I'm new to this site, so I'm hoping someone can help me out. What could possibly cause a speaker to suddenly catch on fire? If anyone knows the answer to this I would greatly appreciate it. This happened to me tonight, when my home stereo was on.

 

I'm guessing the plastic caught on fire and not the metal. I would say that either:

1. Your receiver is very broken and should be thrown out.

2. Your + and - wires were crossing.

 

A solder point may have broken causing a short. I can't see how reversing polarity could cause it. Nor would I blame the receiver, which is not likely to produce the power to fry a speaker, unless you took a lightning strike with your stereo on.

 

I would have to ask you first what type of stereo/receiver and what type of speaker... does the speaker contain a powered sub if you know??? Then maybe I can be of more help instead of just guessing.

 

I have to agree with the last poster (stmcdaniel). First of all, unless you just have a really hi-powered amplifier/receiver, it's very unlikely that there would be enough spark to start a fire - of course, this highly depends on the accelerants too.

I also think that it must be a powered device of some sort. I would be interested to hear about the speaker in question.

Are you positive it wasn't something close by that lit the speaker up? Maybe a stray cigarette ash? Something similar?

The mesh grille on the front of a speaker can light pretty easily, but the insides are essentially nothing but air - nothing really combustible or powered in most tower/wall-mount speakers.

If you have a digital camera, I would like to see a few pics of the speaker also, send me a PM to get my e-mail address.