If it was a ground problem, you would hear a steady 60Hz hum. Also, if power related, wiggling the power cord to your speakers would make it come and go causing the crackle and pop but that should be fairly easy to isolate.
Another suspect would be the brick power supply (if you have one) to the speakers as it is supposed to filter the AC to DC for the speakers to use. If the filtering were bad, you would again get a constant 60Hz hum.
Does this crackle and pop happen with the same audio playback, or is it completely random? I ask because some artists are purposely mixing LP type crackle and pop into their CDs/mp3s to simulate the old vinyl sound. The usual "cold" digital sound argument is the reason they do this.
Along with turning up the volume on the speaker system itself, a dirty potentiometer can cause hideous crackling and popping. If this is the case, with the power off, exercise the pot by turning it rapidly through its entire range of motion about a dozen times or so. If you can get to it fairly easy, obtain some contact cleaner and spray it in the pot to clean it while rotating it. This used to be a problem on older stereos and I have an older set of speakers (Reveal) with this problem.
As a last possible solution, it could be a dirty connection between your sound card and your speakers. Wiggle the connector in the sound card gently and see if the noise happens then. If not, check the connection at the speaker. If either one of these is the culprit, try spraying the contact cleaner in the jack and then inserting and removing the cord several times. This will usually clean out dirty contacts within the jack.
Hope some of this helps.
Jim W. A+
You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!!
