Hi,
I have a one week old Touch running latest firmware (7.6.1-r9486) with
similar crackle problem. I spoke to Logitech Customer Service and they
think there is an intermittant hardware problem with the logic chip.
They suggested doing a factory reset. Did that, but still get
occasional crackle
Strange thing this morning, started playing an MP3 on my touch (16GB SD
card internal server) and I got output crackle on both left and right
speakers. I suspected the speaker, so did a couple of tests, but got
nowhere. I then connected headphones directly to the touch and got the
crackle.