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

Good point, there @audphile1. And before applying any contact enhancer, might be worth checking that all connectors are firmly seated. 

Thanks everybody. I’ve seen enough to swap the amp to see what happens. I can’t take any more chances with the monster amplifier. The crackling appears to be happening more frequently now.

I’m not going down the tube road. You guys have convinced me to stay away. 😁

I know the people at Soundsmith will get it fixed. They’re wonderful. 

""I swapped the speaker cables at the amplifier and the crackle moved to the other speaker.""

Run one single attached speaker cable then the other to determine if it is the cable? Maybe you did that as I did not read every post. 

Who makes a good 150w into 8ohms Class AB amplifier for about $3k? I need to be able to lift the thing. It has to have balanced inputs. No tubes. 

Yes seriously Larry make sure its not the speaker cable before you buy a new amp.