There's a well-known software bug in Windows and macOS audio driver's of Apple's laptops released since 2019: a random pop or popping sound during media playback and a pop sound when media is stopped/paused (i.e. see 2019 and 2017). On 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro with Boot Camp with Windows 10 version 21H2 popping during playback happens only in case Dolby Atmos or Equalizer APO system-wide equalizing is unitized, but the quality of sound is unacceptable otherwise.
Somebody reported playing audio with 0 volume in the background solves the second part of the problem in macOS. I tested this fix to be working in Windows 10 running on my 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro: I used two instances of VLC, one with a looped silent quarter-second WAV audio file from archive.org, another instance playing audio/video in a regular manner. 100% time no more popping when media is stopped/paused with or without system-wide equalizing.
It appears audio driver is being forced to idle by Windows 10 too aggressively. I tried specifying a PerformanceIdleTime to 00 00 00 00 for audio driver (explanation) but for some reason Windows 10 version 21H2 does not respect this for AppleAudio.sys and this doesn't work (maybe AppleAudio.sys versions 6.1.8000.1-6.1.8000.3 are faulty). So far to keep fix as lightweight as possible the best thing I figured is to play silent WAV stream loop in RAM using PowerShell in the background like this (method combined from this answer, this thread, this Reddit post):
# Make the Base64 string that would be saved in the PowerShell script file
$WAV = [IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("C:\quarter-second-silence.wav")
$Base64WAV = [Convert]::ToBase64String($WAV)
$Base64WAV > C:\quarter-second-silence.txt
(copy output from C:\quarter-second-silence.txt using Notepad)
# Return the Base64 string to a byte array;
# also you can save the following code as PS1 file
# and execute from PowerShell via "& C:\Script.ps1"
# or better create a scheduled task to play hidden loop at log on
# as described further; be sure first to check if this helps by
# executing commands one-by-one in PowerShell and don't close
# PowerShell window after last command during test run
# (before making a Script.PS1 file)
$ConvertedWAV = [System.Convert]::FromBase64String("<paste copied output>")
$MemoryStream = [System.IO.MemoryStream]::new($ConvertedWAV)
# Loop playback of the returned string
$SoundPlayer = [System.Media.SoundPlayer]::new($MemoryStream)
$SoundPlayer.PlayLooping()
PowerShell script can be executed in background at user log on, and in this particular case the PowerShell task can be safely hidden for silent sound to be actually played in the background (so all you get is a PowerShell process in Task Manager, no extra flashing windows, no extra icons in taskbar or system tray). To execute PS1 file on startup completely silently, create a new task in Task Scheduler with the following action executed as hidden at user log on (you can use shortcut with the following target): %SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -noexit -file "C:\Script.ps1" (When creating task action and copy-paste this code, Task Scheduler will ask if you'd like to use command arguments, agree to that.)
Script containing Base64-encoded WAV has a file size of ~58 KB and the PowerShell background task uses ~1.4 MB of RAM while running, so it's not a particularly resource-heavy solution.
However maybe there's a more elegant way to keep audio driver busy?
