Clicking noise from my amp?

Auraomega · 16 Oct 2010 at 01:39

I recently was given a pair of Sony SS-E30 speakers and an amp, however the amp has started making a really fast and rather noisy clicking sound when turned on that has been lasting progressively longer. The sound is definitely from the amp and not the speakers and only happens when powered on, it sounds like high voltage shocks however I've had the case off and this doesn't appear to be the case. Usually if left long enough it stops although I've just tried to turn it on and after about 5 minutes there has been no change...

So, my question is what is the cause and is it fixable? I'm comfortable with a soldering iron so if it's a simple component swap that's great, if it's something more complicated can someone recommend an amp for these speakers? I'm not looking for anything expensive as I've spent a lot on headphones, sound cards and music players lately.

To be fair I don't really know much about speakers as these are my first 'real' speakers, but from what I can find they're rated at 50w and are 8ohm, if I need a new amp I'd like one that'd cover me for future purchases, so surround sound support would be great

MikeHunt79 · 16 Oct 2010 at 05:55

It sounds like it could be a relay. These are often used for speaker protection, so there may be a reason.

There may be something making the relay trip, do you have a multimeter?

Auraomega · 16 Oct 2010 at 12:53

Of course, however it's not a particularly good one :rolleyes:

Auraomega · 17 Oct 2010 at 21:02

Hate to bump, but the amp won't stop clicking at all now and is pretty much unusable.

MikeHunt79 · 17 Oct 2010 at 23:05

Auraomega said:
Of course, however it's not a particularly good one

Any multimeter is better than no multimeter, in fact I bought around 5 from ebay for around £2 each and they work a great for most basic stuff.

Auraomega said:
Hate to bump, but the amp won't stop clicking at all now and is pretty much unusable.

Ok, try this.

I'm assuming your amp has RCA inputs? If so, make an interconnect cable that shorts the signal to ground, so you've got 0 ohms between the pin and outer RCA case. You can even get proper little shorting caps which do this which look like this:

but you can achieve the same thing with any RCA to RCA cable and a few bits of copper wire.

If you have any cheap speakers handy then make sure they are connected, if not you can use a high power resistor connected to the amp outputs, just make sure it's 10 ohms or more.

Now put your multimeter probes on to one pair of speaker output terminals, + and -. Set your meter to measure Volts DC.

Now turn the amp and see if there is any DC voltage on your speaker outputs. There should be 100mv or less.

If it jumps to over 1v for a short time, then this could be what is making the relay click (which in turn stops your speakers from getting any DC voltage).

If the voltage remains below 100mv the whole time then the speaker protection circuit is at fault.

Auraomega · 17 Oct 2010 at 23:33

Ok, just done that and got no reading on anything above the 200mA scale, what would you suggest from here?

MikeHunt79 · 17 Oct 2010 at 23:56

Auraomega said:
Ok, just done that and got no reading on anything above the 200mA scale, what would you suggest from here?

You need to double check that your meter was set to 200mV not 200mA, you should read around 10mV or so.

Auraomega · 18 Oct 2010 at 00:06

My bad, I meant 200mV not mA.

I was getting ~00.7 on the 200mV scale, but I'm half asleep and can't figure out what that was

AtaRo · 19 Oct 2010 at 22:34

check the solder around the relay and drive circuits look for dry or cracks in the
solder and give it a good amount of soldering lead.

Auraomega · 20 Oct 2010 at 18:56

I just basically re-soldered most of the board (a lot of it looked discoloured) and while the relay still clicks a bit when powered on it's nothing compared to before and I'd go so far as to say the sound quality is much better now than it was a few weeks back. To be fair though I may treat myself to a new amp anyway, both the amp and speakers were given to me so spending a bit on them isn't a problem. Any suggestions?

XILLAX · 20 Oct 2010 at 20:01

I don't really have any advice, but that fixing the amp with re-soldering is pretty cool, I'd never have thought of that!

--

Sorry to jump into your thread, but I thought I would share a nice amp story

I once had an amp which played the radio when i turned it on lol.

It started after my bathroom flooded and the water dripped through the floor and also flood my living room where my amp was.

That was pretty bad ass, occasionally if you strummed the guitar it would even change station.. don't know how it worked but it was crazy.

Auraomega · 20 Oct 2010 at 20:47

Probably the same concept as hearing the radio after having fillings in teeth

MikeHunt79 · 21 Oct 2010 at 14:44

Auraomega said:
My bad, I meant 200mV not mA.

I was getting ~00.7 on the 200mV scale, but I'm half asleep and can't figure out what that was

Well it sounds like the amp isn't going to damage your speakers at least, which is good.

Auraomega said:
I just basically re-soldered most of the board (a lot of it looked discoloured) and while the relay still clicks a bit when powered on it's nothing compared to before and I'd go so far as to say the sound quality is much better now than it was a few weeks back. To be fair though I may treat myself to a new amp anyway, both the amp and speakers were given to me so spending a bit on them isn't a problem. Any suggestions?

Hmm, it sounds to me like there could be a dry joint somewhere meaning there is too much resistance somewhere in the circuit.

If you can put up a few pics, there may be something which looks out of place, also what is the make and model of the amp? Schematics can really help here...