When the cold months kick in, you might be wondering if the freezing temperatures are safe for your speakers. Can speakers be stored in the cold? Can they endure frigid weather without cracking under pressure?
Cold temperatures don’t affect most speaker components, including all the electronic components. It means that low temperatures won’t affect the performance of a speaker or damage it either. But moisture combined with cold temperatures may be dangerous to speakers.
This article aims to give you some idea about the effects of cold temperatures on your speakers.
How Do Cold Temperatures Affect Speakers?
Wires, a speaker cone, a voice coil, and magnets are the primary components of a speaker. While there are still other parks, these mostly play supporting roles. Cold temperatures may have a different effect on each of these components.
Cold Temperatures and Speaker Magnets
Let’s start with the magnets. These components can lose their magnetism ability once they get exposed to heat for a long time. Hot temperatures are unsuitable for speaker magnets since these can lower their magnetic field strength.
Cold temperatures, on the other hand, might actually be good for those magnets in your speakers. A cold temperature can slow down the vibration rate of atoms in the magnet, resulting in the magnet’s increased strength. This means that as far as magnets are concerned, low temperatures may be good for speakers.
Cold Temperatures and Speaker Cones
Cones are another critical component of speakers. They have a major role in the frequency response or how the speakers sound. Speaker cones are often made of aramid fiber, plastic, paper, and even metal at times.
These different speaker cone materials share one thing in common and that is the fact that cold temperatures barely affect them. It is true that just like other materials, they may contract and expand as the temperatures change. However, this change is almost negligible, and this won’t have any effects on the performance of the speaker or even damage it.
Cold Temperatures and Speaker Wires and Voice Coil
All the tires and the voice coil in a speaker are often made of copper. Copper is in no way affected negatively by freezing or cold temperature. While these might turn stiff, this won’t affect the performance of the speaker nor damage it.
If cold weather has any effect on copper wires, the electrical wiring systems in your home would surely stop working during the winter months.
Some people also love parking their cars outdoors in the winter. Even if the temperatures are in the negatives, these still don’t have any effect on the stereo speakers of the car. They continue to work just fine once you turn them on again.
You also need to keep in mind that speakers are being shipped in containers and trucks without any heating systems or anything else. However, the speakers work just perfectly with no issues at all.
However, cold can still make certain components of the speaker stiff and prone to break. But once the temperatures return to room temperature, these should loosen up once again.
In short, you don’t have to worry that low temperatures will affect your speakers in any way. They will continue to be just fine and work well.
The Combination of Cold Temperature and Moisture is Bad for Your Speakers
As stated earlier, cold temperatures alone are not bad for your speakers. But once they combine with moisture, cold temperatures can become harmful for your speakers. How is that so?
Once you keep your speakers in a humid spot, cold temperatures will make the vapor condense on your speakers. This condensed moisture can lead to corrosion of the metal components of the speaker. It can affect the speaker cones and speaker terminals made of metal.
A short circuit may also occur when water condenses on speaker terminals. Short circuits in speakers are when negative and positive terminals touch. While it doesn’t happen frequently, it still can.
Can You Leave Your Speakers in the Cold?
While it is not ideal, you can still leave your speakers in the cold without any bad effect or damage to their performance. But you must let it warm up first before turning it on again.
Give your speakers a chance to warm up for several hours before powering them up. Doing so will allow all parts of the speaker that have turned brittle and stiff because of the cold to loosen up.
Aside from this, if the speakers have any condensed liquid on them., they will turn dry if you let the speakers warm-up for some time. It will also prevent damage that the condensed liquid might have caused otherwise to the speakers.
You might also want to wipe your speakers thoroughly to dry them before warming them up to speed up the whole process.
How Do You Protect Your Speakers from the Cold?
Below are some helpful tips to keep your speakers protected from potential damage due to cold temperatures.
Store Your Speakers in Temperature-Regulated Areas
To prevent any issues with your speakers because of cold weather, make sure you store your speakers in a temperature-regulated area.
You can securely put them in a room with an HVAC system to ensure that they always remain at room temperature. It is your best option at this point.
If you got a spare room in the house with the right room temperature, this is the perfect spot for storing your speakers.
Pack Your Speakers When Not in Use
One more way to protect your speakers from cold temperatures is to pack them up properly if you are not using them. You can keep them inside the original box they came with then store them in a secure spot. Packing your speakers can help them stay warm while lowering the condensation level if there is any.
Don’t Use Your Speakers When Cold
This last tip shouldn’t be ignored if you didn’t follow the first two above. Never power up your speakers when cold. This is because condensed water may be present on the speaker terminals. When you connect these terminals to an amplifier and power it up, a short circuit may occur. This can damage your speakers or amp or even both, in an instant.
All in all, cold temperatures and their effects on your speakers shouldn’t worry you that much. But still, it wouldn’t hurt to be extra careful when moisture is also involved.