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

swap the interconnects between the preamp and amp and see if it moves. That will tell you amp vs preamp.

Yes, first I switched the speaker cables and the crackle switched channels. Switching the inputs from the preamp did not move the crackle. 

Just to throw this out there Larry it could also be a short in your speaker cables maybe check that before hauling the monster amp someplace. I had a short in an interconnect cable that made the same type of noise.

Ok, well, I’ll buy a replacement amplifier, swap it in, and see if the crackle comes back. I don’t want to take any more chances with the monster amp.