Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Crackling speakers

Home alone after my daughter went off to open gymnastics class so I cranked up the Fellowship of the Ring we were watching and I realized there's a problem: during some of the loud passages there is an electrical crackling coming mainly from the left M80 and perhaps also the VP150 that I realized is not part of the soundtrack because it is not there at lower volumes. Could this be cabling or the 663 crapping out? It is only hitting -11 db when this begins to be prominent so I would think it's not the preamp. Does any one know what I should investigate in terms of the usual suspects? Using banana plugs for the M80s and the connections seem hand wound tight and solid to the upper posts. Maybe I should start by plugging the banana plugs into the upper connections on the M80s and see if I can continue to reproduce?

The crackling seems to happen with loud LFEs, a popping sound. Is it possible that the left M80 isn't handling the output of the A1400-8 with the mains set to large? More likely I should think loose cabling somewhere.

I would first of all have your 80's set to "small" and 60 or 80hz crossover on your receiver. I don't think that is your problem, but for HT that is what you want to follow THX standards. Have you calibrated all your speakers to the same SPL. Also, have you verified you don't have your speaker wires crossed + and - wrong?

Not sure what is the problem? I would call or email Axiom CS tomororrow and go through there suggested troubleshooting.

I'm such a big help .

Try switching the L/R mains and see if it does the same thing.

I was thinking the same thing, that would rule out the speaker.

Thanks guys for the ideas, my wife and daughter are back in play so no way to troubleshoot at the moment, have to wait til tomorrow.

Well I finally had a chance to crank up the system again today and was able to reproduce the crackling sound on the Fellowship of the Ring where the trees are being torn down around Chapter 19, if memory serves. When you crank it up there is this loud popping sound that is just not there at lower volumes. Today during this section of the movie the Yamaha spontaneously shut down. I have been suspecting the 663 since last week and won't be able to prove anything until I upgrade to a better pre/pro but I felt compelled to share my suspicions, which relate to the XPA2 as well, because perhaps the emo amp was going into protect for a reason. I never heard the popping sound on the XPA2 with the M80s because the amp would shut down, but when I hooked up the Polk 10Bs (to the 663 and XPA2) there was a popping sound as well as the speakers began to fry (burning plastic smell); I assumed this was because the 6 ohm 10Bs are rated at 250w max and the XPA2 puts out more power than that. You may recall I was using the intro to Hulk to troubleshoot the problem, unfortunately this contains a lot of electrical explosions so when I hooked up the M80s and the A1400 I thought a couple of the pops sounded a bit harsh but thought it might be accurate just too loud. The Fellowship passage is less ambiguous and suggests something is wrong.

The fix for now is not to play movies that loud (not something I want to experiment with much to avoid speaker damage), between 80-90 dbs is no problem, later I plan to replace the 663, still somewhat dragging my heels to see if the Outlaw 997 comes out in a timely fashion and is well received.

Although this is preliminary and still makes little sense I wanted to put this out so any who might be considering the XPA2 or 663 would know that my experiences with this equipment remain inconclusive, i.e., the XPA2 might pair just fine with the M80s given the right processor, the 663 might have some inexplicable glitches relating to "the curse of the Yamaha."

You could also look at the latest from integra. I think we forget about them a little here, I suppose a number of others as well.

The DTR 9.9 receiver looks very good as well, certified for 4ohm.

I wonder if Integra's can update the FW via Internet.