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Frozen speakers?
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:10 pm
by tony72
When I got in the car this morning, I was convinced I had blown a speaker in the drivers door, any hint of bass and just sounded totally distorted. But when I went down at lunch time to see if I could pinpoint the problem, everything sounded absolutely fine even when I cranked it right up. Has anyone seen anything like that? I was wondering if something in the speaker could have frozen up, the car did say it was -3 this morning, but that's hardly the coldest it's ever been and I never had a problem before. 2009 GT with the DynAudio pack btw.
Re: Frozen speakers?
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:20 pm
by Peacock8
I havent´t seen this on the stock speakers, however my new Focal ones play significantly higher and louder when they have been warmed up for 10-20min. BIG difference! So the cold definitely affects the speakers! Yeah, and I live in norway, about -8 outside now!
Ørjan.
Re: Frozen speakers?
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 10:19 pm
by tony72
Well I hope I hope I don't get to test mine at -8 too often! Good to know cold cold can affect them somehow anyway. Although since I never noticed anything before, I guess I better keep an eye on it in case it's something other than the cold in my case, fingers crossed though.
Re: Frozen speakers?
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 10:24 pm
by whiteDevil_170
hmmm that sounds strange. never heard of that before.
Re: Frozen speakers?
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:43 am
by Paralla
Speaker components are, at least, somewhat sensitive to temperature. This is especially true for the spider and the surround. At very low temperatures, they will be less compliant (which will give a higher resonant frequency). At higher temperatures, the spider and surround will be more compliant and will produce a lower resonant frequency.
Basically low temperatures = Less bass
Don't be tempted to pump up the volume to try and warm up the speakers as there is a (slight) chance you will damage them if played at loud volume while extremely cold.
The rubber cone surround is stiffer at low temperatures which limits the cones movement and it’s this movement that provides the cooling for the voice coils. When you increase the volume more current flows through the voice coils and if there is not enough movement to provide cooling for them they can overheat. The Dynaudio speakers in our Rocs use aluminium (rather than copper) so are particularly sensitive to overheating to avoid degrading the adhesive bonds in the speaker.