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

@larrykell 

1. Swap left and right speaker wires at the output of the amplifier. Please switch off the power amp when you do this otherwise you may damage your speaker. If the problem also moves from right to left speaker, then  you can rule out the speaker. Otherwise, problem is the right speaker probably a bad driver.

2. Now swap left and right connectors at the input side of the amp. If the problem also moves from left to right, then you can rule out the amp. Otherwise, it is the amp.

3. You can repeat this to the preamp as well.

Hope this helps

I switched the speaker cables and the crackle went to the other speaker. 

I'd go for a Son of Ampzilla II for around $1500. I missed one on Reverb. 220 watts into 8 ohms, 350watts into 4 ohms. A 20lb transformer is a good start. James Bongiorno always tried to provide a lot of bang for the buck. 

I probably won't be happy with any Class D in my price range and might be somewhat happy with Class AB. For me, Class A is the destination. 

Actually it’s better to start switching the interconnect from the source and head down stream until it changes channels. Just because you switched at the pre amp doesn’t preclude the problem isn’t before it. I realize you found it's the amp but that’s what i had to do to isolate a problem in my pre amp 2 months ago.

Before the preamp are my sources, and switching between them did not get rid of the crackle. Hopefully, I’ll have a new amp to try within the week to see what happens. I’m not going to be able to move the monster amp for probably a month or more. 

@larrykell

I am happy to hear you found the problem with amp. I had this happened twice with my Mark Levinson 23.5. First time, it was a capacitor gone bad. So I sent the unit to George Meyers AV and they completely replaced all electrolyte capacitors. Then earlier this year, my left channel became barely audible. I sent the unit back to George Meyers and they found the problem and fixed it at no cost to me except shipping & handling.

So I had to do this drill to isolate the problem. I have tubes upstream and some tubes can give similar problems you described. I always start from the speaker side and work up the chain to all the way to source. One time, I had a bad tube in my Audio Research PH5 phone and right channel began to fad in and out.

You have an excellent system. But have you noticed that impedance of your speaker drops to 3.5 Ohms and your amp is rated at 160 W Class A at 8 Ohms? Since it is an all Gryphon system, it may be working. However, I would recommend you find an amp also rated at 4 ohm and 2 ohm preferably power doubles as impedance is halved. Since you are now looking for an amp, this may be an opportunity to find out if you can breath new life to your speakers. For an example, ML 332 advertised below may be a worth a shot. This unit was recently serviced by George Meyers.