iFi speakers starting to crackle at medium to louder volume

[swingerofbirches]

I bought a set of iFi speakers probably about 4 years ago because they were on sale at Costco. I am one of those people who really knows nothing about audio. I've never had anything but the speakers built into TVs or built into computers.

Anyhow, these speakers were absolutely something and have been one of my favorite purchases until recently.

I was playing my music a bit louder than usual on them, but not so loud I thought I would break anything, and I noticed ever since then, if I play them at a medium volume, certain sounds cause a static, crackly sound. It's quite disappointing. I play my music through an Airport Express which connects to the iFi system (I don't use an iPod with it).

I have unplugged and replugged all of the connections. This actually improved the static/crackling sound at first. But the crackling sound still comes in at medium volume when certain sounds are played, I think probably sounds with more bass. If I turn up the volume louder, the crackling will invariably play. Some songs don't seem to reproduce the crackling as much as others. Strangely the song which I originally think I may have played too loud was Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," which, when I play it loud, does not induce any static or crackling (or maybe the loudness of that song covers it up). I hear it more when I play quieter songs like the Glee version of "Songbird" and the piano notes sound. The song "Treefingers" by Radiohead, which is sort of a deep bass ambient sound song, induces a light constant crackling, so it seems somewhat bass related. I just played the song Alegria from Cirque du Soleil, and it was really crackly.

So my questions are: 1) Is it possible it's still a cable problem? Could the cables go bad? 2) If not, is it worth repairing? And how would I? 3) Are there other speakers like these? I think I paid maybe $150-200, but I have never heard anything like these before. I would love for them to keep going if I could. They're a bit funky with the iPod dock, which I never used, but I have never had sound like this before--which shows i am not at all an audiophile. I'm sure it gets much better, but for me these are amazing.

[ifi123]

"light constant crackling" seems like a common problem with iFi. is it worth repairing? it depends, but for me I just re-cap the whole board with better electrolyte capacitors (21 pieces) and rewire the crappy DIN cable into 24AWG wire (instead of 28-30AWG original).

1.) it might be a problem with the DIN cable or your source cable. I can't be sure unless you do some trial-and-error with it. but, most importantly, all the electrolyte capacitors in the iFi are of very bad quality. Last year i replaced 1 capacitor and it works perfectly for 4 mths. so i figure out i should replaced all of it.

2.) worth repairing or not, depends on how much time you willing to spend. some people who are good with DIY could just solder some stuff, probably takes few hours and few bucks for the replacement. if you aren't you can send it to someone with expertise. if you read around similar iFi threads you can see some people send their iFi to technician and have them fixed.

3.) other speakers like these at 200$ brand new? im not sure but i haven't heard any 2.1 PC Speaker system that blows the iFi. for non-PC speakers, im not sure.

to ensure your speaker drivers are not the one crackling, you can see if the crackling appear randomly, especially after a cold start (unplug your ifi from wall outlet).

[swingerofbirches]

Thank you. Yeah I was thinking of buying a new cable, perhaps what you call source cable (the one that goes from the Airport Express to the speaker system), as that would oviously be the easiest thing to fix. I don't understand some of your terminology. You sound like an expert electrical engineer to me. I'll show your response to my dad thoughhe might know more about these things. But neither of us would know about repairing this. So, if I do get it repaired, will need to send it off. Thank you very much for taking the time with a very detailed response.

Do you know what about this system makes it so good (the sound, that is)? For me it was just dumb luck that I came across it at Costco.

[ifi123]

well i am by all means no expert, just that i am also trying to fix my iFi that's why i often checked this forum. i believe the iFi sounds great because of klipsch engineering team. inside the subwoofer you will find very big transformer and two powerful class d chip (tda8920 & tda8924), two reference RSX-3 satellites which is rarely found in other 2.1 PC speakers within 200$ mark.

the only problem was klipsch was trying to reduce some cost by putting crappy capacitors (rifeking) and very thin and fragile din cable that causes many problems with iFi after few years of usage. luckily though, iFi doesn't fail as often as promedia 5.1 ultra.

i like the iFi, for 200-300$ i believe they are worth every penny. too bad mine doesn't produce any sound now, after i replaced all the rifeking capacitors. if it doesn't sound any good i wouldn't have wasted many time trying to fix it with my limited skills.