M1 Pro 16" here. Same problem. Strong pop/crack every 3 seconds or so while listening to music. Running on battery. Nothing in Activity Monitor runs above 10% CPU and kernel_task isn't in the top 18 items.

On MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021), Apple M1 Pro, I've found that resetting the PRAM resolves the issue for a day or two. Then the problem increases by time.

I don't have any plugins or dongles or other audio hardware. I don't have MSTeams. I typically don't run Rosetta apps. I really hope Ventura will be the end to this bug.