Ok, I am hoping that someone can shed some light on a problem that I am currently having. Before today I had two large floor speakers on the left and right side of my CRT monitor. Although they were extremely large, they didn’t seem to be too much of a problem for the monitor. Today, however, I had to replace the speakers because I blew them. The new pair that I bought make the monitor go crazy. I thought about replacing it with an LCD, but I’d rather just figure out a way to keep the CRT without all the distortion. Anyway, is there an type of material that I could place in between the two speakers and the monitor in order to numb the magnetic field, or preferably eliminate it? I don’t really have another place to put the speakers, so moving them is going to be an absolute last resort. Thanks.
Putting aluminum foil on the side of the speakers nearest the monitor will give you some shielding.
Yes, “air”, as in lots of it. You made a rather unfortunate and rather common mistake in buying “unshielded speakers”. Do not place these anywhere near a monitor of any type, your cpu box, a tv set, etc.
Think in terms of 3-4 feet minimum.
Consumer “after market” shielding is by definition a very bad idea. Note that “shielded speakers” have the shielding immediately around the coils of the drivers. If all it took was tinfoil to fix it, shielded speakers would cost only a penny more than unshielded. They don’t. Think about it.
Huh, why is that ? I’ve found “after market” shielding to give good value for the money in the lab. Is it something about the nature of consumerism that makes it “by definition” a bad idea ? The cost of foil is low enough that it is worth trying before throwing money at overpriced speakers or a flat panel display.
Sheet aluminum, or iron will work even better. The do it yourself approach is even effective around the powerful superconducting magnets of NMR’s. (That’s MRI to the non-chemist).