Phat dac - cracking noise after 10 seconds

I recently installed a phat dac on a pi zero. When i play the sample sound, the first few seconds the sound comes fine and then there is severe crackling noises. Same with either airplay or raspotify. Can someone help? I am running raspbian buster

dumb question maybe, but have you tried another speaker, it’s likely not the issue ,sounds a bit more serious, I have had mine hooked to many different speaker without any issues …

Yeah i tried headphones as well as my speakers. Same issue.

do you have another Pi to install it on to check results

that is a great suggestion. let me try