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UV speaker covers...do they exist?

Moppit

Moppit

pfm Member
Sitting here in my lounge the lovely spring sun is shining on my mint Harbeth SHL5+ and I'm worried the veneer is going to discolour over time ( one speaker nearer the window).

Rather than shutting the curtains has anyone found/made UV slip on covers ? There seem to be thick padded jobs online for transporting pro gear, but I'm after something soft but effective that ideally might be acoustically transparent/UV protective. I may leave them on for daytime listening so they need to look half decent. The original Harb packing bags are bright white and not really subtle.

Call me fussy if you like but I've just had to replace an oak floor that was severely bleached over time and it got me thinking..

I know there are lots of other things to worry about at the moment but any thoughts or tips much appreciated.

M
 
Ordinary glazing is an EXTREMELY effective UV filter.

Look at people working long hours in greenhouses - they don't get a tan with the job.
 
I’ve also been looking for a better solution than this:

49686403931_42f0d88eca.jpg


I was going to look into this, but as usual haven’t got round to it yet.
 
Moppit said:
Sitting here in my lounge the lovely spring sun is shining on my mint Harbeth SHL5+ and I'm worried the veneer is going to discolour over time ( one speaker nearer the window). …
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My loudspeakers are situated similarly relatively to a big window. As @Snufkin proposed, I swapped them over a few times in the first few years to ensure reasonably even exposure to the light. I don't know if it was really needed but the colour change has been very uniform.

Mine are walnut veneered. I did some homework on the particular wood. Walnut starts out dark and lightens fairly gradually. That has happened to mine (and the lightening has brought out the grain more vividly). I think cherry, in contrast, darkens and the initial change is quite quick. So for cherry I would have swapped them over a bit more frequently. For other woods like modern sustainable rosewood I don't know.

As a side-effect I found that for my offset tweeters, outside versus inside makes too little difference to matter to me (just for interest - I think the Harbeth SHL5 plus does not have offset tweeters).
 
As ever be aware that if you are using a speaker with grilles and veneered baffles the cabs will end up an entirely different colour to the baffles. Speakers with wood grille-frames are the worst here as they tend to end up with a ‘bikini line’ where the baffle is protected entirely from light.
 
When I've previously had speakers near a window that gets direct sunlight I used a Voile to reduce the amount of light and closed the curtains during peak hours, however now my speakers are in a room with north facing windows so they never get any sun.
 
IME stuff still fades and/or changes colour in a north facing room that doesn't receive direct sunlight. In fact I have stuff that's faded worse in a north-facing room with a bay of four 2-metre tall double-glazed windows than in a south-facing room with a single 2-metre tall double-glazed window, so I suspect the amount of window area has a significant impact.

I obviously try to keep direct sunlight off my kit as much as possible, hence my system is located on the wall opposite my single south-facing window. I have also installed two roller blinds, one 'daylight' and one 'blackout', which allows me to control to the nearest cm how much direct and how much diffused sunlight makes it across to the other side of the room. Is this too OCD? :)
 
^ For 200 quid you could buy a sewing machine, self isolate, learn to sew and make your own, pocketing £100 to boot.
The only prob I can guess at is that acoustic transparency and sun-proofness may not go hand in hand, since the former requires an open material, and the latter something dense.
For a while however I used a silk (indian silk...easily available online) sheet to act as a Harbeth dust cover and occasional records through it sounded fine...not for critical listening but fine otherwise.
 
There is essentially no UV indoors unless a door or window is open. That being so, there is no point in protecting stuff indoors from UV. It is visible light causing the fade, and quite probably heat as well when you consider how hot anything in direct sun can get.

A great deal of the changes seen in wood colour are due to oxidation. Keep the items under nitrogen or in a vacuum.
 
Vinny said:
There is essentially no UV indoors unless a door or window is open. That being so, there is no point in protecting stuff indoors from UV. It is visible light causing the fade, and quite probably heat as well when you consider how hot anything in direct sun can get.

A great deal of the changes seen in wood colour are due to oxidation. Keep the items under nitrogen or in a vacuum.
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If this is correct, I am struggling to understand why Uviwax worked extremely well on my fire surround when it went rather orangey with the original lacquer. Same (north facing) room, same wood, same position, no direct sunlight, same time period (several years).
 
Vinny said:
There is essentially no UV indoors unless a door or window is open. That being so, there is no point in protecting stuff indoors from UV. It is visible light causing the fade, and quite probably heat as well when you consider how hot anything in direct sun can get.

A great deal of the changes seen in wood colour are due to oxidation. Keep the items under nitrogen or in a vacuum.
Click to expand...
Great advice.
 
I put a pillow case on each ATC SCM11, another over the turntable, and matching coloured pillows on the amp and cdp (to reduce light damage, and discourage the cats from jumping up)
Admittedly not a great look between listening sessions, and the cats have still managed to cause some minor scratch damage to the top of one of the speakers, though latterly have shown less interest in climbing atop.
 
I put a black towel over each speaker. No direct sunlight but it does protect the plastic top ( wilson Benesch Arcs) and keep the dust off.
 
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