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My newly purchased Polk SDA's caught fire!

lakegville

lakegville

Active Member
A friend said i should post this because of the bizarre nature of it so...a few weeks back i bought a really nice pair of Polk SDA 1c's off of e bay. They were not too far from my residence so the seller offered to deliver them on Saturday. I got a e-mail from him saying he was running behind an hour or so...no big deal. I got another e-mail from him saying his truck had overheated and he was seeking assistance. Then another about an hour later stating he was back on the road and in route.....I'm feeling better about things now...glad to hear he is out of harms way. Then shortly i got a phone call from him stating that things had taken an even worse turn of events....his wife had looked in the rear view and realized that the Polks were engulfed in flames!!! Fortunately for them a passing motorist had a fire extinguisher and helped put out the flames or the entire truck could have been taken. Neither one of them smoked and just do not know how such a thing could have happened. It was such a wild story i was having trouble believing it till he sent the pics.....after i saw them i felt bad for the speakers, him, and me.
 

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i remember an old article in a popular stereo magazine many years ago where the owner of a pair of polk SDA had a fire in his home and rebuilt the speakers hiring a cabinet shop and with blueprints supplied by polk along with a few replacement parts was able make like new again. that's dedication to the SDA sound. today it might be just too expensive.:(
 
Can't tell for sure from the photos but the damage looks to be cosmetic only. If so, they can be saved with more physical effort than expense.
 
Wood can be fixed or replaced, easier for some folks than others though. Polk SDA's are worth the effort. The bottom caps would be very easy to replace, the cabinets would take more skill and effort.
 
Given the three theories on how they might have ignited, Cigarette, friction, or spontaneous combustion,I know if I had to start a fire using
one of the given methods, choosing a lit cigarette would certainly be the best bet as far as fire starting power..... you will be rubbing two speakers together for a long time before getting a fire started......
Obviously we will never know for sure what caused it, could have even been a wiring issue with the vehicle, or a piece of a falling meteorite .....or maybe Drew Barrymore reprising her role in Firestarter ?
 
Sound generates heat and so does friction. If the cloth side panels, or the blanket for that matter, were to have been resonating while travelling down the highway at 70mph, there may very well be enough energy (sound + friction) to ignite the cloth. Go ahead, flame away... :thumbsup:

Sorry to all involved. Such a freak occurrence, craziness.
 
in the first pic there seems to be some kind of liquid maybe pesticide or some kind of starter fluid.

Most chemicals like that are flammable perhaps it leaked out and the fumes were ignited by a spark or lit cigarette in some kind of "stars aligned" scenario lol
 
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