OT - Need a new shop stereo Amp

We use Pandora for our shop radio via a headphone jack connection to a desktop computer. It covers a 1000 sq/ft. area via eight basic 120watt speakers positioned two per wall alternating right and left so that you can hear stereo from anywhere in the shop, despite the area being full of equipment, pallet racks, shelves, etc. The speakers are all wired with approx. 50 ft. each stereo wire to the desktop which is in an office in the middle of the shop. Each speaker also has an inline volume control below it so people can turn it down/off if needed.

In between the PC and the speakers we used to use a pair of Insignia home stereo amps piggy-backed together to give enough amps and connections for the eight speakers. Then I found an old Onkyo amp with enough amps and connections to do everything on it's own (or so I thought), but it ended up being a nightmare trying to set-up speaker wattage, zones, Dolby Digital stuff and other garbage that I can't see any use for, and now it seems to be overloading as it's not the right amp for the job. We're not blasting high def base trying to overpower the other shop din, just giving some background tunes to keep our sanity. There are no sub woofers and there isn't really a "back" or "front" to the area.

For now I went back to the Insignia amps, but does anyone have any recommendations for a super simple 1000w home stereo amp with a single channel input, eight speaker outputs, and.... nothing else? Less of a "home theater" and more of a department store muzak set-up.

If you search, there are frequent threads on this. Consensus is throw the amp in the trash and buy powered PA speakers.

1000 sq ft is real small for larger speakers. You don't need much. My shop is 7k and a pair of 400W JBL Eon G2's will shake the ground at 5% volume. These are the speakers they use at live shows.

I bought mine cheap from a megachurch that was upgrading to new stuff.

Adcom GFA555 is a good amp, and can seen from time to time at very reasonably prices.

If you think you really need 1000w here ya go, but with 1200 square feet I was getting complaints about the noise from a pair of 60's ...

https://www.ebay.com/p/1203896754?iid=184985735559

Not entirely clear to me how you have this wired - but watch the mix of serial and parallel connections - particularly parallel. Most amps groan if connected to anything below a 4ohm load.

I'd personally use a series parallel circuit to keep 8 ohms impedence per channel, and just have an amp that can drive 8 ohms at 1000 watts between channels.

I see many amps on amazon or ebay that fit this description for under $200, but wattage of speakers and amps is about as trustworthy as the horsepower rating of a vacuum, so it would be nice to know how many watts you will actually be using.

I intend to use a bunch of POE speakers (on a power management switch to cut power when idle, or at least low quiescent current speakers) in a bunch of zones but that doesn't cleanly fit your power requirements or use case.

Strostkovy said:

wattage of speakers and amps is about as trustworthy as the horsepower rating of a vacuum

Click to expand...

746 watts is one horsepower, so 1000 does seem a mite excessive to me ... unless you are sammy hagar

M.B. Naegle said:

We use Pandora for our shop radio via a headphone jack connection to a desktop computer. It covers a 1000 sq/ft. area via eight basic 120watt speakers positioned two per wall alternating right and left so that you can hear stereo from anywhere in the shop, despite the area being full of equipment, pallet racks, shelves, etc. The speakers are all wired with approx. 50 ft. each stereo wire to the desktop which is in an office in the middle of the shop. Each speaker also has an inline volume control below it so people can turn it down/off if needed.

In between the PC and the speakers we used to use a pair of Insignia home stereo amps piggy-backed together to give enough amps and connections for the eight speakers. Then I found an old Onkyo amp with enough amps and connections to do everything on it's own (or so I thought), but it ended up being a nightmare trying to set-up speaker wattage, zones, Dolby Digital stuff and other garbage that I can't see any use for, and now it seems to be overloading as it's not the right amp for the job. We're not blasting high def base trying to overpower the other shop din, just giving some background tunes to keep our sanity. There are no sub woofers and there isn't really a "back" or "front" to the area.

For now I went back to the Insignia amps, but does anyone have any recommendations for a super simple 1000w home stereo amp with a single channel input, eight speaker outputs, and.... nothing else? Less of a "home theater" and more of a department store muzak set-up.

Click to expand...

Superman eat'cher heart out - I may have found a new hero!

I just run a pr of Carver Cubes in 6000'.


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Cortez the Killer
Ox

I went a different direction, and linked 6 JBL Charge 4s together (continuously plugged in) and spaced them around the shop. Blue toothed them to a PC and it's working great. Plenty loud enough to override all the sounds in the shop (machines, tumblers, compressors, etc.)

I'm guessing that 1,000ft is a typo?
I have a pair of Peavy 18" cabs, on 125wats each, in 1,800ft, and I bet I can make you leave the room.
Looking to upgrade soon actually. The Peavey's are a little "bitey" in the upper midrange sometimes.

Ox, if you need a spare cube? Let me know (M400 right?). I have one sitting on a shelf I'll probably never use again (impressive little bastards!).

wheelieking71 said:

I'm guessing that 1,000ft is a typo?
I have a pair of Peavy 18" cabs, on 125wats each, in 1,800ft, and I bet I can make you leave the room.
Looking to upgrade soon actually. The Peavey's are a little "bitey" in the upper midrange sometimes.

Ox, if you need a spare cube? Let me know (M400 right?). I have one sitting on a shelf I'll probably never use again (impressive little bastards!).

Click to expand...

I bought a pair of 400W JBLs a few years ago. Hooked them up outside just to see what theyd do. Sounded just fine, maybe a bit loud a few hundred yards away. They're not PA speakers, either. Just hi-fi stuff.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

To quote an old Craig car stereo advert "What are you, deaf ?"....

wheelieking71 said:

I'm guessing that 1,000ft is a typo?
I have a pair of Peavy 18" cabs, on 125wats each, in 1,800ft, and I bet I can make you leave the room.
Looking to upgrade soon actually. The Peavey's are a little "bitey" in the upper midrange sometimes.

Ox, if you need a spare cube? Let me know (M400 right?). I have one sitting on a shelf I'll probably never use again (impressive little bastards!).

Click to expand...

Upper range was the main reason that I went away from a Yamaha amp and bought the Carvers.
The Yamaha was just too ... "sharp" (?) - for DJ porpoises. Prolly sound better in the house?

I don't think that I ever blew a horn out again after that change.

I used it in the shop for many years after that, but it eventually died.
One of my cubes is dead right now too, but I have 2 spares, so ...
(other 2 not been under power in nigh on 20 yrs prolly, in cold storage too)

I don't think I'm buyin' cubes right now - since I have 4 total right now, and they seem to fetch more on Ebay now than I paid for them >30 yrs ago!
They must have a cult following?
Maybe Trump endorsed them or something?


Hate to semi-sidetrack the thread this early, but it doesn't seem to have much gong on, so ...
At least I can top the thread....



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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

wheelieking71 said:

I'm guessing that 1,000ft is a typo?
I have a pair of Peavy 18" cabs, on 125wats each, in 1,800ft, and I bet I can make you leave the room.
Looking to upgrade soon actually. The Peavey's are a little "bitey" in the upper midrange sometimes.

Ox, if you need a spare cube? Let me know (M400 right?). I have one sitting on a shelf I'll probably never use again (impressive little bastards!).

Click to expand...

Best sounding midrange and up speakers I ever heard (no distortion at high levels) was some
brand of ribbon speakers. They hogged power, but did not distort in your ears, even with pipe organs, or Led Zepplin...

For shop purposes I like powered PA-style speakers. Mackie is one of the original players, but there are plenty of reputable companies that build a Bluetooth enabled, powered speaker. Even more so that aren’t reputable, IMHO…

Otherwise, it’s “run what you brung” so long as whatever components you have keep running.

Typically shops are bigger, more open spaces, so bigger speakers, however they come, are warranted.

Most of the shop radios I’ve had were effectively the biggest amp/receiver that could be mustered paired with the largest-driver speakers.

In my personal shop I’ve got an Adcom pre-amp and monoblock amp pushing four decently sized Polk speakers wired in series.

No “Quadraphonic” sound, only stereo.

If I blow a speaker I’ll be on the hunt for something comparable.

I don’t ever see blowing the Adcom(s), from what I know of them.

If the whole shebang happens to catch fire, I’ll likely be on the hunt for a set of two or four powered PA style speakers, all the same. They’re cheap, they’re REALLY FUCKING LOUD! and they can be linked together, to play music from my phone, without having to run speaker wire.

As a result, if I’m having to work out in the parking lot I can drag a speaker out there with me…

I can take the speaker(s) with me to a job site.

They also sell the powered speakers singly, so if you do blow a driver or crossover or channel or whatever, on your wired setup, you don’t feel bad about pitching the mate to the blown speaker.

The biggest limit is the coverage of WiFi/Bluetooth.



I grew up with a set of Magnapan speakers in the house. The ribbon speaker concept was way cool… in the late 70’s. They’re power hogs and not really fit for any of the shop environments I’ve been around. I’ve read Wired magazine articles about newer than ribbon-speaker tech that can effectively use a pane of glass as a massive speaker driver.

All the same, there’s two choices in my mind, but amp and speakers with a lot of speaker wire or individual powered speakers to suit the space and taste.




Be safe






Jeremy

When I was in the Army just used and installed Toa PA gear. Got the gig as the 'PA guy' on base. There were worse jobs to be lumbered with, so no complaints.

Cost- dunno, but it didnt let me down.

Can hook up device at the amp to cater for the music stuff.

Then you can have say a desktop mic and use the setup for PA stuff as well. Advice on this tho, if it has a hold down to talk switch take it out. Some clown left it locked down and their thoughts about a co-worker were broadcast to the whole shop!!

But yeah had smaller ceiling mount speakers in areas like lunchroom. Boss went crazy and told me to even put speakers in the "reading room" - toilets. Was big on stuff like random fire drills.

Ox said:

I don't think I'm buyin' cubes right now - since I have 4 total right now, and they seem to fetch more on Ebay now than I paid for them >30 yrs ago!

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

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Click to expand...

I was basically offering it for the cost of shipping
I quit selling electronics about 6 years ago when paypal raked me over the coals on a $1500 scam deal on a super rare high-end 12v amp I sold.
Amp was mint. Dude filed a claim. Said amp showed up DOA. Paypal took his side. The amp I got back was not the amp I sold.
That was the end of my on-line wheelin'/dealin' car audio. Good buddy of mine made it right for me! Old-school Car-audio is a small world, LOL
But, I was still just done after that. I still have a couple pallets worth sitting here on the rack. They will probably be wall art someday.
Dude I have known on-line through car-audio for 20 years was vacationing here last week. He swung by. First time we ever met in person, LOL.
It is weird to meet somebody for the first time, yet its like you have known them forever. Gave him an old pair of JBL 1500GTi subs that need re-coned.
Again because I'm not interested in selling or shipping them. To many scammers in that world. And I know he will fix them. So its all good.

I'm sure that can happen.

I'm in the middle of what could be that myself, only I am on the other end...
With a Fanuc amp.
Have had that with Siemens units in the past as well tho.

Kind'a makes a fella feel sorta slimey when you have to tell a seller that his unit comes up dark.
How does that seller know whether to believe you?
And like you said - I could ship them back a different unit.
Did they mark theirs in a secret way and document it?

There are plenty of folks that end up with stuff like this out of maintenance dept's and whatnot that have no way to test, and don't know if it is a rebuildable core, or a unit ready to install, so it can be a crap shoot sometimes.


Wall art - like you don't have enough broken bike (sled?) parts to fill all your wall space?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Ox said:

How does that seller know whether to believe you?
And like you said - I could ship them back a different unit.
Did they mark theirs in a secret way and document it?

Click to expand...

That's what most people do on Taobao. Not even secret, they use their own little stickers and if it's gone, too damn bad, no return.

Also, lots of times you can record the serial number on the boards.

Unfortunate for wheelie but experience is what you get when everything turns to shit ...

Ok, thanks for the replies.

A bit more research over the weekend, and I'm starting to understand more about what I don't understand!

So... the wattage I calculated off of the two largest speakers we have, 120W Insignia's. The others are smaller but also older yard sale finds and free-bee's from past employee's, and as they die they're getting replaced with more of the 120W Insignia's for uniformity (I've got two to replace currently). My general electrical wiring knowledge wanted an amp big enough to power all of that, but as I'm learning, that's a lot more watts than we need, or will likely even get to. The two Insignia amps are 200W a piece and I set them up in tandem as they would overload on their own and there weren't enough connections. The overload issue I found had to do with how many speakers were on each connection, not so much the total wattage, so I've bought a splitter that should solve the problem and I'll be back to a single Insignia amp. The Insignia amps are early 2000's vintage and nice and simple, but one had two speaker connections and the other had four. Even If we have all 120w speakers in the place, the 200w amp should be sufficient for our space so long as I keep the watts balanced between the connections.