Does Winter or Low Temperature affect speaker's sound

[gurujee]

Hi

I dont know if this has been discussed here or not. But I feel my speakers sound very cold these days. It happened all of a sudden when temperature drops below 15 degrees. My subwoofer is silent and if I increase its level then it struggles to make its presence felt.

After 2 to 3 hours, situation improves. I seached in web. Though there is no such instance of home speakers but some car owners mentioned this problem with their car stereos.

Is it a fact or just my ears !

 

[JayaRaa]

maybe combination of both plus amp needing more time to warm up

 

[anubisX]

May be low humidity and really cold temp affects the sound quality. But as you say that the performance inproves after 2-3 hrs, it must be the low temp that's cooling the parts or something like that and once the parts heat up, performance changes.

Let the experts pour in.

 

[rajesh srinivas]

Winter or Low Temperature will not affect speaker's sound,what happens in a circuitry is flow of electrons/electricity,they cannot differentiate between cold and hot..you must get the same output as in warm temp... .But the climate can effect the speaker cone...

 

[gurujee]

Winter or Low Temperature will not affect speaker's sound,what happens in a circuitry is flow of electrons/electricity,they cannot differentiate between cold and hot..you must get the same output as in warm temp... .But the climate can effect the speaker cone...

what effect exactly? does it make the cones stiff or what..? just curious to know...

 

[mahaaprasaad]

what effect exactly? does it make the cones stiff or what..? just curious to know...

Once it was a subject for detailed research and study,
check this research paper from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/15904/08319225-MIT.pdf

 

[corElement]

Yes it does depending on what parts your system utilises. For an amp it absolutely does.

 

[sud98]

A lot depends upon the materials used.

The base electrical components dont have as much as an impact as the material components. For example, rubber used tends to change characterstics with temperature, so does foam with humidity. Any metal tweeter could also be impacted but for a smaller duration as once electricity passes through it should get warmed up.

Check what the Harbreth speaker designer has to say on this.

The critical temperature of the listening room and why it should be controlled - Harbeth: made in the UK since 1977 - the world's most natural sounding loudspeakers

 

[tuff]

Check what the Harbreth speaker designer has to say on this.

The critical temperature of the listening room and why it should be controlled - Harbeth: made in the UK since 1977 - the world's most natural sounding loudspeakers

wow! That is incredible.Would love to hear few opinions on this.

 

[afj]

temperature definitely affects the amp. the amp needs time to warm up to optimum temperature. but if you have a solid state amp it should warm up pretty quick. im doubting more than 5-10 min. a tube amp may take longer - perhaps upto half an hour. one method i've heard people using in cold countries is never to fully power off their amp

 

[Hari Iyer]

All default values of software measuring tools displays a temp of 20 deg centigrade at mean sea level. If your sub has been tweaked at this temp and pressure, then it could sound different if there is a significant change in temp or pressure. Moving at higher altitudes can also affect sound quality imo.

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

maybe combination of both plus amp needing more time to warm up

This could be it, speakers in theory have nothing temp dependent, unless it has some weird caps in them which opens up after getting little warmth. But it’s very unlikely, but with some amps it would sound better after some time of playback.

 

[IndianEars]

The Relative Humidity of air in your listening room Certainly impacts sound.

A RH (Relative Humidity) of 40% to 45% is Ideal for music listening...... Try it if your room is airconditioned.

Cooling the air drops the RH

 

[buxx]

It absolutely does.

Density of cold air is higher than in warm/hot weather. This results in making it a better conductor for sound waves and is the reason why sound carries farther in winters and why it sounds different to you.

If you have a room correction software for your amp/AVR , better to recalibrate seperately in winters/summers. With the MultiEq app for example, you can store multiple speaker EQ profiles & plug them at will.

 

[Bumpaholic]

All default values of software measuring tools displays a temp of 20 deg centigrade at mean sea level. If your sub has been tweaked at this temp and pressure, then it could sound different if there is a significant change in temp or pressure. Moving at higher altitudes can also affect sound quality imo.

I would tend to agree with this as higher elevation gas lower o2 content which makes cars from lower elevation run poorly when taken to higher elevation, speakers vasivly move air or send waves that flow through air and in a condition with "thinner" air the system may have to work harder or require more power to preform the same...