Snap, crackle, and pop !

[BahPa]

I hope I can find some info here from those who know about guitar amps. I have a Fender Champion 20 guitar amp. It's about two years old. I plugged in my Strat in to fool around and I get a snap, crackle and pop ( literally ). Sounds awful !!! It's a solid state amp, that up to now was all I needed for fooling around with electric guitars.

Could it be just the speaker or is it a circuit issue? Is it repairable?

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

[Rodger Knox]

Check the input jacks at the amp and the guitar, as well as the cord. There's a good chance a wire is loose, or broken, or shorting out at one of the jacks. It could be the guitar, the cord, or the amp.

[BahPa]

Thanks for helping Roger. We did all that yesterday, everything checked out fine.
Maybe that's all I can expect out of a $100. Fender amp. Planned obsolescence..

[Sperry]

If you did every external test, different cable, guitar, receptacle, wiggling cable, wiggling pots, etc, and cannot reproduce the static, but the static is constant, then at least you've isolated the issue.

Does it only crackle when you are playing something? (No? Go to P3) I'd hot wire another speaker in first.

Will it crackle without an input when you pick one corner up a couple inches and drop the amp? May be a solder joint on the circuit board. Not too hard to fix, but to find can be pita.

A perfect job for the neighborhood teenager garage technician. $20 and a six-pack of Coke.

Once you open it up it is a 50/50 chance you'll see the issue within a few minutes.

[LSemmens]

Does the noise change if you adjust any of the volume/Tone controls? Occasionally, with wire wound pots, they can become quite noisy with dust and corrosion build up in them, especially if they've not been used much. Sometime a squirt or two of Contact cleaner into the pot is all that is required.

[pops]

If there are any patch points on the amp, like preamp out or any send return 1/4" jacks these are usually switched and may not be making good contact. Try plugging a cord into them and out a dozen times with the amp off and see if it helps.