So, first things first... Yes, my wife did get me the Algonquins. She had me guessing though as they didn't show up while opening gifts. UPS dropped them off later in the day on my birthday, which was an even better surprise. What timing!

In any case... I installed them inside for now as I don't have all of the speaker cable needed to make the run from the second story to the backyard deck. The point of this post is not to review the sound, but as a brief note, WOW. It is amazing how good these little speakers sound.

To the point though... as we were listening to them upstairs, my wife said "Are you really going to put these outside? Aren't you afraid they'll get ruined in the rain/heat/etc. in Texas? I knew the speakers were quite tough, but decided to read through the manual just to see what it said. What I read totally cracked me up, so I wanted to post it here... it's bar none my favorite line in any product manual I've read in quite awhile.




When I read this out loud to my wife, we both agreed that if they can survive immersion in a pool, there's probably not much the rain & heat is going to do to harm them any worse than that.

Jason

Are you sure it doesnt say,

If you drop your speakerinto a pool, What are you doing buying speakers this good and dropping them into a pool for, you fool.



I have a saltwater pool, Not the ocean an actual pool, Maybe it should say to hose them out with fresh water too

wow, salt water pool eh? pretty cool.

Yeah, They are pretty easy to take care of. At least we dont really do anything to it. It uses the salt in the water to produce chlorine via a electrically operated chlorine cell thingamabobber so you never really have to add chlorine or anything either. Had the pool and spa finished for a year and i havent even been in it.

Yeah, Brandon; those chlorine generators work by electrolysis, using salt and water in the reaction NaCl+2H2O=HOCl+NaOH+2H2. It's the hypochlorous acid(HOCl)that actually works in the pool water, rather than chlorine gas. Also note the production of hydrogen gas(H2). Hope that you don't smoke(remember the Hindenburg).

Didn't Mr. Fancypants say something about a "Minor in Chemistry"?

JohnK for President......

Keep trying Mark, maybe eventually he'll change his signature to:

----------------------------------- Enjoy the music, not the equipment. "Mr. Fancypants"

Most all new pools nowadays are of the NaCl+2H2O=HOCl+NaOH+2H2 type, at least down in my area they are.

Brandon, whenever our salt pool was built a couple of years ago our Intellichlor was bad and read 'Add Salt' almost on a weekly basis ... whenever the Intellichlor rep came out to check the chlorine generator he had a very nice little digital TDS tester that I asked him about, ended up ordering one from him for 100 bucks and I'd suggest anybody that has a salt pool to have one of these testers. If I would have known about this whenever we had our pool built it could have saved us a lot of aggravation that first bad little chlorine generator caused us.

Here's the tester, you may already have one... LaMotte



Awhile back I asked Alan about the Algonquins holding up in the harsh salt environment where we live due to the Atlantic being a couple of blocks away and he told me that these speakers can actually be thrown into a pool and will be perfectly fine and that the salt air wouldn't hurt them in the least ... I thought, COOL! A non-forum member friend has a set and he said they sounded extremely good and hasn't had the least amount of problems with them being outside all summer ... which, in south Florida can be very tough.

I need to order a set of those things soon.

When we first got the pool going our chlorine cell was bad also, The water flow sensor was not working and it was coming on when there was no water flow which risks an explosion among other things. The unit we have shows water temp, salinity percentage and stuff but that does look like a pretty neat tester. Thanks for the link

If the algonquins can withstand salt air, thats something to be proud of because there are quite a few houses on the ocean here obviously and I have seen speakers rust and look trashed in literally weeks. I dont live close to the ocean but I have seen driver mounting screws rust on my speakers and sometimes steel screws inside of components. I would never live on the ocean because you simply cannot have nice things there or they will get trashed.

Naw, Mark; chemistry major.

Here is my Saltwater Pool. I don't use any sensors but it seems to stay plenty salty.



Perfect place to test Algonquins, no?

Wow! Party at Murph's!

Wid's bringing the food and Tom's bringing the beer!

I'll bring me in a thong!!!

amazing view!

Wait, the photo, or Sean in a thong?

Well, I am quite stunning in it.

#224684 - 10/09/08 08:25 PM Re: Algonquin Weatherproofing [Re: St_PatGuy]
terzaghi terzaghi
connoisseur

Registered: 04/04/07
Posts: 1654
Loc: Tulsa ok amazing view!
_________________________
-David

**************************

Just sayin'...

Murph, as its pictured that view is amazing.

Thanks. Some beautiful, huge sand dunes on the horizon if I had a picture close by of what would be panned way over to the right.

We found this property by accident before the waterfront prices skyrocketed. Even then it was a steal as it was being sold by a partnership of three American couple of which two couple were getting a divorce. Sad for them but happy for us.

Hey guys, on an audio-related note... any strong thoughts on mounting the Algonquins horizontally versus vertically? They're going to be mounted at about 8.5', so unfortunately it's not as if I have the option of lining up the tweeters at ear height or following any of the other indoor positioning advice.

However, if mounting them horizontally is a major no no, I don't want to make any huge compromises. The main reason I want to go horizontal vs. vertical is that I bought the sturdy little brackets, and they only allow the speaker to be swiveled one way. If I mount them vertically, that swivel is up/down, and for how my deck is set up, a left/right swivel is more ideal to position them at the corners of the deck and aim them in, rather than being able to aim them up/down.

Thanks,

Jason

I think all the standard rules go out the window (no pun intended) when you're talking about outdoor audio. After all, you're not going to plant yourself in the sweet spot when you're outside, right?

Fair enough, thanks for confirming I'm thinking along the right lines.

I also just read in the bracket instructions and the bracket itself has to be mounted vertically, so my idea of swiveling horizontally won't work anyway. Oh well.

Jason

Are FMBs not outdoor compatible?

Jason, seems like the speakers can be mounted horizontally on the bracket with the bracket being mounted vertically on the wall, you shouldn't need to swivel ... just rotate the speaker's threaded mounting holes to align with the bracket's mounting holes. Won't that work?

He has SLB's not FMB's.

Good God this getting old thing is getting old ... already.
Thanks for the clarification Tom!

I hear ya, Rick.

And law minor?
Geez John, you may have cured the sugar substitute crisis by now if you stayed with chemistry.

Thanks for the suggestions anyway Rick. I have the FMB in my HT but cheaped out on the mounts for outside.The horizontal swivel isn't that big of a deal in the end, and $80 seemed like a lot to spend on brackets, so I went with the SLBs.

And the getting old thing only gets worse.