Bad AV10 pre-amp channel? Crackling

[OutOfControl]

Gear is Marantz AV10 running Dirac Art, out to two D-Sonic amps, powering a 9.6.4 system.

Ran fine, but recently my right surround has a cracking sound. And this crackling is present at idle with nothing playing or with something playing. It does NOT seem to get any louder with an increase in volume.

Some background that may or may not be relevant ....Many months ago when running the Dirac Calibration, this speaker had a strange "short screech" sound after the Dirac tone sweep, and this was consistent after every seat position run. Just this speaker. I was suspect this speaker had a problem, but in ran fine in operation.

So, with this new crackling problem, I purchased another replacement speaker right off the bat, but the new speaker does the same thing.

Next, at the back of the Marantz, I swapped the Right surround with the left surround XLR cable, and the cracking moved to the left surround. So, it's not my wiring, or my D-sonic amps.

Next, changed the XLR cable and it's not that. So, it's got to be a problem with the AV10 itself on this channel only.

Questions: Do you agree with my analysis or did I miss any debugging? Is there any known issues with the AV10 and this problem? I can't find any. Is there any know issues with Dirac on the AV10 that could cause this problem?

Asking because I never had an issue when I ran Audyssey. Had the strange noise with Dirac a year ago when calibrating this channel. Now the crackling a month or so after upgrading to Dirac ART. I think all this must be something wrong in the AV10 on this channel but just want to make sure there is no association to Dirac.

Thanks

 

[flyboylr45]

Not an expert but I think you covered the trouble shooting pretty well. It’s not the speaker and it’s not the amps. I would reach out to Marantz.

 

[m. zillch]

Questions: Do you agree with my analysis or did I miss any debugging?

Your method sounded good to me. The only thing I'd add is I'd suggest getting to this state where you hear the crackling from the speaker while at idle and then see what happens when you press your AV10's "Pure Direct" switch. This bypasses many (but not quite all) processing. If the problem disappears while in PD mode it means either one of the processing steps is faulty or (fingers crossed) set to an improper or distorted value. What's good about that is you could hopefully remedy the situation on your own. For example, the unit probably has a "source input level sensitivity control" which theoretically might be set to a bad level that's distorting the sound. [Unlikely though.]

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I think try Pure Direct mode first.

If that doesn’t resolve, hard reset.

Then call Marantz.

 

[OutOfControl]

Thank you gentlemen. Very helpful. I'll try pure direct. And I did find that Marantz did have a crackling speaker issue on some builds, some channels, around September 2022. I have had it for years, so I likely have a problem to resolve. Lovely.

 

[TLS Guy]

Thank you gentlemen. Very helpful. I'll try pure direct. And I did find that Marantz did have a crackling speaker issue on some builds, some channels, around September 2022. I have had it for years, so I likely have a problem to resolve. Lovely.

I am sorry to hear that. Do a reset but it probably won't help. When I bought my AV 10, I did find that a batch of AV 10s built in September 2022, had the exact issue you describe. They did exchange the units but never released what the problem was. It was clearly a hardware problem though. I suspect it was a bad chip batch or cap batch. Hopefully Marantz will replace your unit. Thinking about it, I would contact Marantz before doing a hard reset and another set up. They quite likely, and should own the problem, even though you have had it for some time. This issue is well documented.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I am sorry to hear that. Do a reset but it probably won't help. When I bought my AV 10, I did find that a batch of AV 10s built in September 2022, had the exact issue you describe. They did exchange the units but never released what the problem was. It was clearly a hardware problem though. I suspect it was a bad chip batch or cap batch. Hopefully Marantz will replace your unit. Thinking about it, I would contact Marantz before doing a hard reset and another set up. They quite likely, and should own the problem, even though you have had it for some time. This issue is well documented.

So it was a bug problem they eventually addressed.

Your AV10 was built in 2025, so no more bugs?

 

[Cos]

At least the warranty on the AV10 is 5 years, so it will be covered under warranty, hopefully your the original owner and purchased through an authorized dealer.

Even it it was past the warranty period, I think if you made a big enough stink they should fix it.

 

[TLS Guy]

So it was a bug problem they eventually addressed.

Your AV10 was built in 2025, so no more bugs?

The only way I can judge is from the Internet Apart from that problem the OP had, the reliability data for the AV 10 is encouraging. However you never really know whether anything is any good until it is 20 or more years old. So you know that vintage Quad amps are are really good buy, and still probably the best power amp purchase anyone can make.

 

[mono-bloc]

Throw the HDMI cable out and use the RCA / XLR connection

 

[TLS Guy]

Throw the HDMI cable out and use the RCA / XLR connection

How the Hell will that help! You really can spout unmitigated BS at times.