If you play back a stream created by ScannerCast using any version of RealPlayer, the resulting audio will contain periodic pops, clicks, screeches, and noise. This happens whether you directly listen to a ScannerCast stream, or you listen to a stream created by ScannerCast that's being relayed through a SHOUTcast/Icecast server.
This problem occurs because RealPlayer incorrectly handles the SHOUTcast metadata interval parameter, causing it to attempt to decode the metadata as MP3 audio data. This bug was first reported to the RealPlayer developers in 2005, and applies to any SHOUTcast or Icecast stream that doesn't use the default metadata interval of 16K. Real Networks (the for-profit company that owns RealPlayer) hasn't fixed the bug in all these years, and my attempts to report this problem to the RealPlayer developers, or at least hear their side of the story, received no reply.
While ScannerCast could be changed to use the default metadata interval, that would seriously degrade tag/audio synchronization. I have no plans to change the way ScannerCast works to make it work with a third-rate, broken, media player.