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

Larry if the speaker cable on your left channel had a short and was creating noise and you then moved that cable to the right channel it would make noise there also right? When you swap cables like that you're not bypassing them you need to swap in another cable to rule them out.

I didn’t move the cable, I just swapped what channel on the amp was connected to which cable. Both speakers are still connected with the same cables.

Ah I see what you did apologies Larry and carry on and good luck getting your amp repaired!

@larrykell 

 

you are making this too hard. Almost any amp will do. You seem to be worried about the speaker cable lugs fitting and you can look for a LOOOOONG time before you THINK they might fit. In the meantime you could buy a reasonable amp, you could buy some spade to banana adapters (transparent among many make them) or better yet, buy some cheap cables or even marginal bare wire that will get you by. Once again, you are looking for something temporary and you will dislike to varying degrees virtually everything you might acquire.