Hi,
recently I've noticed an odd "crackling" sound during playback of a recently recorded audio file. I've bypassed Izotope nectar (as a possible cause) and it is still there. I'm running I7 with 32 GB of RAM so I'm stumped.
Any thoughts?

Not too much info here. More would be helpful.
But If you have found that it's Izotope nectar, it could be a clipping issues somewhere on the chain. I would look in that direction first.

What audio card are you using?  Have you adjusted your latency?

I'm using a Tascam US 2x2 as my playback. Buffer size is 64 samples. Everything ran well until two days ago but now it's a problem. I've bypassed Nectar but it's still there. I'm looking at clipping issues along the chain but see none. If I start playback before the actual start it's better.
 
 

Try increasing the ASIO buffers. Also depending on how you "bypassed" Nectar, it still may affect the project.

scook knows his stuff, I'd definitely try increasing buffers.
 
This may be extreme, but I've found that when weirdness suddenly start happening that something I'm unaware of has been changed in my computer.  On those occasions I do a system restore to see if that solves it.  If it does then you know that the problem isn't in SPLAT or your sound card. 

Still short of details, but if you're recording two tracks at once, you may be hearing the effect of this bug:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com...quencies-m3345076.aspx

I get the same thing i think...if i export the project as mp3 or wav its fine its only when listening back in sonar..if i pause and continue to listen sometimes it stops...does that sound familiar george...or ill just restart play sometimes it stops

kook :
that is exactly what's happening. Have you found a fix?

As asked. if you give us more info about your whole system it will be easier to pinpoint the problem. Put your specs in your signature like most of us do and it saves a whole lot of back and forth. 
 
But your problem is simply your running at too low a buffer setting which is the number one reason you'll get audio issues. Either that or you have background stuff running and using CPU, run Latency Monitor and check.