Can cold temperatures make speakers distort?

[Rochambeau 10+ year member]

OK, last two mornings, get in my car after it's been down below 25-degrees here and within the first 1/2 mile I get a static-like sound (resembling sound of a blown speaker) coming out of my front stage.

First day, I near shat myself 'cause I have blown a few pretty expensive speaks lately while setting up my system and I think "not AGAIN!" Then, it cleared up leading me to wonder if I was just hearing things or mistaking a brush on the snare drum as distortion.

Second day, same thing happened. I haven't been unable to recreate the issue but it seemed to be either both speakers or source related (iPod) because the sound came from the center of the soundstage. It's not the rips because it was on different albums/songs each morning and each song has been tested as clean since.

Both times, it cleared up in less than one minute.

Obviously, I will continue to try to troubleshoot this, but I thought I would post just in case someone might have some insight to make the diagnostics easier.

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[azbass 5,000+ posts]

never been in a cold enough climate to see if cold does that. but in in NJ now, so ill find out..

 

[slikrider20 10+ year member]

cold weather has always made my stuff sound really weird.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Possible condensation on a contact somewhere in the system (probably the iPod plug) are the car heated up and your breath added a good bit of moisture into the air in the car.

Had my system in MT during times when it didn't get above -25 for several weeks without any probs.

 

[SQChevy 10+ year member]

If you think about it. Amps usually perform best after they heat up. The components work better when warm. I've noticed several amps/speakers that act strange in cold weather. It just takes a little bit of playing to get them to loosen up.

 

[Rochambeau 10+ year member]

Update: It appears the culprit is the iPod. When cold, it takes a bit to warm up and, if jostled, will cause some really bad pops. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif

Perhaps the dampening system on the hard drive is too cold to function properly for a bit, until it gets warmed up.

Note to self: Lesson to take from this, use different source first thing in the morning or at least keep volume down to protect the speakers.