I’ve been having the same crackling noises as many others, and I opened the top to inspect the tubes and ensure proper seating. I found the tubes cannot seat properly because the screw heads for the spring-loaded brackets are too thick. I’ve attached a pic. Is this normal? And can it be causing the crackling?
Welcome to the forum!
The way the tubes are seated is normal and that’s very unlikely to cause crackling. More likely it’s just one of the two doing that.
To confirm that, pull out the tubes and switch themn in the sockets and see if the noise goes away. If not, try removing one tube at a time (yes, it’s OK to do that as long as you’re not playing through it) to see which one is causeing the crackling.
Dave
Thank you Dave! I had gently rocked the tubes to make sure they were seated as well as possible, plugged it back in… and poof! the crackling noise was gone. For now at least; should it occur again, I’ll do what you recommended. Sooo nice being able to use it without that horrid noise, thanks again.