Phil L.

I have lately noticed some crackling coming from one of my rear speakers when playing a DVD.
I'm running them through a Sony 855 digital receiver, and notice the crackling during the dts demo at the start of some DVD's, and during the playing of others.
I have checked the wire connections and they seem secure. I also looked at the speaker itself and the paper does not look ripped at all, and the interior connections seem solid.

It seems to happen only during playback of LOUD scenes.
I noticed the noise during parts of Saving Private Ryan, Independence Day, and Gladiator.

Any ideas what could be causing this??

discostu1337

Perhaps the wire is coming loose on the speaker or the receiver. Or maybe its distortion from the receiver?

macsax

Also check your set-up on your rear channel levels. If you have a set-up function on your receiver that plays test signals, or a disk that does the same, use that. Many people have the tendency to turn rear channels up to hear them better without realizing that there are a lot of movies out there that don't have rear channel information throughout the entire length of the production. The louder passages simply push your amplification circuits harder and will force them to distort (specifically: clip).

discostu1337

AH, thats a good thing to check as well...I have my center/rears set +2 more than my fronts, just enough to make them stand out a bit more throughout the movie.

bfrank

Take of the grille and apply equal pressure down around the cone so it moves straight back. Do you hear any rubbing or scratching? If so the coil could be going bad from to much heat. Other wise I would look to the amp or you connections. One think you could try is hooking it to the front and then play the same signal in stereo. This gives the amp more headroom and eliminates the connections of the rear position. If it still there then it is the speaker

Phil L.

Ok, good thought.
I checked the test levels on the receiver and found that I had the rears set at +8 !
I dropped them down to 4 just as a starting point and I think this should help.
I think the speakers being set that high, were being blown out by the amp during cetain parts of movies.

Phil L.

I took off the grille and checked it as you described and it all seems fine.
The other thing I did was switch the two rears to see if it was that specific channel coming from the amp or that specific speaker.
Well I did not hear any crackling at all.
I re-checked all connections and dropped down the level of the rears.
Now all I have to do is experiment with a few HIGH VOLUME DVD's.
Hope this solves it.

macsax

With your new level settings in the right ball park, you should be good to go. Keep an ear out though on your rear speakers. Just initially give a listen every once and a while for anything wierd going on in the tweeter like dropouts or scratchiness. Chances are no harm was done and this is where you would most likely hear it if anything did go amiss. You don't have to devote a lot of attention to this and don't let it get to be a distraction, if something is wrong you'll hear it. If you don't hear anything after a couple of discs you're golden.