Pop Sound in my speakers when driven loud from studio recorded CD sources.


Hales Revelation 1 bookshelf speakers are what we're talking about.  Purchased in the mid 90's and had been in storage for about 15 years in climate controlled conditions.  Just started using them again.  I'm finding under most conditions they perform admirably all around.  When listening to certain studio recordings on CD where the sound is very dense or the recording has a compressed quality,  I am hearing a distinct "pop" (not part of the musical presentation) when, for instance, the drummer makes a strong slap on the snare drum or tom tom.  Low frequency bass response is still very agile and stable for these small speakers.  Is it possible my mid bass driver is stuttering under these circumstances?  These Hales are known to be power hungry speakers.  My amplifier is 85W per channel and I'm noticing this pop when I get the volume knob to about '12 o'clock' .  That's when it starts to sound loud in my listening room.  Other lesser sources like radio or streaming sources, don't seem to bring this on.  It's the up front, dense sound from a CD that does it.  

Any diagnostician out there that can tell what the disfunction is? ... what I can do about it, if anything?  Thanks!

chametzoo
blocking the ports prevents excessive cone excursion below the tuning frequency. You'll loose a little bass, but this is a temporary, reversible experiment.
Erik, I did try blocking the ports, but no change.  In fact it may have made the phenomena worse... hard to tell.

Al... thank you again. I think that we are understanding the terms "compressed" and "spacious" in the same way in terms of dynamic range. It’s just that I handle the volume issue with each, differently than most, I guess. The truth is, I enjoy the wide dynamic range sound much more so than the narrow range employed in many of today’s recordings. Wide feels more live and ’in the room’ where as narrow sounds canned or unrealistic to my ears... hence my impulse to crank it up and make it feel more real. Perhaps a fool's errand ;-)

You’ve also added thermal overload, either in the amp or the speakers as a possibility. Is it possible that my Hales speakers, which I purchased new nearly 20 years ago and have spent the overwhelming majority of that time in storage and unused until very recently, may have some material degradation of say the membrane materials?