I've had a Sound Blaster AE-5 Plus for about nine months. During that time, I've been experiencing a persistent crackling issue. I finally did some research, found some different solutions which reportedly worked for folks, tried a few, and one finally worked for me! Apparently, a bunch of things can cause this crackling issue.
In my case, it was the equalizer! I just had to disable that and bam! Problem solved! If only Creative had just left that feature disabled by default. Or in my case, the developer of the open-source drive, since I'm on Linux. The funny thing about it is that, depending on the cause, this crackling issue isn't limited to a single operating system or a single driver; Windows and Linux users alike are experiencing this problem - and Linux users like myself have to use an open-source driver (not that we mind) because Creative isn't interested in supporting Linux.
Creative would do themselves a big favor if they just had the equalizer disabled by default. Then people could notice the crackling only after enabling the equalizer and realizing right away that the equalizer was the cause of the crackling. Creative could probably improve sales and prevent returns.
If you're experiencing this issue and disabling the equalizer doesn't solve the problem, some other solutions I found from my research are disabling G-Sync, switching to a different version of the Nvidia driver, and switching the sound filter to fast roll-off.
You also might need to turn off extra stuff like Crystalizer, Dialog Plus,, and Smart Volume.
Oh wow, Sound Blaster, I thought I'd gone back in time 25 years, didn't even know they're still a thing. But thinking about it, you probably work professionally with sound so a dedicated sound card would still make sense?
I actually don't work with sound professionally. Though, for folks who do, it definitely makes sense to have a dedicated sound card. Though, you'd probably need a different kind sound card. The AE-5 Plus probably has some bells and whistles that you wouldn't really be able to use for recording and it only has one microphone input. For recording, you'd probably want something more like the Sound Blaster Audigy RX, which has two microphone inputs instead of just one. I'm not sure, but there might be sound cards which have even more microphone inputs.
Also, my AE-5 Plus is my first real, dedicated sound card. Well, unless you count when I used my Sound Blaster E1 as a DAC with my MacBook Pro. When I built my current PC in 2020, I avoided buying a dedicated sound card. I figured that by this point, integrated sound was good enough. Then one week last year, I experimented with my E1 again and was blown away by how something so small could be so much better than my motherboard's integrated audio. Sure, I could have just kept using the E1, but it's frustrating to use it as a DAC, you have to fiddle with the volume controls on the PC and the E1. So, I decided to buy a dedicated sound card. I didn't want to spend a ton, but I wanted to get the best sound card I could for what I was willing to spend. Plus, Linux support is important for me. I did some research and it turned out that the AE-5 Plus was the best option. Plus, Best Buy had it, so I got some rewards points for the purchase, so that was nice.
It's actually kind funny, because for a long time, I thought the time of dedicated sound cards was totally over. I thought the need for dedicate sound cards died out like in the 90's. I thought they were antiquated. I thought they were a huge waste of money these days. I thought they were like snake oil. I was absolutely wrong. Dedicated sound cards really are a lot better than integrated sound! It makes sense, though, since they have a lot more room for components than a motherboard ever will! Plus, they're a bit more isolated from the rest of the board, so EMI is less of an issue, especially with cards like the E1 which have EMI shielding.