very basic stupid speaker questio

[Alec]

on the richer sounds website, it says that the magnets in a set of floor standing speakers allows it to be placed near a tv without risk of damge to the screen. i was led to believe the magnet is exactly what causes the damage? i only have an old bog standard tube telly, and dont really want to upgrade it before i get speakers. am i doomed? i cant place the speakers (if i go for floor standers - still not sore yet) more than a couple o feet away from my rubbish telly.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="al7478"]on the richer sounds website, it says that the magnets in a set of floor standing speakers allows it to be placed near a tv without risk of damge to the screen.[/quote]
whereabouts? I've just looked, and couldn't find anything[quote user="al7478"] i was led to believe the magnet is exactly what causes the damage?.[/quote] are you sure you don't mean magnetically shielded?[quote user="al7478"] quote user="al7478"] i only have an old bog standard tube telly, and dont really want to upgrade it before i get speakers. am i doomed?[/quote]Not necaserrily. I have my right-hand speaker placed about 18 inches away from my old CRT and it hasnt done any harm

 

[Alec]

i think i do mean magnetically shielded, yes. on the home page, theres a set of kef floor standers. it says it in their details.

Kef Q5's.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Magnetically shielded speakers can be used much closer to a TV screen than unshielded ones, which can cause some colour blotching and other problems, principally on good old cathode ray tube TVs. Not a problem with flatscreen TVs, however.

 

[Alec]

thanks andrew, thats kind of what i thought. i think. so, how careful do i need tobe if i get speakers with magnets (to use the technical jargon lol!), as i cant aford a better telly yet? in other words, i guess, how far fromthe telly is far nough?

 

[iRog]

Speaker magnets only cause *interference* if placed too close to picture tubes - there is no risk of permanent damage. So just place them far enough away so that the picture looks ok.

 

[Alec]

Thanks iRog, ill go with that unless anyone has anything to add.

 

[Anonymous]

jusst to add theres nothing about magnets-onlymagnetically shielded speakers;-)
http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=KEF-Q5-DK-APPLE

 

[Anonymous]

Anything over a foot would be fine I'd have thought. The interference, and it is only interference, not damage, is very short range. It's really only an issue if you get a centre speaker and intend to sit it directly on top of your TV itself and these speakers are almost always magnetically shielded with this in mind. So you'll be fine with the Kefs as long as their at least a foot off the TV. And why on earth would you want them slap bang next to the TV anyway. It'll look really heavy and you need a bit of width for a decent stereo soundstage.

 

[Alec]

Thanks Will. im operating in a very small area, so thats why im concerned. the speaker wont be more than a couple feet away from the telly max, by force of circumstance. Still a bit concerned that ive got a tube telly, but my fears have been allayed, largely.

 

[Anton90125]

The "damage" is that the speaker magnet magnetizes a part of the colour CRT called the shadow mask. Electrons fired from the "electron gun" at the back of the tube normally pass through holes in this screen to hit the phosphors coating at the front of the tube to create the light that we see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_mask

When the screen is magnetized, the magnetic field bends the path of these electrons such the only some of these electrons pass through.

If you have magnetized your shadow mask then switch of your set (not on standby), leave for 15-20 mins, then switch it back on. A cold start up shoud trigger the "degaussing circuitry" which should clean things up.

Have a look that this site for a good discription of what happens:

http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/print1.php?QNum=1455

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphor

 

[Alec]

Thanks Anton90125. I'm still wavering about floor standers or shelf speakers, mainly because floor standers are eaier to place, but may be too much for my room, and will simply have to be close to my telly. whereas shelf units will be hard to place, and, it seems, dont give equal performance to floorstanders.

Anyone?