Solid State Guitar Amp Forum | DIY Guitar Amplifiers

First post and a recent hobbyist of tinkering and repairing amps. please bear with me through any dumb questions.

I have a Crate DX-112 amp that has intermittent loud crackling.
this is a digital amp and the chasis has been inspected with no obvious bad caps. I suspected it could be a dirty pot and used deox it on the pots and inputs which I thought had fixed it but it hasn't.

What else could cause this? Could this be a sign of a speaker going bad?

Find out what it is, we don;t guess.

Ball up your fist and whack the top while it is running.  Does that make it crackle or make any sound for that matter?  If so, we have exposed a loose connections.

Does it do this with nothing plugged into the amp?  Or only when a guitar is plugged in?  And if only while the guitar is there, does turning the guitar volume control to zero stop it?

Actually connections is a broad category.  Parts like jacks and controls are often grounded to the chassis my their mounting nuts.  A loose nut can make noises like crackles.  Make sure they are snug.  Don;t overtighten, just make sure they are snug.  Same with mounting bolts for transformers.  Loose bolts can make crackles.

Inside is a circuit board.  Get something insulated, like a wooden chopstick, and while it runs, poke at each part on the board, looking for any that react.

Ok thanks for your reply

I will try using those methods of troubleshooting.
Very new to this but I didn't know if it being a digital amp if it were prone to a whole new set of common problems or not as so far i've only worked on Tube amps.


thanks again.

Of course it can have different problems, but that doesn;t excuse it from having all the basic problems that affect anything soldered together.