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

I think my system sounds good and has life. Here is an iPhone video of one minute of Dame Janet Baker singing Where Corals Lies from Elgar’s Sea Pictures:

Elgar video

I hope this works. It’s hosted on Imgur. You may need to turn the sound on by hitting the speaker icon in the upper right. 

@larrykell 

I didn't see those specs, but I will take your word for it. Are these all power rating Class A? I read the brochure and it only gave 160 W rating at 8 ohms.

 

The specs are here:

Gryphon Colosseum Specs

in the right column. The whole system is on a dedicated 20a line and the amplifier is plugged into a high current plug on an AudioQuest Niagara 5000.

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.