Cracking speaker ......gormit

BayleafTheGardener

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I have a pioneer lx303 available amp. Prior to this I had a yamaha av amp. The yamaha was part of a 7.1 system. The front speakers were Gold book shelf speakers.

I would get a cracking, snapping distortion sound from the right front speaker during the opening 10 minutes of the Dark Knight blueray. I would occasionally get the same distortion with some other films, but always with the Dark Night.

I upgraded to a Pioneer lx 303 which is now part of a 7.1.2 dolby atmos system. I replaced the front speakers with a pair of wharfedale 220 diamond speaker.

I still have the same problem with the front right speaker. I have checked the connections between the av amp and the speaker. And replaced the cable between the amp and the speaker.

I still have the same problem .

Any help would be gratefully received

BayleafTheGardener
 
If you have replaced the speaker, the amp and the cable the only realistic thing it can be is the source. What are you using? Is it repeatable distortion or random? Could your player be sensitive to discs with finger prints on etc? Do you get distortion with CDs?
 
Thanks for the reply.

It on happens when playing blurays and ultra blu rays . I have no problem with cd's and sacd's. It happens when there is a really loud crash (noise) in the film . I'm using a Sony ubp x700. If I turn volume down the problem goes away

I had exactly the same problem with previous system and I was using a Sony Bdp s7200

 
Do you have an exact timestamp for the noise?
 
Sorry don't have exact time for the crackle. But it has also happened during loud explosions during Hacksaw ridge and Midway. Always right front speaker
 
I wonder if there is a vibration somewhere nearby the speaker that is influencing the cabinet/driver at certain specific frequencies/volume? Are you 100% sure it's the speaker? Can you move the speakers out into the room a bit, sit where the speaker would be and play the disc again to see if the distortion is from the direction of the speaker or elsewhere nearby?
 
I'm sure its coming from the speaker. You can crank up the volume as loud as you like for cds and sacds, and there is no problem. In actual fact I've haven't noticed the problem when playing dads. Its only during loud sound effects like explosions that you hear the crackle. At -24 db there is no problem. At -21 db a slight but definite crackle.

At -18 db very loud crackle and you immediately start looking for av control to turn down the volume.

As it sounds , as left unchecked it could case damage to the speaker
 
What happens if you swap the speaker wires over left to right? Does the distortion stay with the right speaker or does it move? That would help rule out electronics or speakers.
 
Sounds like a problem with your BR player (could be a dry joint inside, being rattled by the air movement of the loud passages).....
 
What happens if you swap the speaker wires over left to right? Does the distortion stay with the right speaker or does it move? That would help rule out electronics or speakers.
I'll give that ago . I'm going to watch schindlers list 4k with dolby atmos soundtrack , this evening . I'll the have a play with the speaker cables
 
Sounds like a problem with your BR player (could be a dry joint inside, being rattled by the air movement of the loud passages).....
I had the same problem with the previous set up , including another Sony BP a s 7200. Is this a common problem with BP players, particularly Sony BP players ?
 
Not to my knowledge....

Logically, as you have replaced the speakers and receiver, checked the wiring etc. I couldn't think what else it could be except the BR player. I'm assuming you have active bass management enabled and set to divert bass (80-100Hz) to the subwoofer?

You could try isolating the BR player (placing on a cushion), making sure it's away from subwoofer/speakers etc but I have to admit, I'm puzzled by this.

Long shot, have you tried a different HDMI cable between the BR and receiver?
 
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The other possibility is that you are unwittingly driving the amplifier/speakers too high, which will cause clipping/distortion. I don't know what your idea of loud is but the amplifier is rated at 170 W/channel, based on 1 channel being driven(!).

This is unrealistic, as when driving all 9 channels, real power output is likely to be around 60/80 Watts per channel (if that). If you're driving it really loud, then you will get clipping/distortion. You have to remember that lossless HD audio tracks have a huge dynamic range and it's easy to exceed the clipping threshold when playing these tracks at already loud volumes.

Try playing the same movie with the receiver's dynamic range limiter (late night mode) activated and see what happens.
 
It happens with both AVRs: Pioneer LX303 and Yamaha
It happens with both sets of Speakers: Gold book shelf speakers and wharfedale 220 diamond
It happens with both Blu ray Players: Sony ubp x700 and Sony Bdp s7200

That eliminates all of the above devices. A few things to check:

Take Subwoofer out. What happens?

Move the right speaker and place it next to the left speaker so they are together. This eliminates the possibility of some unknown resonance around the location of the right speaker. Playback material, what happens?
 
The other possibility is that you are unwittingly driving the amplifier/speakers too high, which will cause clipping/distortion. I don't know what your idea of loud is but the amplifier is rated at 170 W/channel, based on 1 channel being driven(!).

This is unrealistic, as when driving all 9 channels, real power output is likely to be around 60/80 Watts per channel (if that). If you're driving it really loud, then you will get clipping/distortion. You have to remember that lossless HD audio tracks have a huge dynamic range and it's easy to exceed the clipping threshold when playing these tracks at already loud volumes.

Try playing the same movie with the receiver's dynamic range limiter (late night mode) activated and see what happens.
Thanks for the advice. I've tried a different hdmi cable, bluray player and swapped the speakers around and still suffered the same problem. I recalibrate the system. Problem remained.

I couldn't fine a night time setting for the amp. The amp has three settings, pure direct, direct and auto surround.
I have always been lead to believe that running pure direct was the best thing to do. I have now tried auto surround and selected the desired mode in this case dtx hd , for bluray the dark knight rises. And the problem seems to be gone.

Why is it the amp can't cope with pure direct for this bluray ? The problem seemed more noticeable with Christopher Nolan films

Cheers
 
Doesn't pure direct bypass processing? It might be sending LFE to that speaker and pushing it way beyond what it's designed for. You shouldn't be using pure direct except for 2 channel music.
 
Doesn't pure direct bypass processing? It might be sending LFE to that speaker and pushing it way beyond what it's designed for. You shouldn't be using pure direct except for 2 channel music.
I wasn't aware of that . So should I always use auto surround and select the required mode. Is there good mode to always use. Or is it just a case of personal preference. If pure direct is just for 2 channel sound ? What is direct sound best used for ?

Pure direct does bypass most of the processing. And Direct not as much of the processing.

Thanks again for your help
 
For movies and surround content generally, use auto surround. I presume in pure direct you can tell the sound is only coming from left and right speakers? If all the speakers are still active when watching a movie, it would be a very strange pure direct!
 
I wasn't aware of that . So should I always use auto surround and select the required mode. Is there good mode to always use. Or is it just a case of personal preference. If pure direct is just for 2 channel sound ? What is direct sound best used for ?

Pure direct does bypass most of the processing. And Direct not as much of the processing.

Thanks again for your help
The only difference between Pure Direct and Direct is that the front fascia display is turned off and any unwanted electronics are also turned off. Both will only play the track that is layed down on any disc or source you play. Nolan's films are 5.1 DTS-HD MA and that is what you will get. You will get the .1 LFE channel as designed on that disc.

You cannot add any upmixing to Pure Direct or Direct. Doing so will take you out of that function. Pure Direct or Direct is preferred for stereo music although this will by-pass any bass management and will not give any signals to the sub. It's slightly better for music but not by much and you may suffer if the front left and right speakers have a poor bass response.
 
What a strange thing to add by Pioneer then. Every other example I have seen of a pure direct type button has been to switch off ALL processing! The amp would still need a decoder to send the output to the correct speaker?

Of course, this still doesn't explain what the OPs issue is. Getting distortion by turning off processing suggest a fault with the amp but as they have replaced everything, I'm really baffled now.

@gibbsy you said it bypasses any bass management, but then could it be sending bass that would usually get moved to the sub to the front speakers, and the speakers don't like that?
 
I think processing and decoding are different. In direct mode the AVR will still decode the signal, but that's it. If it's two channel then you'll get L and R only, no bass management, no upmixing.

If it's a 5.1 channel you'll get the five channels from your base layer and the .1 from the sub, if present.

It will send the below crossover signals in the mains to the mains though, whereas with bass management engaged it'll redirect that bass to the subs.
 
Maybe I'm thinking more how my Arcam works, although I suppose it's called stereo direct rather than pure direct. Engaging stereo direct switches everything off!

Anyway, we are still no closer to solving the OP's problem. Sorry OP!
 
What happens if you feed your Arcam a 5.1 signal in pure direct though, you should get 5.1 right?
 
Nope - just 2 channel stereo. To be fair to Arcam, they call it stereo direct. I can see (and hear) the benefit of it. It only works on analogue inputs.

Having a multi channel pure direct mode just doesn't make sense to me. A decoder is still processing the bitstream and moving it where it needs to go. It makes even less sense also having a direct mode as well as a pure direct.
 

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