Stereo/speakers throwing in the towel?

[Big Chris]

Had my stereo about 5 years now, it's not a particularly good one by the standards in here, it's a Sanyo JCX-X5 which cost about £300. It's in seperates (CD and tape deck now gone, so I just have the 100W amp bit) and has always served me well. The amp gives a nice warm sound and the speakers are pretty decent too, three seperate cones on each one and there's enough adjustment on the amp to set them up for different types of music.

Recently though, things have taken a turn for the worse. Certain types of music (mainly hip-hop and DnB) have made the speakers pop and crackle noticably, and playing rock through them sounds a bit like I'm listening to a tape.

They amp is connected directly to my PC via a single cable (red & black connector at one end, forget what it's called) and goes into my Creative X-Fi music soundcard. It's always sounded good until recently, but a few people have commented on the sound quality and I'm wondering if it's the speakers, the amp or cabling?

Any advice appreciated as I clearly have no idea what I'm talking about!

 

[Firegod]

Hmm. Let's try to look at this logically. If it was the cable it would be doing it all the time, regardless of the music type being played. So I would rule that out. The speakers perhaps could be the problem, where certain frequencies and ranges of different music cause a problem.

You haven't perhaps altered any settings on the X-Fi or updated your system recently. As it may be the X-Fi casuing the pop's and crackles. Do you have on-board sound which you could test to rule out the soundcard also.

 

[Big Chris]

You haven't perhaps altered any settings on the X-Fi or updated your system recently. As it may be the X-Fi casuing the pop's and crackles. Do you have on-board sound which you could test to rule out the soundcard also.

Yeah that's a good idea, will give it a go.