shop stereo ideas

[sprkt01]

I am finishing out the inside of my shop,i would like some ideas on some of your stereo setups. You guys always come up with something good , thanks

 

[csargents1546]

In my old garage I had the old eight track with a record turntable. It was just sitting in the basement at my parents house. That stereo looked cool and retro and had great sound quality to it also. All of my friends loved the idea.

 

[GarageEnvy]

I know there are several threads on this but I'd recommend whatever source your prefer (radio, internet, ipod) from Ebay, CL or garage sale and a decent set of speakers. I bought in-wall 3-way speakers from monoprice which are OK and some JBL all-weather speakers which were factory refurb units w/warranty off ebay. The JBL's are slick. You can combine their mounting and change their orientation. You can even mount them from a ceiling fan down rod in an array. If I had known about them sooner I might have just done that. Here's a link to the speakers and a photo of how I have them in the shop

http://www.jbl.com/resources/Brands.../ProductInformation/ControlNOW Inst Guide.pdf

 

[december45]

i use my old cd /stereo/ radio out of my F250, use a power supply from an old computer and it works great, small footprint, always have the time right there when i want it too.

 

[turbo6justin]

If you get something decent I would advise that you put it behind doors or something. In my experience with metal/wood/and just dust dust is they take a beating in a garage not to mention the temperature extremes. I have always used the oldest thing I had or could find that made sound at a relatively loud level. It is a sometimes noisy garage after all so some clean volume is nice. With that said the last one I killed was an old tube style amp and the 'new' one actually has a disk changer and aux input which is nice for the ipod and computer if I want. Whatever falls into my hands is usually what I use. Between the two most recent I needed something in there and had an old clock radio plugged in, better than nothing.

My parents have their whole house centrally wired including the garage so it all goes through one receiver. It was wonderful when I was there working on a car in the garage and someone would put in a movie or something and flip on the amp without checking whick speakers were on. Great way to startle a person into hitting their head on whatever they are working under at the time.

 

[rickairmedic]

I have an older Kenwood receiver from a pawn shop $35.00 as I recall ( with a remote ) and a set of pickup behind the seat 8" box speakers in my garage . This setup works great for the garage and I dont worry about anything getting screwed up ( dust etc. ) .


Rick

 

[Scout Driver]

If you wish to go the simple route, a DeWalt jobsite radio is amazingly effective. Good sound and loud enough for even a large area. Mine gets a lot of use. A couple cordless drill batteries will run it a long time outside. (its a battery charger too) It even doubles as a car stereo in my '75 Scout with only an AM radio. The Ipod jack is nice too. (nicer yet if I had an Ipod!)

Scott

 

[creativecars]

Going cheap and old school, sorta. I still have my older computer with a bunch of classic rock downloaded. I can play cd’s, get online radio stations ect… I have the computer in the office area of my shop. Computer speakers with amps and old school house speakers in the corners of the shop wired back to the amps. I picked up the old box speakers cheap and free and they only require the few amps offered from the computer speakers. Sounds pretty good. I also have an ex-house 5 disc changer/tuner that I can switch back and forth with.

 

[Falcon67]

15 year old small cassette "boom box". Most of it works, plays the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean tapes well enough. Has that "cheap cassette deck" nostalgia sound to it and you have to flip the tapes. Old School for sure and it was free. Yes, it's on my iPhone - I hate ear buds.

 

[sam 8]

I have a hodge podge of stuff.
I aquired a set of old Bose 901's, bought a refurbishing kit for the cones, which were all rotten and those are now the mains in front of the hoist. Over in another area, where there is a fridge and a poker thable, I have a pair of old Pioneer omnidirectionals that are built like round end tables.
I brought a coax from the dishnetwork reciever out to the shop for TV, and realized I had brought the Sirius radio with it. I grabbed an ipod adapter with two preamp outputs on it, plugged it into the headphone jack of the TV, and ran the cables back to the stereo receiver, and now I have some decent radio stations in the shop. Oldies, country, whatever my mood is they have a station. Since I am out in the sticks and FM stereo signals are almost impossilbe to get, Sirius and the ipod save the day.
I need a better tuner and need to get the eq for the 901's plugged in.
I have my eyes on a Marantz that is going to wind up out there soon.
The best place to shop for shop stereo gear, if you are not able to use old stuff form the house, is to hit the local thrift stores. Be patient and you will score some good stuff.

 

[370z]

i thought long and hard about this one and ended up getting the kicker ikick500. it is pretty small, but some how sounds huge! gets very very loud, at level 10 I'm concerned my neighbors will hear, it goes to level 40!! great clarity and super bass. You can hook up what ever source you want to it through the 2-way headphone jack(included) but it is made to dock an ipod/iphone/itouch. there is also a version for the zune device. oh yeah, i also added the diamond plate sticker myself.
View media item 7478View media item 7476check out the passive sub on the back!
View media item 7479oh yeah, it also has a small remote!!

 

[Perryk]

I bought an older NAD receiver off Craigslist ($75)and then some Klipsch (KSF 8.5) and going to mount then in the corners. There is nothing like working on a car with a shop filled with music.... if you are going to spend some time in the shop, make the stereo worth listening to.

 

[rwhite692]

I took a chance on one of these Sony shelf systems off ebay, it was sold as a refurb, with Sony warranty, got it for 50-something bucks. It was indistinguishable from new when it arrived.

I mounted the two speakers at opposite ends of the shop, and hid the subwoofer in a corner.

Has a dock for an ipod or iphone, remote, CD changer, etc. Remote handles all the ipod functions, and the dock charges the iphone or ipod as well....It works great. Cranks pretty good!

 

[RbrtAWhyt]

Some great ideas here:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63960&highlight=shop+stereo

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=536&highlight=shop+stereo

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16956&highlight=shop+stereo

 

[hifi_hokie]

I am finishing out the inside of my shop,i would like some ideas on some of your stereo setups. You guys always come up with something good , thanks

How much do you have to spend?

I kind of know a thing or two about this...here and there

 

[jam0o0]

use something old. i do a lot of metal and grinding work. and that dust kills electronics. right now i'm using a 15 year old boom box. after one year in the garage the cd player died, one tape deck died, all the buttons and knobs feel like sand paper when you turn them. antena's broken. it's perfect. when it goes my next setup is gunna be an old computer in a sealed, gasket-ed box. i'm gunna mount a filter on one end with a fan blowing in. keep the box pressurized. that way if it leaks you still don't get grit in it. i'll stick the amp/reciever in there. i've got some bookshelf speakers i got for free. those will get hung from the ceiling, just far enough into the garage to not get in the way of the perimeter shelves.

 

[TN_GARAGE]

How much do you have to spend?

That's always the $64,000 question, isn't it?

Also...how do you want it to look?

FWIW, I took my 15 year old stereo receiver and DVD changer that I had stored away and simply built a shelf. Connected it to some spare speakers and viola.

Prior to doing that I was using a spare set of computer speakers and my MP3 player and/or blackberry (there are a couple neat music applications out there that function sorta like XM or Sirius satellite radio)

 

[widerberg]

Don't have a pic here at work, but I've got an iPod base/speaker thing that works really well. It doesn't reach the volume levels of a full-on stereo, but I've got a couple thousand songs on the iPod, so good variety there, and I mostly use the music for background/ambient sound while I'm fiddling with something. If I'm in "work mode", i.e., cussing at a car or hammering it with something, I can't hear the music anyway ;-)

 

[Scott P]

I have an old Fisher receiver I got from a friend for helping him move. I bought some Polk bookshelf speakers for $40 at Outpost.com years ago, and they work well. I wouldn't mind a newer receiver, but this one works for now.

 

[Kevro]

I have an older Kenwood receiver from a pawn shop $35.00 as I recall ( with a remote ) and a set of pickup behind the seat 8" box speakers in my garage . This setup works great for the garage and I dont worry about anything getting screwed up ( dust etc. ) .


Rick

You might want to check the impedance of your speakers and receiver, if you haven't already. Most car speakers are 4 ohm, and "house" gear is usually 8 ohm. If the receiver isn't designed to handle 4 ohm speakers, it will send too much power to them, which could damage the speakers, and/or overheat the amp, and at the very least shorten their life.

 

[bart1]

I'm not planning anything too nice or extravagant, but I hope to do a decent sized flat TV (around 32") with a built in DVD play and then hook that up to my DirecTV and a pair of Audioengine/Aktimate or similar powered speakers. This will result in a decent sounding system that I can hook up my phone to, is fairly portable if needed, etc.

 

[nathank]

I re-purposed some drivers out of an old cab into some custom in-walls

 

[VincenT]

I always thought these were pretty cool.... and it's portable



The BoomCase

 

[Jack Olsen]

I'm not an audiophile by any stretch. Here are my simple priorities for the garage stereo:

1) Half the time, I've got ear protection on out there, so one requirement is that it's able to get pretty loud.

2) I do both metal fab and wood stuff, so there's a lot of stuff in the air. I keep my amplifier in a cabinet and the speakers high up so they get less stuff settling on them.

3) This might sound stupid, but it's got to be easy to turn on and off. I hit the power button on the amp and the play button on the ipod and the music is going. If it ends up more complicated than that, I'm simply not going to turn it on for short stays in the garage.

4) I never listen to the radio -- only an old iPod. I have a regular amp (a Sherwood RX-4105 Stereo Receiver - $90), but if I had to do it again I'd save time and go with an amplifier only. I did this in my office and it's basically invisible and always on.

So, here's what I would go with if I did it again.

Pyle Home PCA2 Mini 2 x 40-Watt Stereo Power Amplifier - $39

Sony SS-B3000 Bookshelf Speakers with 8" Woofer - $82/pair

Then an old iPod and a cable. Now, crank up the Crüe.

 

[Sancho]

I have some Yamaha NS-670 "Bookshelf's" (they're ~40lbs each) and a Luxman R-1040, When I put my shelving up over my bench I built a small shelf in the corner for one speaker and the other sits at the end of a longer shelf. Both in somewhat unusable space from a loading and unloading perspective.

I may be unique in that I really appreciate the 70's vintage audio equipment, in fact my newest piece of audio gear is probably some early 80's Ohm Walsh's. I think older equipment fits the garage nicely.

 

[TireTracks]

We have my dads old Stereo out there. It's kinda picky, wires have to be wiggled for it to work right.

 

[Teach]

Music is almost always on out in my garage. When I built it five years ago I was able to pick up good quality second-hand components for reasonable money. I have them tucked away in the "over the fridge" (deep enough to accommodate them) cabinet in the left side of this picture. They are out of the way, out of sight, easily accessible, and protected pretty well from dust. I have speakers downstairs and upstairs, which the amp lets me switch between (or combine).

 

[Aberdale]

I currently have a used laptop computer that I hooked up to a cheap home theater system I bought at Walmart. The computer currently has a few thousand songs that I play on shuffle/repeat mode through Windows Media Player.

I have several playlists programmed, depending on the mood I'm in.

It's been playing continuously for about three years now.

 

[hifi_hokie]

I re-purposed some drivers out of an old cab into some custom in-walls

I'll have to file that one away for the future...I'm not usually a fan of in-walls, but I like that idea!

Tannoy makes some great in-walls we've used commercially...never thought about it for the garage though.

 

[jrod60]

I took my ipod to Best Buy to try out their docks and this one sounded the best even beating the $400 Bose, in my opinion. $112 plus an ipod and its got a rechargable battery so you can pack it around. Thing gets loud and sounds good for a couple of 4" speakers. The remote range is only about 10', but that may be related to where I put it. Besides sound, two key features sold it: doesnt' use the ipod volume control and it recharges the pod. I've used the headphone jack in the past for connections to speakers and it killed the ipod; no more of that for me.

http://www.alteclansing.com/ae/us/ipod-iphone-speakers/inmotion-kick-imt520blk/invt/imt520blk/&bklist=icat,3,shop,ipodiphonespeakers

 

[5lima30]

I recently purchased a Sony Micro HI-FI CMT-FX300i from Sams for about $80.00. My wife immediately commandeered it for her exercise room. It sounds great and can be used as an Ipod docking station or MP-3. I will probably pick up one for my garage once its completed.

 

[20V'er]

Right now, crappy old Aiwa system with bookshelf speakers that only the radio works on.

Planned for spring is old laptop hooked to a fairly nice stereo receiver I got for free from work. Radio will be one button to turn on, but if I want to play mp3's or Pandora I can boot up the laptop. Also will be able to have wi-fi in the garage for google needs. Also picked up a free 15" LCD as a buddy said it was to small for home use and a free keyboard from somebody else, so I should be able to hide the laptop from most of the dust and dirt. Biggest push for the change is I plan to add a set of patio speakers and I needed a receiver with an A/B speaker switch. In the garage I'll run the same speakers as current.

 

[Kebrock]

Sony SS-B3000 Bookshelf Speakers with 8" Woofer - $82/pair

I bought those exact speakers for my garage system. They are hooked up to a vintage Kenwood KR-7400 and either a cd player or IPOD. They can disturb the neighbors with the garage door open. I just haven't figured out where to put everything yet.

 

[Chris Adams]

My shop stereo is a running gag in my family.
My house has two home theater setups, involving among other things, 2 15 inch subs, one 12 inch sub and enough other speakers to fill the bed of my F150, well, almost.
Pioneer and Sony Dolby systems on both the big TV's.
My 'computer speakers' are a Bose wave wrcc2 (really just because I didn't want the clutter of computer speakers and radio on my desk)

So how much did I invest in the shop, where I listen to loud music all day?

Nothing.
I had a leftover Sony receiver, 120 watt from the 80's. Pipe it into thirty free speakers, that is, speakers I pull from various projects, lots of Bose and other cheap car speakers that I replaced with more modern stuff. Built several long (eight foot) boxes that hold the leftover speakers and hung them from the ceiling.
In the house the music is so nice you can hear the third violin farting, but in the shop IT'S LOUD.
I play MP3's mostly over a cable from the shop computer, so I have ten or twenty thousand of my favorite songs cued up, so I don't get bored.

Although, some of my neighbors swear they can hear Flogging Molly in their sleep, I always turn it way down before sundown. And never play it loud before 9 am.

 

[lilredex]

My garage system is really bottom $$$. Garage sale Pioneer tuner and amp $5. Box speakers picked up on garbage day - free. DVD player out of an apartment dumpster (Super doing a clean out) - free.

There is not much of interest to me, on the airwaves around here, so I mainly play MP3's that are computer burned. My taste is 1950 to 75 pop. country and folk, that are transcribed from LP's. or stolen off places like Share-Bear and Limewire when they were still around.

Any one have a good way to (wireless) transmit a computer signal out to the garage speakers? (so all that extra stuff could be eliminated?)

 

[seagravedriver]

I have a pawnshop receiver and tuner, and I bought a adaptor from the Apple Store. Added a couple of beat up used Bose 701 or 801s, and I am good to go for cheap. But, it you like talk radio, my DeWalt jobsite radio grabs AM much better

 

[NUTTSGT]

I took the speakers from a book shelf streo and added them to another. This gives me 2 speakers on one side of the garage and two on the other. The smaller surround speakers that came with one of them are hooked up the the TV.

 

[GTOGreg]

Bose Sounddock 10 here. I move it out to the patio when I have guests over. It is very simple and I'm sure that you could put together a superior system for cheaper, but it is mobile and the sound in unreal for its size. Happy with that deal. Set me back $500 last year on Amazon.com.

Oh, and you can't get FM. But no matter, I just listen to the iphone and either Live 365 or Pandora for personalized streaming content.

 

[Bad Karma]

when i insulated my attached garage, I ran network cable out from the house. I have an old computer mounted under the work bench that runs regular plug in computer speakers with a sub woofer. I either stream radio off the internet or I run itunes. itune has "homeshare", which allows you to share playlists and songs off of one home computer.
works great!!

and i have internet in the garage!

 

[nathank]

I'll have to file that one away for the future...I'm not usually a fan of in-walls, but I like that idea!

Tannoy makes some great in-walls we've used commercially...never thought about it for the garage though.

Here is the build thread on it

http://garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29900

The other thread doesn't show the ports I added, but you can see that in the pic I posted in this thread.