[chimmycham]

Is there a way to tell if you've messed up a driver in your headphones?
maybe some sort of sound file that goes through different frequencies, so you can see where it 'crackles', or something like that?

 

[obobskivich]

Do they sound distorted during normal listening? Did something bad happen to them earlier?

 

[chimmycham]

Nothing has happened to them.
I just notice every so often that certain frequencies make a "crackling" sound.
 
For instance, I just listened to Stairway to Heaven (FLAC) and at one point, around 3/4 through the song, certain guitar notes made the crackle sound.
 
At first I attributed it to flaws in the songs themselves, but in Stairway to Heaven?

 

[obobskivich]

It may be the specific file you're listening to has errors, especially if it's occurring at the exact same point every time. This is fairly easy to test (just listen to the same section a few times in a row, does it always make the same crack/pop noise?).

 

[chimmycham]

Yes it does, but could that mean that it's that exact frequency that the headphones cannot handle, because of an issue with the driver?
 
It only seems to happen in the left driver every time.

 

[chimmycham]

I've had these headphones for less than 2 weeks...
and I bought them new.

 

[obobskivich]

Yes it does, but could that mean that it's that exact frequency that the headphones cannot handle, because of an issue with the driver?

It only seems to happen in the left driver every time.

Same noise, same point in the track - sounds like the track just has an encoding issue. Do you have Audacity? (It's free if you don't) - open the track up, and look at that timestamp, is there a 0 dB peak (it'll look like a straight-line that stands out) right there?

 

[chimmycham]

Well it happens with numerous songs, only at certain parts.
I'll try to audacity thing now.
I really hope that's the case.
 
It only seems to happen with FLACs
when I listen to mp3s, it has never happened once.
 
edit:
I'll just use Logic Pro

 

[obobskivich]

Yeah any DAW would work - should've mentioned that (I just assume most people don't have commercial software like that on hand, because it can get expensive). Encoding errors aren't that uncommon - unfortunately. On the upside, pop/click removal (just select the sample or few samples that it affects, not the entire track) can usually kill them, and restore the track.

If the track looks fine in your DAW, I'd go to the headphone test website (http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php), and go through the frequency tests to try and find what's exciting the headphones to crackle/pop/etc. If it's consistently happening at a given point, I'd go for an RMA, if they're clean, the issue is somewhere else in the chain (so at least you can rule the headphones out...not that it solves your problem ).

 

[chimmycham]

Okay, it definitely happens in the same spot every time.
It's in both ears (not just the left)
And it does NOT jump to 0 dB ever, nor anywhere near it.

 

[obobskivich]

Okay, it definitely happens in the same spot every time.
It's in both ears (not just the left)
And it does NOT jump to 0 dB ever, nor anywhere near it.

So there's no abrupt spike in the waveform where the issue happens?

 

[chimmycham]

nope.

 

[obobskivich]

Frequency sweep from the audiocheck thing seem to excite the noise at a given point?

 

[chimmycham]

None of those tests revealed any flaws in my phones

 

[chimmycham]

Strangely, when I listen to the section(s) that crackle/distort, at much lower volumes, they seem to do it worse.