Garage speaker system

Itsthesmell

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I'm turning my garage into a gym and want some advice from anyone who's done this and added a sound system.
Its 2.5m wide by 6m long.
My options are in wall, in ceiling or wall mounted on brackets. Its gonna have loads of reflections because its narrow so how would you guys go about it?
I like the idea of ceiling speakers but the way our hearing works its not ideal. In wall might work but do we lose bass? I like the sound of Dali and they do a cinema speaker that's in-wall mounted but would it work in a narrow room? I could add 4 in-ceiling speakers if I can find good 8ohm ones; Any recommendations on some?
Then there's wall mounted on brackets. How would these sound high up?
 
Can you apply acoustic panels to the garage? They may help with the reflections,,,
 
I had this thought today, if I use in wall cinema speakers I could put them close to the walls and stick acoustic panels on the first reflection point. I Haven't listened to them though so I've no idea how it would sound. Its not like a simple home demo.
 
Active speakers all the way.

You will get the ability to alter the bass and treble response to help with the boundary issues.

Do you have a budget in mind?
 
If it's wifi streaming job I'd throw a Sonos or similar in each corner.

If you are physically playing music, radio or CD player I'd get an amp that can drive 2 sets of speakers and buy 2 sets of easy to drive hi sensitivity 8 ohm jobbies.

You can do great for not stupid money.

A few Bluetooth speakers that can join up (ue ultimate ears or jbls) may do if you're only using Bluetooth
 
What gym equipment are you going to have ?
If its includes a running machine and or rowing machine, they are going to be making quite a bit of noise themselves. May not be worth going overboard on sound
I just have a soundbar that I picked up cheap on fb marketplace and blutooth/spotifyfrom my phone. Does the job:blush:
 
Active speakers = good idea, didn't think of that.
Gym equipment will be weights, steps, balls and a punch bag. Non of it will be motorized. We have a Dali Kubik one soundbar in the bedroom I could see how it ssound. We don't use WiFi, everything is Ethernet cabled so sonos wouldn't work.
 
A. Is this a gym with background music?

B. Listening room using gym too.
In other words a dedicated listening room, when not using the gym?
Depending on whether you are going A or B as the components will be sonically different.

Plus acoustic diffuser boards can be used on your side walls, which may help.
You are certainly not stuck to wall mounted speakers or an active set up, but this depends on whether you want A or B

I too use a garage as a dedicated listening room, similar in size, (mine slightly wider at 3 m).
 
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Active speakers = good idea, didn't think of that.
Gym equipment will be weights, steps, balls and a punch bag. Non of it will be motorized. We have a Dali Kubik one soundbar in the bedroom I could see how it ssound. We don't use WiFi, everything is Ethernet cabled so sonos wouldn't work.
You can run Sonos via Ethernet cable.. so do not discount this method.. you may need to run an extended run patch cable via a hub but it can be done :)
I believe the only Sonos you cant run on ethernet is the sonos move but all the other models you can...
You will need a minimal of a Cat 6 cable though
 
If it's in a gym, why not do what the gyms do and use a PA system. It would be much better suited in that kind of environment and as they usually have large woofers, they should easily be able to kick through the rooms difficulties
 
Phone + headphones

Assuming, like most, you have immediate neighbours, having a sound system you can hear over the usual gym noises might just be too much.
 
Some good questions here, using headphones won't work when I'm on the punch bag. I want the best sound I can get in the space I have. Do ceiling speakers sound good enough that I can avoid the clutter of boxes? For some reason I feel weird about the thought of having sonos. Aren't they more about convenience over sound quality?
Putting a Dali kubik one soundbar ticks all the boxes but it won't be bassy enough for me.
 
Either that or do it the old way.. pair of used Bose 301's with a half decent used amp and mp3 player plugged in ;) classic old gym
 
Bose? I've not heard a Bose system in years, I thought audiophiles say Bose are terrible for good sound. Are 301s special in some way?
 
It’s hard to know where to start with actives.

For the biggest, bassist sound (non sub augmented) and the least outlay, but still with impressive sound quality, you’d not get better than a pair of these. A daft bargain.


Add one of the new ifi Air dacs.


And use an old phone, or a cheap tablet as a source.

Inexpensive, easily loud enough and bassy enough sound for a gym and keeping the sound quality, clarity and a dash of finesse all for less than £400.
 
If you’d like to spend a little more then the Adam T8V will certainly do the job.

 
Bose? I've not heard a Bose system in years, I thought audiophiles say Bose are terrible for good sound. Are 301s special in some way?
They are not particularly special no.. but for a small gym environment, they rock ok.. shoved on say ,... a nad 3240 classic of just 40w/c .. they sing ok for the job needed..
They are not the last word in audiophile by any means lol... but they are cheap and cheerful :)
You do need a fair gap behind them though due to that rear firing treble design lol.. thats an annoyance ..

but my nod to the 301 was just a provoking thought to a cheap as chips used market that would "do" the job.. plenty of better speakers out there.. but it was just a pointer to that used market :)
 
And, if you’d like to go a little daft, with a calibrated mega wall of sound, then...

 
The tannoys look interesting but; I have Dali Menuet in one room and dali Rubicon 5 in main room, that's what I'm acclimatized to ATM.
I'll have a look around the thoman site for reviews.
 
The tannoys look interesting but; I have Dali Menuet in one room and dali Rubicon 5 in main room, that's what I'm acclimatized to ATM.
I'll have a look around the thoman site for reviews.
Ah.. well.. if you have Dali currently... why not check out the DALI ZENSOR 1 AX for the gym ?
they are Dali's active bookshelf speakers with a pair of 50W amps shoved inside and bluetooth connectivity.. you can usually pick those up for around £325 on a few auction sites these days
DALI ZENSOR 1 AX - The wireless compact loudspeaker from the ZENSOR AX series
You can use Bluetooth and Apt-X if your device supports it, you can connect an analogue source with a mini-jack or an optical via TOSLink
 
The tannoys look interesting but; I have Dali Menuet in one room and dali Rubicon 5 in main room, that's what I'm acclimatized to ATM.
I'll have a look around the thoman site for reviews.

Aha. Both first class speakers.

If you haven’t heard proper active speakers before, I think you’ll be surprised at how very good they are.
 
You should consider Dali speakers because, unlike most other speakers, they are designed to be positioned with no toe in, the bookshelves can be mounted close to a wall. They have wider dispersion.
 
Dali are superb but they're difficult to drive. Most of the expensive ones are 4 ohms so I can only power 2 with a HiFi amp.
 
Dali are superb but they're difficult to drive. Most of the expensive ones are 4 ohms so I can only power 2 with a HiFi amp.
Ignore the 'nominal' ohm figure. There no such thing as 4 ohm speakers because impedance changes depending on frequency. Most good amps are designed to play 4 to 16 ohms.
They're easy to drive compared to some other speakers advertised as 6 or 8 ohms nominal.

My Dali opticons are advertised as 4 ohm nominal but they don't drop below 4 ohms. They are 4 to 11.5 depending on the frequency. The 11.5ohms is around 70 hz.

Here is an impedence curve:

IMG_20220312_131324.jpg


You can get 8 ohm nominally rated speakers that drop to below 4 ohms.

Are you looking to have 2 pairs of speakers?
 
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I can't decide what's best.
I have 2 Cambridge audio ceiling speakers that were on offer at RS. I replaced them for dali, so they're spare. I love the idea of using in ceiling speakers but if they sound crap on their own it'll be a waste of money. The amp is a Sony 570qs I think. It can run 4 x 8ohm or 2 x 4ohm speakers.
Box speakers will sound better but they're boxes that need to go somewhere.
 

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