static, pops and crackles using AirPods with Audacity 2.3.1 and MacBook Pro iOS 10.14.4

[mellowcello]

Audacity is recognizing the AirPods, but all playback sounds like I'm listening to the oldest possible vinyl recording played on a $4.00 turntable. How can I do my audio editing with better audio quality using Audacity and the AirPods? It's impossible to listen/edit anything as it is now. Using MacBook Pro and Mojave 10.14.4.
Thank you!

[steve]

What happens if you use wired headphones plugged directly into your computer?

[mellowcello]

No extraneous noise at all with wired headphones. It's clearly the AirPods and their Bluetooth platform. The AirPods work perfectly in every other situation on the MacBook Pro-- with YouTube, playback from iTunes, streaming.

[steve]

Audacity does not support data compression on playback.

Due to the limited bandwidth of bluetooth, digital audio data is compressed before being sent to bluetooth headphones / speakers (similar to MP3 compression for streaming audio over the Internet).
Because Audacity is designed for high quality audio recording, playback is as uncompressed PCM digital audio.

I would have thought that the headphone drivers would handle the data compression, but your report suggests that does not happen and the full uncompressed PCM audio is being sent to the headphones. Bluetooth does not have the bandwidth capacity to handle uncompressed audio, which would account for bits of data being lost, causing pops and crackles.

What is the Audacity "Project Rate" set to? (Bottom left corner of the main Audacity window)

[mellowcello]

Project rate is 48000

[steve]

Try changing it to 44100.
Any better? Any worse?

Try changing it to 22050.
Any better? Any worse?

[mellowcello]

Tried both the 44100 and 22050; the pops and crackles are still there; neither better nor worse.

[steve]

How about if you drop it down to 8000? I'd expect it to sound a bit muffled, but I'm interested to know if you still get the pops and crackles.

[mellowcello]

Same crackles and pops at 8000. No change.

[steve]

Perhaps it's not related to the bit rate then.

To get back to the correct project rate settings, set it to either 44100 (the standard for CD audio), or 48000 (the standard for DVD video). The project rate sets the sample rate for exported files, so if you want your exported files to be CD standard it should be set to 44100.

Back to the problem:
You could try adjusting Audacity's buffer settings:
"Preferences > Devices -> Buffer length:"

The default is 100.
Try decreasing it in steps of 10, and test at each step (90, 80, 70 ...). Does the problem get worse or better.
If it gets worse (or no better), try increasing it in steps of 10.
If it makes no difference, or only gets worse, set it back to the default of 100.