Crackling sound on Bluetooth earbuds (Windows 11)

I was just wondering, since most folks have trouble connecting to the earbuds, is there anything you can do to affect the sound problem.  Maybe moving the computer around or moving you around or both?  When you make changes, give the Bluetooth time to catch up to see if it has been affected.

Where does the audio originate, from a stream or locally?

Are these fairly new earbuds and do you know what version of Bluetooth they are using?  Since they work on another system, perhaps you could compare specifics as to those earbuds.

Sometimes a model number of the earbuds will allow us to do some research on the device.  Your system is a laptop with an Intel AX201 Wi-Fi adapter?   I have that same Wi-Fi adapter on my desktop system and Bluetooth seems to work fine on it.  Maybe is it related to the antenna configuration on your system.

If you could share your AX201 adapter configuration, we could check if it's a config problem or not.

The headphones' name is Creative Outlier Air True Wireless. These are headphones that work well and do not have problems with other computers. Bluetooth version 5.0.

The card does have a CNVio interface so system drivers, like chipset, can make a difference.

I show certain driver versions but I have not had problems with prior drivers either.  I will check on your headset to see if I can find out anything.  If you can isolate your system from possible Wi-Fi interference, you might try that.

I went and checked your device and am not familiar with some things.

You have a replaceable battery.  Certainly, if that was having a problem you would know.

The X-Fi in not on your system but I am not familiar with it anyway.

You seem to pair your earbuds while designating a primary bud.  Maybe they all do that but none of mine have ever mention it.  Just something in case it might be relevant.

Be aware of the ear seal since some earbuds can drop connections if the seal isn't good.

If the Dell PC were the problem, then it would probably behave the same with other earbuds.  You may want to try a less expensive set for testing.

Also, what I saw was that Creative Outlier Air True Wireless only crackling on a primary earbud. What could be the problem?

I tried Mi True Wireless EBs Basic 2 Bluetooth version 5.0. It works well.

Since I have not seen a headset that needed the "Primary" earbud selected, I can't help much.  You can change that to the other one for testing, correct?

The crackling earbud might be trying to communicate or control something and messing up the primary stream.  But why would it only be on the one computer?

Yeah, it is interesting why it is only on this computer. I tried on the other three computers, and it worked fine.