Audio Distortion After 2 Minutes of Music in Stock MBP I have a MBP (13 inch early 2015, running 10.11.4) which after about 2 minutes of producing audio (Skype, Youtube from Firefox, iTunes...) via either the internal speakers or a pair of earbuds starts producing crackling distorted sound. Stopping the music and restarting also restarts the time-to-crackle.

I am unsure how long this has been happening, but there are no USB, Thunderbolt devices, or even the power charge connected as mentioned in this question.

Unlike this question this is a stock machine.

The machine has not been through any physical abuse/drops.

Is this likely to be resolvable as a software problem, or do I need to visit the Apple store for hardware help?
I was experiencing the same issue and was about ready to buy a new set of headphones until I plugged them into my phone and the issue went away.

I rebooted my Mac and let all the programs fully load before closing anything. That seems to have fixed the issue.