Static 'screeching' through DTT3500 speakers

[Eugenia]

Hello friends, I have had this set of 5.1 speakers for around 4 years now, all working perfectly up until the last few weeks. I am experiencing heavy static 'cracking' on 2, sometimes 3 speakers. But it doesn't just stick to the same 2, sometimes swaps to another 2 after a few days. It's been intermittent for a while but today it's got so bad it’s actually more like a screech from some alien movie. Do speakers wear out? Or does anyone know of a static shielding or perhaps another electric piece of equipment that might cause this which is nearby or is it just time to get a new set of speakers? Thank you!!!

[Howitzer]

Have you tried additional speakers in the amp/decoder? If it is the same problem then they will crackle when the PC is off. I tried other satelite speakers in the amp/decoder and they crackled too, and then tried the current speakers with a converter in the headphone socket of my pc and they worked fine - so was defiantly the amp not the speakers. Because of the age of the speakers, I took my amp apart and gave it a good clean out with a cold air spray, after that they worked for about 5 min (4 min more than usual) then slowly started to crackle. Only thing I can think of is something inside is getting too hot, maybe capacitor not holding its charge, I don't know, I'm no electronics expert.

[samar69]

This is a problem with the amplifier box. I tried to change the speakers' position by alternating switching their slots on the back of the box. My worst cracklings are coming from front left and right satelittes, so I tried to use my rear satelittes, replacing the front ones to see if it is a problem of the satieties in the front (or maybe their cables). I am sure that this is not the case because as soon as I plugged the rears in the place of the front ones the aliens descend.

[Mayur_Jain]

I remember reading a story a few years ago about motherboard manufactures getting a bad production run of capacitors from the makers. These caps would eventually erode and leak their dielectric fluid, causing the motherboard to die. I wonder if Creative and Cambridge SoundWorks got a set of these, too. I am pretty sure this problem was isolated to a few motherboards by Abit, Aopen, and MSI, though I could be wrong.

[Eru]

I have to agree that it is something in the Amp. But not being an electronics expert I wouldn't know where to look, or even to start removing the outside of the unit. It seems very strange that this is happening to a lot of people after the same amount of time, and I should think (although the product is old) Creative may want to look into more as it may have a legacy part that will affect newer products after the same time span. It is not as if these were the cheapest speakers on the market when I bought them, and to be honest I would expect them to outlast the 4 years they have given me so far. It’s mildly disappointing that an administrator has looked at this thread and not said any more than they did. It’s not as though this is an isolated problem, it seems to be a little more deep rooted.

[Filiberto]

I am very surprise to see that so many people are having the same "static screeching" problem, I am having with my DTT3500. It all started a few months ago, first with a mild crackling in the rear speakers, worsening as time passed. Now, the noise is so loud, that I have unplugged the whole speakers system. I hit the 4yr mark on Apr'05. I, like*other customers also spent $400+*on this speaker system in 2001. I own*four computers, all are equipped with*Creative products, I*have*always liked & trusted in Creative. Creative Customer Support, please look for a*solution to solve these problems without the customer having to folk out more money for an amplifier/decoder*production problem or you stand to lose customers like me & anyone else who would ask for their opinions.

[MACuser]

It's not a problem with the speakers.* It is the Head unit.* I have been crackle free except for on occasion when we lose power and both APC's run out of battery.* Otherwise my system and the DTT3500 are always connected to the UPS for power.* If it doesn't lose power while it is crackle free I never have any problems.* When it does, I simply cycle through until I get all 5 channels clear again.* BTW, I have had this unit for 5 years looking at my receipt, the problem started at the 2 year mark.

[mathews]

I had a long chat with the creative customer support. They basically told me I was "out of luck" because it was an old product. However, it seems if this is a product wide problem we could seek a bit more leverage in getting some reconciliation. What I did, was I kept contacting customer service, and near the end I told them that I would basically stop supporting creative in all of their products, as well as stop recommending them (I have been the cause of quite a few creative sales). They basically offered me a 20% discount on a new set of speakers, which I took (I couldn't compute deaf!), however, I am still very annoyed that I now have a very expensive piece of equipment lying around the house being very useless.

[Balamani]

It's normal for parts to be replaced rather than repaired, a repair would cause for a much longer RMA turnaround time. This is standard. This doesn't mean you don't have warranty because the serial numbers differ, that shouldn't make a difference. These speakers have been out a long time at this stage, and I have seen no indications that there is a bulk problem. The amount of posts on this forum does not indicate there is a bulk problem either, it is a very very low number in comparison to the amount of units out there. It's unfortunate, but anything can break. The fact it was outside the warranty period is unlucky, but not intentional or by design. If you experienced the same thing with your replacement, then I'd advise you make sure you let Customer Support know, so they can at least log your complaint. If it's happened to you twice, it sounds like there might be*a common factor like power spikes, a faulty power supply, something along those lines.