Question / Help OBS + Win 10: Clicking & Crackling audio on my desktop audio BUT...

[Xorcist]

So this problem has been plaguing me forever. When I capture just a game alone and a mic, no problem. But when I add a video cam window, I get this clicking and crackling in the audio path of what I'm listening to. The recording of the stream does NOT have the clicking. However I went on DIscord and tried to talk and people were saying my voice was all crackling as well :(

Any ideas what OBS could be doing to cause this? Again, it's only in what I hear and not what's recorded/streamed.

 

[Xorcist]

So I downloaded and installed the 32 bit version of OBS which had no crackling BUT will not see any of my FHD HDMI USB 3.0 video capture dongles.
I rebooted, re-ran the 32 bit version - still no video. Ran the 64 Bit version and now, lo and behold, everything works just fine. No clicking.
So this issue is such a wildcard.
Again, any insight as to how to make this work 100% of the time would be great....
My CPU now in the 64 bit version running 2 HD capture dongles and audio from the MBOX2 at 60fps is only 13% so it's not CPU related.

 

[Xorcist]

UPDATE: The clicking happens infrequently when there is silence but it is there - Once you introduce a signal, it gets worse...