Why do I have so many audio drivers - confusing.

Hello...all...just wanted to say think you for the great support and input. As far as the cracking there is no set time it happens. It comes and goes. It seems no one here has experienced the same situation but if you search google with "windows 10 audio cracking" you'll see a lot with the same problem. Many solutions but no luck with them helping me so far. I guess there is some comfort knowing others have the same problem ... :)

Thanks again.

windows 10 audio cracking - Google Search

I just had the same problem as steveeyes. I updated 13(!) audio drivers from Intel, NVidia, and RealTek. I had the crackling noise
steveeyes described with no easy way to fix it. Fortunately, I had a system restore point right before the upgrading, so I rolled the system back and installed/tested each drive one by one. Intel and NVidia drivers were fine; crackling occurred upon installing RealTek Audio 6.0.9381.1. I went back to the older driver, 6.0.9309.1 and the problem went away.

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to contact RealTek about the problem. I had a similar problem after updating a RealTek driver on an different Windows 10 laptop a couple of years ago and again had to revert to an earlier version of the driver. My recommendation is to not update RealTek drivers if your audio is working fine.