2. amps-preamps
  3. 179823-22849

Crackling in right channel, what do I do? Help, please.

Sadly, I am experiencing crackling in the right channel of my system. The crackling happens intermittently and has happened on different sources, including my FM tuner, and from my DAC. It seems like the crackling is not related to the source. 

I have a monster of a system, including a Gryphon Colosseum amplifier, and a pair of Gryphon Cantata speakers. 

My system is described in the link below. How should I go about debugging this problem? Do I dare play the system? Should I buy a cheap amp and swap that in to see if the problem persists? Do I buy a cheap preamp as well? Do I start by swapping the speaker cables to the opposite speaker cables to see if the crackle moves to the other speaker? 

My system has been performing flawlessly for a number of years now. I did have to get cheap part replaced on the amplifier about three or four years ago, and used Soundsmith in Peekskill, NY.

I'm pretty brokenhearted about the possibility of having to get my system repaired. I had total hip replacement surgery two months ago and I can't lift anything. Moving the beast of an amp or the heavy speakers is out of the question. I suppose I could find somebody to help me if it comes to that. 

Sigh. 

Larry
 

 

larrykell
larrykell OP
122 posts
 

The amplifier is Class A the whole way. There are some low, and medium bias modes of 30w Class A and 70w Class A but I never use them. 
 

The manual Is here: 

 

the front and rear edges of the amplifier are heat sinks and, yes, they get hot. The amplifier wastes a watt in heat for every watt it produces in sound but it is a sweet sound.  

larrykell OP
122 posts
 

Another try at posting the manual:

Gryphon Colosseum Manual

muvluv's avatar
muvluv
45 posts
 

I had a similar problem with a crown xls 1502 and 2502 a very close to the same noise it ended up being the amp had to be cleaned 

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
4,154 posts
 

Larry…before you conclude it’s the amp and to make sure you cover all bases, try a different pair of interconnects and speaker cables to eliminate a potentially faulty cable. 

whart's avatar
whart
2,967 posts
 

Sometimes, troubleshooting is a pain. I had intermittent bursts of static in one channel. In the process of troubleshooting, I found one bad tube socket (replaced) and a bad XLR plug on an interconnect (got that re-terminated by manufacturer at no cost). I retubed everything -whole lotta tubes, almost none new stock. Still, despite this, and before sending equipment out for repair, I did a cross-channel exchange of the battery packs on my line stage- a fairly sophisticated device. In the process, I saw a bit of "fluff" on the metal contact plate. Dusted that and noise went away.

Moral: It could be something really stupid. I don’t know if there is a tech who could test some basic stuff at your home- like a house call. I almost resorted to that here in a town that’s thin on hi-fi (but lots of tube amp repair people in Austin for tube guitar/organ/other musical instrument amps).

I would also ask Grypon by phone (though you may have to set it up by email first) to tell you where they think the problem might lie if it is indeed the problem. Sometimes, those discussions give you leads to check something else.

Sympathize with you in suffering that "what’s the problem" phase until you suss it out. Some of the logic of troubleshooting is straightforward in terms of switching channels, trying to isolate to a particular component. It’s almost always got an answer, though. If that isn’t your thing maybe, depending on where you are located, somebody qualified could help do the troubleshooting. IT can be a PITA>

Good luck, you’ll find it and fix it.

 

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