I have an interesting problem.

Son number three has seen TRON (the latest one), and bought the soundtrack and was playing it for is on Christmas Day (as a change of pace from carols).

On the family room set-up I get sound crackles when we play the second track: "The Grid".

Now the problem does not appear on the sitting room Beolab 6000s nor on the speakers of his MacBook, but it does appear in this configuration:

Beovision 8 (in speaker 2 mode) -> belLab 11 -> BeoLab 3s

It happens part way into the song and sounds like my BeoLab 3s  are friztzing :-(

Interestingly today I can't repeat the problem ... yet

So I presume the sound track has some notes/tones that are just sitting on the cross over between the BeoLab 11's frequencies and what it passes on to the BeoLab 3s ...

? am I right ?

? what can I do about it ?

Good morning and merry christmas :-)

If this is a frequency problem there are two ways of getting rid of this:

1.) Adjust the turnover frequency of the Beolab 11 (if this is possible, I don't know the Beolab 11; on most higher end subwoofers this is freely adjustable) 

2.) RIP the CD to WAV on your computer, use an Audioeditor of your choice (like Adobe Audition (super easy to use), Goldwave, Audacity...) and then adjust the track via software Equalizer carefully. If only some parts are producing this crackling noise, you should only select and edit the particular parts of the track. 
Save the edited WAV-file and burn it as an Audio CD.
Eh voilá: Problem solved :)

Have exactly the same problem with certain tracks when playing through the Airport Express connected to my Ouverture. Music is ripped lossless but produces cracking sound (mostly in the lower frequencies).. when I play the original CD.. no cracking sounds..

When you have the cracking sound after ripping the CD to your Computer it most likely seems to be the typical annoying problem: The CD is copy protected!

I had this problem on a CD from "Moby": After ripping the CD as an MP3 to my computer it was unlistenable: Cracking and distortion sounds all over the track :-(
As I don't pay money for non-working products I brought the CD back to the shop. I want a full quality Audio CD and not anyhting distorted with copy protection.

It's not DRM related... happens also with music bought from the iTunes Music Store... At first I thought that my speakers were damaged.. But later on I found out that it only happened when playing music through the Airport Express. Not via the STB, radio, tv or DVD

ok, when it's only happening via Airport Express it's clear :)

Indeed... unfortunately... it's the only decent way to get the music to my Ouverture

It's most probably an iTunes related issue! I created a new thread a while back about some of the things iTunes 10.x.x has been doing to sound, and one of them is audible crackling/distortion on some tracks.

The issue is not the ripped files, it's iTunes actually playing them back poorly.

I've been using 'Cog' to play back my iTunes music lately. It's a basic media player with a slide-out file-browser built in. Nothing fancy, but as long as you leave the built-in volume fader where it is on startup, it sounds fine. No AirPort playback though...

VERY irritating. PLEASE FIX IT APPLE!

Thanks everyone for your tips and advice 

Alex:

I created a new thread a while back about some of the things iTunes 10.x.x has been doing to sound, and one of them is audible crackling/distortion on some tracks.

And yes Alex I read with interest that thread because I had thought that my music was degrading but had assumed it was my ears passing another "x0" speed bump in the journey of life ...

But I am very puzzled to report I can not reproduce the problem.

Now the obvious question is what has changed ...

So my son and I have repeated various tests but based on all the comments about Airports I realised the environment was more complex than I had originally posted and I may, just may, have misrepresented the facts.

So one thing we had been testing was the iPad's Remote app to control (i.e. using Airplay) the music going from my son's laptop to our 2nd generation Apple TV - so I thought the culprit might be that Airport and ATV suffered from the same fault.

But this morning's test to use the ATV2G from different directions, at different speaker settings, and at different volumes has not reproduced the problem !

Alex:

iTunes 10.x.x

But I now also recall that at some point in the afternoon we updated some of the iTunes in the house to "10.1.1 (4)" ... so perhaps Apple has fixed it ?

elephant:

Alex:

iTunes 10.x.x

But I now also recall that at some point in the afternoon we updated some of the iTunes in the house to "10.1.1 (4)" ... so perhaps Apple has fixed it ?

Nope, the latest version of iTunes is still broken. Apparently they are aware of it though, and trying to fix the problem.