I have a 2008 IS 350 with a MLevinson system and it has worked perfectly until a few days ago. I started my car, connected my ipod to the aux plug and started to play music. Out of nowhere I hear this "crack" sound and the audio is gone. I turn it off and on again, music come back and a few seconds later the same "crack" sound and the audio is gone. I turned it off again and switched it to FM radio and it started working fine for a few minutes when the same thing happen so I turned it off again. I stopped using it and when I got back home I found that one of the battery terminals was in a very bad state so I replaced it. I started my car and turn on the radio and I used it with no problems for the rest of the day so I thought this was the reason my audio system was doing this "cracking" sound. A couple of days later I did it again so I turned it off and like 5 minutes later I turned it back on and it worked perfectly for the rest of the day. Used it without any problems for a couple of days more and today It did it again .. "crack sound" then no audio, switch to FM works fine then another "crack" sound and no audio. It does it with FM, AM, AUX and I have no clue what or where the problem might be. Any ideas?

 

I thought it might be the factory amp in the trunk; but perhaps it is the battery's bad factory ground wire connection to the chassis?