Pixel’s crackling audio issue might be hardware-related after all

Last month, we reported on an issue that customers began reporting over at the Google Groups community for Pixel and Pixel XL. The issue involved distorted audio, namely at high volumes and seemingly only when certain frequencies were hit.

We weren’t and still aren’t sure whether it’s a 100% hardware issue, but if you’ve been stuck waiting all this time to see if it wasn’t, we’re going to just suggest contacting Google. One such soul did so recently, and in their conversation with the support rep, they were told that Google has internally identified it as a hardware issue despite not publicly confirming as much.

As such, they were offered warranty service, though a full refund is seemingly out of the question for those outside the return window. For what it’s worth, the rep also mentioned that the issue is known to affect “select builds,” so hopefully any replacement going your way is going to have improved hardware.

Of course, we’re not going to throw all our faith into this one exchange, so we’re still waiting for Google to come forward with a formal statement to see if we can’t get a little more solidification.

[via Reddit]