After I installed the latest patch to Tiger OS X on my iMac, I started getting a pop sound after every sound initialization on my external speakers. Funny, but my internal speakers worked fine when I unplugged them. I though the speakers were going up, but figured I would wait to be sure. Well Apple just put out a fix for the annoying sound/noise, and thanks so much! My iMac has been such a smooth running computer, that when the pop sound appeared I was puzzled and disappointed. They didn't waste much time, and got this fixed in a few days (no doubt after complaints).
Use Software Update to get the latest patch or go here to read more (About Audio Update 2007-001).