Cracling, distortion.., even with nothing plugged in [SOLVED]

    I have rack profiler for two days and problem occured. Cracling, distorted sound and other nonmusical artifacts are heard from my kemper randomly. Sometimes a few seconds only, sometimes a half of minute, but sometimes a few hours without problem. And this malfunction is heard even if nothing is plugged in. Input LED lights with every color from green to red, output LED is the same (i.e. this unwanted sound is born somewhere in input stage and it is pretty loud too). A few _wise_ taps on top or side cover cured it. But for short time only.


    Character of this sound isn't uncommon from analog domain and broken guitar cable brings to mind (remember that this sound is heard even with empty input{s}).


    I had suspected a some cold junction (I studied electronic at high school and college, and it is one of my hobbies from childhood), thus I dared enough to open my kemper...


    First I saw several flat multicore cables which raised my suspicion immediately. And really, one of them is responsible for that _sound_feature_.


    [Blocked Image: http://chromos.cz/_exported/kemper/kemper_issue_001.jpg]


    Unfortunately this is not for first. The same problem was once with my G-Major (my post from tc-electronic forum with picture, where I explained how to cure it) and it seems that problem with flat cables is somewhat common.


    So, if you hear some strange noises from your kemper, software update isn't always proper medicine.


    I wish you better luck with your kemper than I have.


    {Edit December 1st 2013 1614UTC: reason - wrong wording in title}

    Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
    Laurence J. Peter

    Edited 2 times, last by chromos: status to SOLVED. ().

    Quote from Ingolf

    ...you're the first one reporting this sort of problem, so it doesn't seem common...


    I didn't mean specifically the kemper, but rather generally any hardware with ribbon cables. Specially tc electronic's G-Major was unique in that regard. ;)


    And thanks for your answer, Ingolf.

    Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
    Laurence J. Peter

    I haven't spare cable. I slightly pressed both connectors (cable is rather short so I didn't find out which one makes problems) and problem solved. But this isn't solution for long. I will contact Mr. Kemper and will ask him for cable replacement. I will keep fingers crossed, because I don't want send my profiler to repair for this triviality.

    Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
    Laurence J. Peter

    My Rackmount/poweramp is about a month and a half old... and today during Sunday worship.... mine started this.... "very light cracking" heard at the end of a verse or what have you when I'm not playing......


    soooo.... I need to take it apart and push in the cables.... :) ... I, also, can not part with mine, I play every week

    I exchanged a few e-mails in December with Mr. Burkhard at Kemper and he sent me two spare cables. I put one in my kemper and after 60 gigs no one cracling sound from my kemper. So I may safely assume that the cause of unwanted noises was ribbon cable.
    SOLVED.

    Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
    Laurence J. Peter

    Like 2
    Quote from chromos

    I exchanged a few e-mails in December with Mr. Burkhard at Kemper and he sent me two spare cables. I put one in my kemper and after 60 gigs no one cracling sound from my kemper. So I may safely assume that the cause of unwanted noises was ribbon cable.
    SOLVED.


    Cool it was solved this way.