playback issue

why does audacity make random fuzzy noise when playing wav file?
Audacity 3.0.4.0 on mac catalina

Does the WAV file play OK in QuickTime or other media player?

Is it really random? Does the damage occur in the same place every time?

What else do you have running on your machine?

Koz

Is is just Audacity, or does the same file sound the same with whatever player software you normally use?

If it’s 8-bits it’s probably quantization noise.

Quantization noise “rides on top” of the signal and like any noise it’s most noticeable with quiet sounds but unlike “regular noise” it goes away when there is no signal.

If it happens with loud sounds it’s probably [u]clipping[/u] (which is distortion, not noise.)

Or it could be “anything”. Other than quantization noise, noise is an analog problem.