Is it necesarry to let speakers/subs warm up before really pushing them?

[rbtrucking 10+ year member]

I was just curious because winter is rolling around. Is it necessary to let speakers warm up a little before you push them? Just wondering if the fact that they are really cold and moving extremely fast could something get ripped after sitting all night in the freezing weather?

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[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

your gonna get a lot of mixed answers. some will get very scientific, some will just say yes or no.

 

[rbtrucking 10+ year member]

Well I myself might be leaning toward its probably not the best idea to push em too hard when they are cold though I have and nothing has happened. Another thing to take into consideration is what may seem cold to us might not be cold at all to a speaker.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

I doubt there's any cold temperature on earth that would make foam/rubber or cotton/nomex brittle. As far as a cold motor/coil that will probably gain you a little more thermal power handling.

If you're pushing something close to its limits anyway and it breaks on a cold day it's not the fault of the cold IMO.

 

[CAT MAN 5,000+ posts]

i push mine hard in cold weather as long as it doesnt have moisture in the trunk.

 

[tf3090 10+ year member]

I live in South Dakota, and if I leave my car out overnight or let it sit in cold, winter weather for ~5 hours, my subwoofer will hardly play at all until the heats been going for around 10 minutes.

 

[audio_guy 10+ year member]

Its an equipment dependent idea. I know Skar subs that utilize the surround they do will actually freeze and crack the surround upon being cold and played at 1/2 excursion.

I normally let me truck warm up to a decent level before taking off in the mornings anyway and in the mean time everything is playing. So by the time I get in and drive it's all fairly warm.

 

[tf3090 10+ year member]

Its an equipment dependent idea. I know Skar subs that utilize the surround they do will actually freeze and crack the surround upon being cold and played at 1/2 excursion.

could you explain this more

Because I have a skar, I just make sure to turn the remote knob all the way down so it doesn't play

 

[audio_guy 10+ year member]

could you explain this moreBecause I have a skar, I just make sure to turn the remote knob all the way down so it doesn't play

Whats there to explain more? I said exactly whats wrong with the speakers. Maybe this can help ya.

Skar VVX 12D2 TSP's (post break-in) - Car Audio Classifieds

 

[splwj47 10+ year member]

i also wondered this myself and moved my subs to my back seat since my back seat doesnt fold down. i didnt figure they would like -40 celcius to much

 

[Bettr n' Revrse 5,000+ posts]

Maybe Jacob will chime in here... His guys he sells to in Russia IIRC where having troubles with the surrounds on there subs due to the extreme cold which is why Jacob decided to start using foam more

 

[audio_guy 10+ year member]

Maybe Jacob will chime in here... His guys he sells to in Russia IIRC where having troubles with the surrounds on there subs due to the extreme cold which is why Jacob decided to start using foam more

Nothing else needed to describe how the surrounds fail. It's a given with those junky ones. Nothing else you can do but get a recone or if you know what you're doing re-foam it with a different surround.

 

[kramer_212 10+ year member]

the only thing is that the suspension, and the surround get stiff, but if your talking about woofers i actually run more power to them in the winter because then i don't have to worry about thermal failure (as much).

 

[pro-rabbit 5,000+ posts]

it depends on the materials they are made out of.

In the end if the surround "shrinks" or gets "hard" it can crack from stress. This is common with various styles of rubberized surrounds. Foam is not as problematic with those issues though.

Everyone has different opinions on that, but from what I have seen over my many years is just that.

I have never seen spider failure do to cold weather conditions though.

 

[SPLaudio 5,000+ posts]

i had built a spl sub, was very cold that day at comp like under 40F. i didnt get notice of im on deck so was told get up there no chance to warm the sub up a little and i destroyed the coil. there was .009 gap so not ur normal sub,lol. i had burped it many times the day before and before the sub, there was no glue failures just coil rock from cold surronds/spiders....