That is a perfect and technical description of your issue. It would be like saying to a mechanic that your engine is farting, burping, stuttering or even knocking (ekk!).

I pulled the crossover out a bit just to take a look for something obvious(although i really have no idea what I am looking at) It looks like the glue holding the top board is coming off and it is falling down a bit. I have pictures if I could figure out how to post them.

Nothing looked obviously disconnected or anything, then again I'm no expert.

To host a picture you have to upload to something like photobucket and then copy the link into the reply . Look for bulging of the capacitors,they are the brown parts in the pic.Also make sure all connections are tight on the back speaker connector panel where the red and black wires join.

Here is some pictures, not sure anyone can see anything obvious, I can take more too:

Interesting, there must have been a change up in the design of the cross over . The picture I posted is a v2 M80 . It appears your crossover is attached to the terminal cup.? Without any obvious signs of leakage and since I doubt you have any equipment for testing the capacitors or resistors I would say either send that crossover in for diagnosis or see if they will sell you a replacement.

Since you bought these from a friend, I would assume you have listened to music at his place in the past, did this noise ever present itself before?

Thanks for the response.

My buddy bought these from someone else, so I only heard them for a few minutes in his garage. Sounded great in there at minimal volume. He was more or less letting me audition these, as I have heard a few different similarly priced speakers and these sound the best, when the crackling isn't there! I auditioned the heavily praised KEF q900's, liked the Axioms way better!

Any chance the cob webs are effecting the SQ?
I see a single strand in the bottom image.

Well that's a shame really. I know it would drive me bonker's, I am bit OC at time's. Really sound like the best bet is to box up the crossover and overnight it to axiom. Should not cost too much to do that.Axiom is pretty good to deal with from my experience.

It's a shot in the dark but any chance the vp150 shares the same crossover?

Probably going to try switching the crossover from the good speaker in to see if the noise is still there.

I'm sure it doesn't. The drive array is completely different. But I'd definitely try switching the M80 crossovers.