Garage Stereo Systems

[D KRAGER]

I thought about doing this, but do you get the full wattage out of the powersupply? Or would you only get about a third of the power? Because it generates three different voltages I think.

I'm sure it would work fine for a car stereo, but I would be hesitant to use it on an amp.

Ok so if anyone is curious on the ampreage of said device, I answered my own question.....

I found it on the google search, the one they were using said that the 12 volt side would put out around 12 amps.

 

[kwhitelaw]

Probably a stupid question, but how do you power the car stereo systems? I've got an inverter to go from 12v to 110v, but how do you go the other way? I've got an old Alpine stereo, Fosgate amp and MB Quarter speakers just rotting away in the closet.

http://www.cascadeaudio.com/power_converters/power_converters.htm

 

[BadBoy69]

I saw AJ5's post and bought one of those systems for my garage. WOW this thang rocks.

The way I see it, If you spend a lot of time in the garage then it's worth the extra few bucks, if I find myself too busy for the garage, then this system is versatile.

I had it in the yard for my nieces quincenieta and I even had it at my store for a little grass roots sale last week. I blasted christmas music on it. Went off without a hitch both times.
Check it out for yourselves
http://pjimmyaudio.weebly.com

 

[nova65ss]

I am thinking AJ5liter and Bad Boy just might be PJimmy himself!


I don't know many people that would shell out 2gs for a setup like that??

 

[rcleaver]

Believe it or not, I have a four channel system that I bought in 1972. It's as good as new and it makes 40 watts RMS per channel and it can handle 8 speakers. I even have some old 4 channel LPs that sound great on this old system.

 

[Bevis]

I am thinking AJ5liter and Bad Boy just might be PJimmy himself!
I don't know many people that would shell out 2gs for a setup like that??

It sure is looking that way...I wouldn't shell out 2g's for that...but for that price, It better come with 3 strippers and a stripper pole.

 

[Coach James]

My system cost me 0$. When I'm in the garage, I have the birds and the wind and an occasional train whistle. I actually enjoy the quiet or just the sounds my work generates and the nature sounds.

Coach

 

[vette-kid]

It sure is looking that way...I wouldn't shell out 2g's for that...but for that price, It better come with 3 strippers and a stripper pole.

2k would get you a damn fine house stereo. Im about to replce my reciever, so the old one will go to the garage (center channel blew). As the theater system gets an upgrade...so does the garage...hand me down style

 

[6 Grrrs]

I have a Sony mini system (CMT-CP1) with my ipod attached (just use playlists - battery has lasted 12 hours in the garage so far) & I have my old Sirius Sportster Replay receiver transmitting FM modulated signal. The Sirius is left on 24/7 & works all around the house on any radio that we have. I have the unit placed between the garage doors, so it is easy to change stations when I'm in the garage. I bought the Sony mini system about 8 years ago for about $200. It sounds great and with ipod & Sirius, I have all the music I need.

I am planning on updating my home theater system (receiver & speakers) in the near future. When I build my new garage, I will use my Yamaha Pro Logic receiver (center channel just blew recently) & the Infinity surround speakers in the new garage. I can still plug in the ipod & should be able to use the same Sirius unit.

No need for a $2k garage system.

 

[Bevis]

2k would get you a damn fine house stereo.

I agree for the house, but its for a Garage, so no 2k sound out there.

 

[10.5 outlaw]

I have 5.1 surround system going into my new shop w/60" plasma
will show some pics after i put it in.

 

[kwhitelaw]

I saw AJ5's post and bought one of those systems for my garage. WOW this thang rocks.

The way I see it, If you spend a lot of time in the garage then it's worth the extra few bucks, if I find myself too busy for the garage, then this system is versatile.

I had it in the yard for my nieces quincenieta and I even had it at my store for a little grass roots sale last week. I blasted christmas music on it. Went off without a hitch both times.
Check it out for yourselves
http://pjimmyaudio.weebly.com

what a joke. they dont list the equipment you are going to receive, they over inflate the power handling (400w to some 6.5" spkrs, yet the pictures clearly show 5x7's..) They show an old *** JL sub, and dont even offer a grille yet you are supposed to use this in a garage..??? cant wait to see something go right through that cone..rediculous

I call bs. pics or it didnt happen.

kevin

 

[TejasBimmer]

Sorry it looks nice and I am sure it sounds really nice, but for $2K to just get the entry level version is way too much!
You could make it yourself with the left over car or home audio equipment that most people have in their attics or just shop on Craigs or eBay.

My little system is the iM7 for my iPod.

Plenty loud and sounds very good.
I do have old stereo equipment & computers, that I plan to hook up later on, sometime next year, 2009.

 

[Cobra4B]

I've got some old random tuner/5-disc CD player hooked to 2 old speakers mounted in the corners. I usually plug my old garage laptop into it and listen to my XM online w/ my wifi card.

 

[buening]

I plan to get a year or two old home audio receiver (Pioneer or Sony, nothing too crazy) off ebay and mount it underneath one of my cabinets. I'll then get some satellite speakers for the 4 corners of the garage and one or two for the underside of the ends of the cabinet section. One requirement is that the receiver will have an input source for my IPOD. You can get a decent used receiver for under $100 and satellite speakers for about the same. This won't be an audiophile-grade system considering it's a garage. But for the price of the receiver and speakers, you'd be hard pressed to get a decent shelf-type stereo system.

In regards to using a computer power supply for an amplifier, you can get a better power supply that will put out 20A+ Some of the 700W+ PSUs will have higher amperage. But, by the time you fork over the money for the power supply you could buy a decent home audio receiver.

 

[TXST8tj]

i had my 13+ year old Aiwa shelf system in my previous garage. i mounted the bookshelf speakers on a wall not connecting with the interior of the house to reduce the noise bleeding in.
we just bought our new house and i have not yet been able to get anything set up in there (at all...it's just piles of boxes). in the next month or so when i start working in there, i will be reconnecting the Aiwa unit to some in-ceiling speakers instead of the bookshelfs. i don't want them on the wall and these in-ceiling speakers are a great deal from www.monoprice.com: http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10837&cs_id=1083703&p_id=4104&seq=1&format=2
i just got the same set for our master bedroom, and they are a hard deal to pass up. with the speakers, wiring, and shipping, i can have it taken care of for $80. one pair will be more than suitable for my two car garage. the best part is they sound great, don't take up any space, and are not suspect to damage without trying REALLY hard.

we will be upgrading our living room surround receiver soon, and will be moving the current surround receiver to the master bedroom, and the 2channel receiver that is in the master bedroom now, into the garage to replace the Aiwa.

 

[roofster]

I just have an old PC and a inexpensive set of 2.1 speakers for a MP3 jukebox. Plus I can surf the web and read car repair & other manuals. The PO left some panasonic speakers behind, one day I may hook-up an old Kenwood receiver I have.

 

[hobie1dog]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm still putting together all the components. I just acquired a bass bin from the theatre in my hometown in Ky. It is a 1939 RCA Shearer bass cabinet that houses 2 woofers, 15" diameter. I have just bought 2-15" JBL 2226H woofers to put in the cabinet. This is a pic of the cabinet after my buddy pulled it out of the theatre.

You can see the back side of the cabinet where the 2 woofers will mount.

I will be powering the bass bin with a Crown K2 amp putting out 2500 watts bridged into the 2 woofers @ 4 ohms.

It will operate up to 400hz where it will be crossed over to the mid/high speakers which will contain 2 Audax PR170MO 6 1/2" midranges(combined efficiency of 105db/1 watt. and then to a Ciare tweeter with a matching 105db efficiency rating.

I have Solus I/O speakers mounted above the garage door and another pair of Solus speakers up high on the side walls for side fill.

Haven't finalized the 7.1 receiver choice yet or wether or not I'll just use my Pioneer Elite c72 preamp with a Yamaha DSP-1 signal processing unit for the rear channels. It's a work in progress hopefully to be finished within the next several months. I wanna start JAMMIN

 

[nate379]

I have a $15 boombox. Works just fine.

 

[hobie1dog]

I need a bigger garage for these bad boys

 

[Fiberglass Fred]

Old receiver and old speakers. There's too much saw dust out there to keep anything nice and new.

The power outlet is hooked into the light switch so I don't have to remember to turn it on/off.

One of the inputs on the garage receiver is a 100' cable I ran from Zone 2 of my main stereo in the house. That means anything played in the house can also be played out in the garage. So I've got the use of CD/DVD/iPod/DVR in the garage even though each of those units are in the house.

 

[rustbucket49]

I've got an old, abandoned dual cassette AM/FM rabbit-ear radio that powers two old Pioneer above-surface car speakers that hang from the ceiling joints. I do have an old Dell computer that has crashed that I may move out... Not sure how to configure that though.....

 

[rustbucket49]

Here's my setup:


Media Center PC with 22" HDTV/Moniter


160w dual 8" Sub


60w Speakers in each corner





It's basically a 400Watt Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 Audio System hooked up to a eMachines T5246 Media Center PC with a Vizio VO22L 22" 720p HDTV/Moniter.

I mostly just listen to Pandora, but I do have cable out there so I can watch cable TV if I want to. It's also connected to my Home Media Center PC which acts as a DVR, so I can easily watch any TV, movies, video, audio/MP3's, or pictures I have stored on any of my machines in the house.

The computer is also great for researching/downloading DIY How To articles and be able to see pics of what I need to do when working on the cars.

I already had the speakers, and I bought the computer and moniter refurbiushed. Total cost was around $500.

-Scott

Hey, can you point me to somewhere for directions on how to configure an old desktop computer into a media server like you've done?? Also, I had never heard of Pandora - very nice !!!!

 

[thomask]

Hobie, be careful those speakers look like they could do sheet metal damage if turned up too loud near your vehicle.

Give us some stats/background etc pls.:

 

[hobie1dog]

Hobie, be careful those speakers look like they could do sheet metal damage if turned up too loud near your vehicle.

Give us some stats/background etc pls.:

Well, I have had alot of the high end speaker systems out there through the years ( Magnaplanar Tympani IVa, Mirage M1) and they were all in-efficient pigs eating up all the power you could feed them and still lacking in the dynamics, and then I built a few....this is the last set I built 8 ft tall.

so I found a set of the Klipschorn speakers to go listen to. There was the dynamic impact I'd been missing all those years, so I then go to the Klipsch forums and found out that there had been a successor to the Khorn called the Jubilee.

The horn loaded bass bin has the tightest, most dynamic bass I'd ever heard, so I was going to build a set of the bass bins as the plans are available for the DIY'ers. I started investigating more horn loaded systems and found the guys who were into the old Theatre system components. The hoy grail was the 1939-1949 or so RCA systems with all Field-Coil drivers. The bass bin used (2) 15" woofers and was then crossed over to a 9 or 15 cell horn up on top driven by (2) RCA midrange drivers that went up to 11k or so. I had a premonition that there was one of these in the old theatre in my hometown in Ky, so I called my buddy who still lives there and he went down and found out that they had just recently unhooked the original speaker system and indeed it was an original RCA Shearer system.

So he talked to the owner who said we could have it. This was on a Sunday, so he said that we could come back and get it during the week. When my buddy went back he found out that the third owner of the theatre had gotten up and disconneted the midrange horn and taken it to the dump. My buddy goes to the dump and talks to a guy who tells him he remembers a lady throwing them in the back of the trash truck and it has gone to the landfill. The pair of RCA Field-Coil midrange drivers currently go for 3500.00 a pair as there are estimated less than 100 of them in existance. So these dumb-a## inbred ignorant back-woods small town Ky. rednecks have destroyed a part of audio history. So anyway my buddy did go back to the theatre and manage to get the large bass bin which had one remaining 15" woofer in it, and also the RCA amp that powered the speakers.

We sold those to a guy in Pa., who has a RCA field coil speaker museum. One of the guys on the Lansing Heritage forum then talked me into keeping the bass bin and loading it with a pair of JBL 2226H woofers which he said he had done and toured Austrailia with back in the 80's. So I'm going to be getting the bass bin next week and then I'll see how good this thing really is. I have to say that all the movies I watched as a kid had this speaker playing behind the screen and it filled up the whole theatre, so it should fill my 20x22 garage up really well...especially when driven with a Crown amp. The original field coil drivers were driven with a 45 watt tube amp and filled up the theatres, so 2500 watts should be REALLY good.

I'm going to lay the speaker on its side which will fill up the space I have below my 110" projection screen on the front wall. The speaker will be 7ft long and 42" high and 30" deep which will serve as a great workbench. I'll likely put two hinged doors on the front covered in grill cloth. In this space here.

Instead of using horn midrange drivers, one of the JBL guys talked me into using the Audax pro sound 6 1/2" midranges that are 99db eff, so two of them spaced close measures 105db/w 1 watt, which is what the bass bin puts out, and he says that it doesn't have the horn colorations that become annoying and cause listener fatigue. This same driver is used in the Waveform Mach 1 speakers ( 17K ) and the Jadis Eurythme ( 45k ) so it is a proven high end reproducer of the critical midrange area.
I'll let you know how it turns out and post some more pics of the final resting spot.

 

[RobSmith]

Like someone else said before. the garage/workshop is for working in. The machine noise drowns out the sound system....I pulled the radio / CD player out of my car before I sold it. Put four speakers around the shed. one in each corner. and that's it. Good enough to hear the news and also play some cd's. I miss most radio stuff because the machine noise is drowning out the radio.

 

[durbancic]

Those are beautiful line arrays you made there, I am jealous I want to make myself a set someday, just am not really sure how to.

-dan

 

[slowtwitch]

Here's my setup. Mounted on a 2 1/2" sheet rock screw. The cassette works...sometimes. It's always on, so when I flip on the lights, I get sounds

Btw, I keep it on a WXPN, a local station

 

[RRmech]

Nikko 5055 receiver
Denon DCD520 CD player
Boston Acoustics A40 speakers


Steve

 

[hobie1dog]

Like someone else said before. the garage/workshop is for working in. The machine noise drowns out the sound system....I pulled the radio / CD player out of my car before I sold it. Put four speakers around the shed. one in each corner. and that's it. Good enough to hear the news and also play some cd's. I miss most radio stuff because the machine noise is drowning out the radio.

And like others have said, a garage is used for many different purposes, some of us eat, drink, and sleep with music playing or at least in our heads, it's what makes us who we are. For others a $ 5.00 beach transistor radio with sports news makes them happy...different strokes for different folks. Audio equipment that puts the musicians in the room with me is what matters to me, spending the valuable remaining minutes of my life working on an over-engineered, mechanics nightmare of a vehicle is less enticing the older I get.

 

[hobie1dog]

Those are beautiful line arrays you made there, I am jealous I want to make myself a set someday, just am not really sure how to.

-dan

A good wood shop is necessary or else a good portable cutting system like the Festool plunge saw with the guide system. Accurate cuts are mandatory, then the finishing part is the tricky thing to do. I had been working in a custom wood shop for several years and was doing all the spraying, staining, finishing for 7 years or so. I had an automotive booth to spray the line arrays in.

 

[1Garageman]

I ran speaker wire from my garage down to the basement where my computers are. I have my main computer do nothing but play music all day through out the house. All speakers, or rooms have an on/off switch to them. So I download the music for free off of the internet, Limewire or www.thepiratebay.org, and have it play all day. I just turn on the speakers, or the switch in the garage, and boom, instant music. It gets **** having you own juit box with 100's of songs on it, AND NO COMERICALS!

 

[rieferman]

slowtwitch wrote

Btw, I keep it on a WXPN

you must be in PA.. I listen to 88.5 a lot too



When we bought our farm house, the 5 speaker surround system with matching infinity speakers was WAY overkill for the house... so now the finished space (no dust in there) will have them. And, along the way, I saved a set of outdoor speakers (klh? some brand like that I believe) that will mount nicely in the workshop area and allow me to hear my tunes in there too.

 

[Buckled]

XPN is on in my garage also. The radio's not worth taking a picture of...

 

[Bojans]

I have my garage wire in as part of the whole house audio so I can have TV, Sat radio, computer, I-pod or regular radio playing. It is sharing power with the front porch speakers off a 150w x2 HK receiver. The Boston Acoustics speakers are mounted about 13-14 feet off the ground about 30-35 feet apart. I have the control mounted right near the stairs to the house. So far it is working well.

 

[Farmallgray]

MP3 player and a set of $10 PC speakers works good for me.

 

[Black]

I decided to go vintage for the Garage.

Pioneer Receiver made in 1979

Pioneer Speaker Made in 1983

I have it hooked to my PC running iTunes. Man I love the sound of this setup.

 

[sports.racer]

Airport Express streaming audio from an Airport Extreme with iPhone controlling iTunes through the Remote app.

 

[tcianci]

Since most radio stations are streaming on line now, I just hooked up a yard sale ($10.00) Harmon Karden speaker system with an amplfied sub to my computer. I use the CD drive in the computer to play the CD's, get the radio online, and if I ever move into this decade, I can store music files on the PC and play them as well. The computer was salvaged from my neighbors garage so my system cost me 10 bucks so far and sounds great.

 

[hobie1dog]

My buddy drove 8 hours here to deliver my 1939 RCA bass cabinet, and it still had the 70 year old dirt on it.

I've got it cleaned up and painted now.

I also got the projection screen border up.

The bass cabinet will be high enough to cover up the wall outlet and give the same amount of distance to the bottom of the screen as on the top.