I hate those crackle noises.
Find a better version of the song your using.
Or if it's the best version then idk dude. I've heard some songs taken from iTunes that even have those crackles which really makes me mad.
But lowering sample rates is only going to make it lower quality I think.
Well some songs on here makes the crackle noise and some don't. people say its the sample rate some say defrag my sd card...
right because its the songs themselves that are the root of the problem.
Some people like to amp up the songs before they upload them on to the site as well so the youtube preview isnt always an accurate representation.
Lowering the sample rate shouldnt do anyhting to fix this problem (I cant see why it would) a sample rate is how often the program will take "snap shots" of your song and code it into listenable audio. Lowering that means it will take less of these snap shots and thus making the quality even worse. Find a good high quality version. Usually I go to youtube and look for videos with 480p or better because usually the songs in higher quality.