Speakers Near Fireplace?

Atomic Turtle

OK, another babe-in-the-woods question here. I just got my brand new RTi-12s set up in the living room, and they look as great as they sound. Problem is, the only place for the left speaker is right next to the fireplace - about 18 inches away from it, to be exact. It's an enclosed, cast-iron fireplace, with a glass door, so I'm not worried about sparks or smoke damage, but I am a little concerned about the radiant heat that will hit the side of the speaker. I'm reasonably confident that the speaker won't catch fire, but I am somewhat concerned that the longterm exposure to the radiant heat will either damage the wood cabinet or possibly damage the internal workings of the speaker - or both. It gets pretty warm when I've got that baby cranked up.

The owner's manual for the speakers doesn't specifically state that bursting into flames will have a negative effect on the speaker's functionality, but nonetheless I'm assuming that it would, and that it was just a foolish oversight for Polk to leave that out of the owner's manual. Short of going up in a bonfire, is there anything else that might go wrong with a speaker that's so close to a fireplace? I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to get some sort of insulation and place it on the side of the speaker that faces the fireplace. Anyone have any suggestions on this topic? What sort of temperature range is most comfortable for tower speakers?

Sherardp

Welcome to the club Turtle. 18 inches does seem fairly close. I would think being that close the wood cabinet would still get hot. Just doesnt seem ideal. Try moving your setup on another wall, but you definitely dont want them that close to fire. I suppose Polk left that out of the manual, since most users know better to put the cabinets close to flame.

McLoki

How often do you use the fireplace?

Click on the quote in my sig to see my showcase. My speakers are pretty close to my fireplace as well. I only use it a few times each winter though. If I used it more often, I would look for another place for my speakers (or try to move them further apart.)

Michael

F1nut

The heat WILL damage the finish and the veneer under it.

Ricardo

This is a good way to burn them in if they are new speakers.

McLoki

If it is hot enough when running the fireplace that it is even remotely uncomfortable holding your hand on the speaker (or if it speaker feels hot) - it is to much heat and damage will result.

In my speaker location with the fireplace and fan on, the speakers are slighty warm to the touch not hot at all. Most of the heat seems to come directly out from the fireplace, not much off to the side at all. Like I said though - I don't use my fireplace very often - its main job is to hold up my TV....

YMMV

Michael

Monster Jam

Ricardo wrote: »

This is a good way to burn them in if they are new speakers.

Nice!

tonyb

Heat and speakers,not a good combo.
Even a Ninja Turtle knows this.

Atomic Turtle

McLoki wrote: »

How often do you use the fireplace?

Click on the quote in my sig to see my showcase. My speakers are pretty close to my fireplace as well. I only use it a few times each winter though. If I used it more often, I would look for another place for my speakers (or try to move them further apart.)

Michael

I live in Minnesota, so use it almost every night from early November through March. I have unlimited supplies of free firewood, so I use it as the main heat source for my home. Saves carloads of money over the course of the winter.

Actually, my speaker is farther from the fireplace than yours. Like you, the heat is mostly directed outward from the front of the fireplace, but a fair amount still radiates onto the speaker. I can't really move it farther away, because the space I have to work with is too limited. Just to be all scientific about it, I built a huge, honking fire tonight and taped one of them there thermometer thingies to the side of the speaker, at the point where it's catching the most heat. The hottest the thermometer registered was 110 degrees on the nose, which was higher than I feel comfortable with.

I'm going to go to Home Depot tomorrow and pick up a sheet of some insulation board with a reflective foil coating, and cut it to fit the side of the speaker. Then I'll place a thermometer under the sheet of insulation and see how much heat is coming through. If that still doesn't work, maybe I'll install some sort of automatic sprinkler system to hose down the speaker whenever it gets above 100 degrees, or run freon lines inside the speaker cabinet, or some other such practical solution. I dunno. We'll start with the sheet of insulation, and see if that does the trick.

McLoki

rather than put the insulation against the speaker. I would think it would work better if it was at least 3" or so off the speaker with an air gap between that and the speaker.

That may actually work pretty well.

Michael

shadowofnight

Atomic Turtle wrote: »

I'm going to go to Home Depot tomorrow and pick up a sheet of some insulation board with a reflective foil coating, and cut it to fit the side of the speaker. Then I'll place a thermometer under the sheet of insulation and see how much heat is coming through. If that still doesn't work, maybe I'll install some sort of automatic sprinkler system to hose down the speaker whenever it gets above 100 degrees, or run freon lines inside the speaker cabinet, or some other such practical solution. I dunno. We'll start with the sheet of insulation, and see if that does the trick.

If you are going to go to that extreme, I am sure NASA has some damaged space shuttle tiles it would let go cheap.....

Atomic Turtle

Yeah, I was envisioning gluing some sort of spacer bars on the back of the insulating board to create an inch or so of dead air between the board and the cabinet. What I have in mind is that 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch styrofoam board, so having only a 1-inch spacer behind it will really not make it overly obtrusive. It won't be that visible anyway, because that's facing away from almost the entire room, but still, the less obvious it is the better. I don't think I'll need to do too much - it's not that that part of the room is excessively hot, it's just that the radiant heat hits the speaker cabinet head-on. All I have to do is block that radiant heat, and it'll be fine.

Meanwhile, as soon as I saw that thermometer hit 110, I grabbed a sheet of cardboard and leaned it against the speaker. Works fine; the cabinet cooled down right away. Tomorrow I'll engineer a more permanent solution.

Atomic Turtle

tonyb wrote: »

Heat and speakers,not a good combo.
Even a Ninja Turtle knows this.

I can be astonishingly dense sometimes. But even so, before I set 'em up, I was assuming the cabinet wouldn't get much warmer than 90 degrees or thereabouts. I concluded that by measuring the temperature on the CD rack less than a foot further away than the speaker's location, and that measured in the low 80's.

But yeah, you're right. This probably shoulda been a no-brainer.

F1nut

I'm not quite sure what the melting point of styrofoam is, but it's got to be pretty low. I'd suggest you try to find that out first or use something else.

treitz3

Speakers near fireplace = bad news.

Sherardp

F1nut wrote: »

I'm not quite sure what the melting point of styrofoam is, but it's got to be pretty low. I'd suggest you try to find that out first or use something else.

My thoughts exactly, I have melted styrofoam with a lighter so I dont see that holding up at all. Just my thoughts, bottom line, space them further apart or choose different location. I just read your last post about a sprinkler system or some kind of foil. Sounds like you need a bookshelf speaker that can be mounted on the wall, or youre just full of brilliant ideas. On a another note, 110 degrees is serious heat, those speakers wont last long with the bonfires you have going on there.

Joe08867

Are you talking about the Styrofoam with the foil cover on it??? If so that is a good idea. The reflective material will keep the foam from getting to hot. If not it would probably be a bad idea to use just plain old styrofoam.

skipf

Rigid insulation or drywall works just fine, faced or unfaced. Place it between the speaker and the fireplace with a 1" gap between the insulation and the speaker. You could build a wood surround that could fit tight against the speaker whild providing the air space and stain it to match the speaker. If you use drywall that gives you the ability to paint it to match the walls. Had the same problem in one of my prior abodes and the insulation did the trick.

Atomic Turtle

Joe08867 wrote: »

Are you talking about the Styrofoam with the foil cover on it??? If so that is a good idea. The reflective material will keep the foam from getting to hot. If not it would probably be a bad idea to use just plain old styrofoam.

Yep, that's the stuff. And it worked great. In fact, it's probably overkill, so I think I'm going to go with Skipf's excellent suggestion to cut a piece of drywall to size and paint it to match. Another option may be to move the CD towers outward, so that the left-hand CD tower is closer to the fireplace, and move the speakers inboard a bit, but then I'd only have 7 feet of separation between the speakers instead of 10 feet, and I'm not sure how that would sound. We'll see. Maybe it won't make that much of a difference. I'll experiment a bit and see how it all shakes out. Thanks to everyone for their advice!

Atomic Turtle

Sherardp wrote: »

My thoughts exactly, I have melted styrofoam with a lighter so I dont see that holding up at all. Just my thoughts, bottom line, space them further apart or choose different location. I just read your last post about a sprinkler system or some kind of foil. Sounds like you need a bookshelf speaker that can be mounted on the wall, or youre just full of brilliant ideas. On a another note, 110 degrees is serious heat, those speakers wont last long with the bonfires you have going on there.

Well... I sorta figured everyone would realize that was a joke. Sorry for the confusion. I don't think 110 degrees is going to melt the styrofoam, but I promise that if I turn out to be wrong, I'll let everyone know.