where it was very noticeable.) Could not reproduce on Bluetooth AirPods.

This happened when playing via the Spotify app as well as the Sonos S2 app, from both iPhone and iPad. 

Diagnostic confirmation 807254123

I called support and while the person was lovely, we were not able to conclusively determine the issue. It was suggested to be mindful of possible electrical interference. The only variable seems to be (small dataset, and correlative) that the issue seems pronounced when the playback device (iPhone or IPad) is 6 feet away from the speaker, as opposed to inches away from it. But that should be acceptable range.

A bit disappointed, as I’ve invested pretty heavily in Sonos devices (and continue to do so.)