Has any one else noticed crackling in one of the ears, a song that brings it out strongly is https://youtu.be/zNRbP7U0Iq8?t=27 face to face by daft punk. It happens with a lot of songs through all sources including schiit jotunheim, fiio portable dac/amp and all phones i have handy. Heard it on the very first song i played...
QuintasSounds like it's just part of that song. I was recently scared to be hearing cracking in one of my "headphone-tester" pieces because I thought my headphones were going out, but now I'm just disappointed because there's popping and crackling in the song, and it feels completely unnecessary.
QuintasOK, I listened to my personal copy of the song and the only "crackling" I hear is the slight crackling from the source (ie.. it is part of the song and happens throughout). I don't believe this is an issue with the headphones themselves. I heard exactly the same from the youtube link you provided (slightly lower quality than my personal copy though so a bit more noise from the youtube link).. I am running my 6XX (which arrived yesterday) through a FOSTEX HP-A7 DAC just FYI.
You may just be noticing more noise from certain music depending on the quality of the music you are listening to (I don't mean genre but actual file quality/bit rate/etc..). Or, you could actually have an issue with your headphones.
Also, I set my headphones to play at 24bit, 192000 Hz from my computers optical out into my DAC as I record a lot of audio from my microphone (Love my RODE NTK)