Sound, Audio Crackling/Popping

Description

When certain sounds are played, they start with an electronic snapping sound, like a single crackle.

When I walk, I hear the crackle every step. When I press WASD in a ship with thrusters, I hear the crackle. When I open a door, I hear the crackle. I don't hear it from pressing menu buttons.

What I did to try and fix it

I'm using headphones set to 24bit 48kHz. I tried restarting after setting to 44.1kHz, no change.

I tried switching headphones, I tried using my speakers. Happens on every save. Tried disabling audio effects in windows settings for the headphones, speakers, restarting ofcourse. Tried disabling spatial audio, doesn't make a difference, theré's still popping.

Happens with or without mods.

I tried validating files, reinstalling.

I tried interacting with stuff to see if anything would make it go away even temporarily. I tried placing blocks, interacting, then removing them, placing conveyors - anything that could somehow give me any kind of lead on what could be causing this. I mention conveyors because sometimes conveyor systems just stop 'conducting hydrogen' and placing then removing a conveyor will 'wake up' the system and hotfix the glitch.

Happens on every graphics setting (I say this because I googled for related issues and could only find mega-old Reddit threads suggesting I should toggle AA off/on).

What might be causing it

I don't have this in other games.

Sound in this game is very weird - if a sound is coming directly from the right, then I hear it /only/ in my right ear - not even a tiny bit in my left ear, as if the sound source is some kind of sonic laser. No sound reflections, like the sound just gets absorbed into my right ear and my left ear is just shielded from the sound by my right ear. Very weird.

Along with the other threads on audio, I think it's all related.

The problems with surround sound and so on.

Sidenote: I don't know why a control station has to output constant noise, considering it's just a chair with a screen and a joystick.