By matthewamadeusw
#4937225
Hello,
I just hooked my speakers up to the GBFans sound board and tested it out for the first time. Unfortunately, both speakers crackle almost constantly at higher volumes (over about 50%). The problem seems to be worse for the start up and hum sounds, but not so bad for the stream sound. Here are the speakers' specs:

Boss Audio SK553 5.25" 3-way 275W speaker pair
- Power Handling:
Peak: 137 watts
RMS: 67 watts
- Black Metallic Poly Injection Cone
- 1" (25mm) High Temperature Aluminum Voice Coil
- 1" (25mm) Mylar Dome Midrange
- 1/2" (13mm) Piezo Tweeter
- 4 ohms impedance
- Frequency Response: 85Hz - 20kHz
- Sensitivity: 90 dB

I wired them in series, following the instructions for the sound board. I used brand new 18-gauge wire and all of the solder joints are good and strong.

I'm not sure what's causing it. Has anybody encountered this problem before? Anybody have experience with these speakers? I'd appreciate any help I can get.
User avatar
By Spectregater
#4937242
I was having this problem until I bought some speakers that were highly rated for low end frequencies. Also think the sound files on the soundboard are not a very high bitrate.
Speaking of that does anyone know what the bitrate is exactly?
User avatar
By NotSabbat
#4937246
OK, so I have only recently gotten into speaker stuff, so take it with a grain of salt but here goes;

Ill start with the super simple explanation in that it may just be loose wires, or wires that are loose enough to shake free when the speakers are on. Though its probably not that, it doesn't hurt to check.

Too much power?
I know that putting too much power through a speaker can cause the speaker to blow which can manifest as crackling speakers initially.

"Boss Audio SK553 5.25" 3-way 275W speaker pair" the 275W part confuses me because it is then followed up with Peak: 137 watts
RMS: 67 watts, which means that it should generally be run at 67Watts, but can handle occasional input up to 137W, which generally means they are 67Watt speakers not 275W. However, that is honestly just being nit picky because it looks like the GBFans sound board is a 10W amplifier, so the most if can apply is 10W to the speaker, so the problem should NOT have anything to do with putting too much power into the speaker.

Topping out the amp:
This is the most likely cause. the speakers can take a LOT more power than the onboard amp on the GBFans sound board can provide. Amplifiers tend to have some distortion at the top end. I dont have any direct experience with the GBFan soundboard so I dont know for sure, but a lot of time the top 10-20% of volume will have some distortion; that may be the pops you are hearing.

As a side note (as I understand it) sound volume is double at an additional 10 decibels. Your speakers have a Sensitivity of 90 dB. That means your speakers should put out around 90dBs of sound at 1W of power. As a rule of thumb you must double the input wattage to increase the sound by 3 dB; that means that the amp supplying 10W of power that it will hit around 99dB before it tops out and probably starts to have some distortion, ie it will probably have distortion when close to double the volume.

If not enough power is the problem you can set the GBFans soundboard to half volume (or at some volume without distortion) and connect the output to another amplifier with a higher Wattage.

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