sol. list out everything you have running in the background and what you have your lappy plugged into (sorry i havent listened to the file) but is the crackling non stop or when you do things (for example mine was more prevelant when i loaded tracks). finally, i know you have listed what version of tsp you are using but have you had a look at (and reinstalled) the soundcard firmware. I remember one of their updates to the firmware also caused havoc. as has been discussed previously, NI is even worse than apple with their iphone/ itunes releases in terms of sending out untested buggy software. so if you get a setup that works, dont change it unless you really have to.