I suggest to remove all HDMI connections and see if the pop remains. I remember someone was having a similar though not exactly the same issue, and it was HDMI related.
Integra DHC-80.3 and Anthem MCA 50/20 Amps (I did not have popping, just loud Hum)
"The popping sound is like using a 9 volt battery to test speaker polarity. It occurs also if the amps are already on before the receiver has finished it's start up. The receiver is an Onkyo TX NR809"
I spent 2 weeks and numerous suggestions from PENG and other excellent resources on this site and was unable to resolve the issue
My situation:
- My amp would turn on from 12v trigger and even tested manual and would hum loudly on all speakers while my Integra went through HDMI setup, once it finished they were whisper quiet playing multi-channel audio
1. When it tried to play Dobly Digital or DTS content that was 5.1 channel my back rear speakers would hum (i.e. the back surrounds which were not supposed to be getting any signal, which was hard to isolate due to 4x dipole speakers)
2. This occurred on both my Xbox 360 and Cablebox content when Dobly D 5.1 was being played. I was finally able to figure out part of the problem when I completely disconnected the back surrounds
3. I reconnected the rear surrounds and selected 5.1 in Speaker Setup, but even in that mode the 2 Back Speakers plugged into the amp, they would hum, so the only way to eliminate the noise during normal playback was to remove those speakers and go 5.1 (This did not eliminate the hum on HDMI Startup or Firmware upgrade menu)
4. I hooked up my amps to my old AVM 30 Anthem and it worked perfectly silent, but I was also not using HDMI.
6. All speakers would hum anytime I would try to do a firmware upgrade or when I tried to do level calibration, but would return to quiet when I was back on source
7. I had a dedicated Isolated 20amp circuit installed for my HT gear and that did not fix the issue.
8. I finally spoke to Bob at Integra (He is the troubleshooter for professional installers) who basically told me that there was pretty much nothing more he could think of to test it out and suggested for some reason there was a compatibility issue with my Amp and the Integra
9. My dealer lent me his Integra and had the same issue
9. My dealer then lent me a new Halo A52 amp and I did not experience any of the same issues as it was quiet on all modes
I have read a very few posts on bad HDMI boards with Integra/Onkyo, but I am not sure if that really is the issue.
At that point and two weeks of testing I finally said "screw it" and bought the A52 and J23 Halo amps for 2k.
- 2k for both amps was a incredible deal and even though they had less power than the Anthems, I was thoroughly impressed by the quality of sound. I was trouble shooting issue and using 007 Skyfall Bluray as sample and noticed a significant difference in sound quality between the two.
- My dealer is evil, he must have known that I would want those amps when he let me borrow them LOL