I have a Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit... Yeah, I know.... Anyway I have 2.1 speakers hooked up to this bad boy and the left speaker is "crackly." I plugged the speakers into a different medium (my ipod) and the crackle went away. So apparently the left channel on the sound card needs to be buttered, because its toast. Any thoughts?
Not much else you can do except wiggle the plug in the jack and see if the sound changes. If it does it could be a dirty jack/cold solder joint.
The big question would be if the issue is with the plug itself...if it is, then you can easily replace it using a soldering iron, for a total repair cost of less than $2.