Frequent crackling in waveform mode, please help.

Hello, thank you for your responses! I have been experimenting in the meantime.   First I tested the idea that it had to do with phantom power.  I turned off the phantom power, since when I’m just editing I don’t use the mic anyway.  I suspect this would solve the issue (if it was the issue) since the device would no longer be drawing too much power.  

However the issue remained.  

I checked that everything is aligned on 48 kHz, and it is.  

I have never heard of ASIO before, the device was using MME driver.  However upon looking up ASIO, I found a program, ASIO4ALL, which seems to give the option to alter the buffer size. Experimenting with this a bit I believe the issue definitely is with buffer/latency, although I have not been able to find the perfect setting to eliminate the issue and not make it worse.  I will experiment a bit more.  

Strangely though, I tried LatencyMon, and it could not find any data while I was using it. Like it couldn’t see or hear the device.  I don’t know why.  

Anyway, I still haven’t solved the issue but I think I am on the right track.   

And is it the cheapest ever?  I don’t know, the M-AUDIO interface through Amazon seems to win there.  Overall, the Teyun Q12, while being inexpensive, has excellent functionality and performance, and has good reviews.  The only issue I have noticed is a persistent hum heard through the headphones at higher volumes, but this is not an issue if I turn down the volume a bit.

Beware the AI...

The fact that the crackling disappears when you plug your headphones directly into the computer is a very important clue. It strongly suggests that Audition itself is not the source of the problem, and that the issue is related to the audio interface, its driver, or the communication between the interface and Windows.

A few things I would check:

1. Make sure the sample rate matches everywhere:

   • Audition session: 48 kHz
   • Windows Sound settings (Playback and Recording): 48 kHz
   • Audio interface control panel: 48 kHz

   Even small mismatches can sometimes cause intermittent crackling.

2. In Audition, try increasing the audio buffer size/latency. If the crackling takes a few minutes to appear and then gets worse, buffer underruns may be occurring.
3. If you're using the interface's ASIO driver, test with a different driver mode temporarily (WASAPI or MME) to see whether the behavior changes. If it does, the issue is likely driver-related.
4. Check whether the Teyun Q-12 has an updated driver or firmware available. Many lower-cost USB interfaces rely on generic USB audio drivers that can become unstable under sustained editing workloads.
5. Try connecting the interface to a different USB port, preferably a USB 2.0 port if available, and avoid USB hubs. I've seen crackling issues caused by USB power management and controller compatibility.
6. Disable USB selective suspend and other power-saving features in Windows. These can sometimes interrupt audio streaming even when CPU and RAM usage are very low.
7. Run a DPC latency checker (such as LatencyMon). Crackling during playback with otherwise low CPU usage is often caused by driver latency from USB, network, or GPU drivers rather than a lack of processing power.

Given your hardware specs (Ryzen 5 3600, 64 GB RAM, SSD, 4060 Ti), Audition should have no trouble handling narration editing. Since the problem follows the audio interface and not the computer's built-in audio output, I would focus first on the Teyun Q-12 driver, buffer settings, USB connection, and Windows audio configuration.

P.S: image is just for the attraction.

I think that this device holds the record for being the cheapest interface you can get!

You haven’t said what mic you are using. Is it phantom powered? If it is, this means that the interface will be drawing rather more power from your USB connection than it would be otherwise, with a dynamic. But even if it isn’t, the one sensible thing to try first is not running the interface directly from the computer USB connection, but instead running it via a USB hub - but the important part is that it should be a powered hub; in other words using an external power supply. If nothing else, it will let you find out if anything changes…

I have to say that it wouldn’t be exactly the first time that a phantom power system has caused trouble, if this is what it turns out to be. To get from the 5 volts that USB provides up to the 48 volts necessary for phantom power isn’t entirely trivial, and these systems can easily cause interference if not done carefully.

What else do you have plugged into your interface? Is there anything (like monitor speakers) that is powered from another source?

This is very unlikely to be caused directly by anything to do with your PC, but it is very likely to be power-related, and possibly not intuitive...