Help me fill our gym with music!
October 7, 2013 8:32 PM Subscribe
I'd like to set up an awesome DIY sound system so our entire (huge) gymnastics facility is all listening to the same music source at once. The size of the facility (about 600' by 100') is my stumbling block, and the technological specifications and suggestions I get from Google are making my head spin!
Our gymnastics facility is currently in the process expanding, extending our gym to about 600ft by 100ft (an old steel warehouse building with 30ft ceilings). In the older space, we have two separate receivers hooked to two different sets of speakers which frequently play two different stations (driving me insane one song at a time). Stereo 1 is using an old Motorola Droid 1 to run the Sirius app on wifi. Stereo 2 is usually on a local radio station (which I do not want to play because of the increasing number of penis ads). Ideally, we will be using the Droid to run the entire system.
Ultimately, I'd like to find help to determine what the best solution would be without spending a fortune. My questions:
- I've heard good things about Sonos, but would this work in such a large space? We do have wifi that reaches across the building.
- Would it be best to find wireless speakers for the farthest reach, or should I be buying 600 feet of speaker cable? What else should I be looking for in a speaker?
- Is a radio transmitter something to consider? (Something like this?) Or is it even legal to re-broadcast the satellite station?
- Should I just give up and call a professional?
Thanks in advance for the advice. :)
Our gymnastics facility is currently in the process expanding, extending our gym to about 600ft by 100ft (an old steel warehouse building with 30ft ceilings). In the older space, we have two separate receivers hooked to two different sets of speakers which frequently play two different stations (driving me insane one song at a time). Stereo 1 is using an old Motorola Droid 1 to run the Sirius app on wifi. Stereo 2 is usually on a local radio station (which I do not want to play because of the increasing number of penis ads). Ideally, we will be using the Droid to run the entire system.
Ultimately, I'd like to find help to determine what the best solution would be without spending a fortune. My questions:
- I've heard good things about Sonos, but would this work in such a large space? We do have wifi that reaches across the building.
- Would it be best to find wireless speakers for the farthest reach, or should I be buying 600 feet of speaker cable? What else should I be looking for in a speaker?
- Is a radio transmitter something to consider? (Something like this?) Or is it even legal to re-broadcast the satellite station?
- Should I just give up and call a professional?
Thanks in advance for the advice. :)
I personally use a series of Airport Express. It is nice especially if you have a WiFi network already setup and existing Apple hardware. Each Airport Express allows you to attach speakers via a 3.5mm jack and from your computer/iOS device, you can stream directly through AirPlay (with multiple speakers). To make it even sweeter/custom, I have used a program called AirFoil which allows you to stream music from any audio source on your computer.
posted by nathanm at 12:55 AM on October 8, 2013
posted by nathanm at 12:55 AM on October 8, 2013
You'll be needing to pay a licensing fee to the performing rights organizations if this is a commercial facility.
posted by spitbull at 4:00 AM on October 8, 2013
posted by spitbull at 4:00 AM on October 8, 2013
What's your budget? It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing that.
Also, how techincal are you and the people who will be using this daily?
I have a C Crane fm transmitter. It's great but I'm not sure what the range is. This would be the cheapest option to start out with if you have existing audio equipment.
Sonos is great and easy to use. For ease of use, the all in one Play 5 units are great and they get quite loud if you need them to. They don't require a computer if you want to use streaming services or play music from a phone.
What's your intended music source? Still streaming? If you don't have a computer available all the time as the music source, I wouldn't recommend the airport express option.
I don't have a ton of experience with such lance spaces though.
posted by reddot at 4:18 AM on October 8, 2013
Also, how techincal are you and the people who will be using this daily?
I have a C Crane fm transmitter. It's great but I'm not sure what the range is. This would be the cheapest option to start out with if you have existing audio equipment.
Sonos is great and easy to use. For ease of use, the all in one Play 5 units are great and they get quite loud if you need them to. They don't require a computer if you want to use streaming services or play music from a phone.
What's your intended music source? Still streaming? If you don't have a computer available all the time as the music source, I wouldn't recommend the airport express option.
I don't have a ton of experience with such lance spaces though.
posted by reddot at 4:18 AM on October 8, 2013
Given the size and likely acoustics of your space, you may find that the various reflections and delays turn your music into unintelligible noise (especially with multiple speakers).
posted by ryanrs at 4:32 AM on October 8, 2013
posted by ryanrs at 4:32 AM on October 8, 2013
I think that the normal route to configuring a sound system for a space of this size would involve calling in a sound engineer who could ask the right questions, take the right measurements and then give you advice on what you need. As ryanrs points out, there is the issue of sound reflection and there is the question of the sound pressure levels you want, the degree to which you want these to be individually adjustable by zone, the levels of background noise you expect and the material your building is constructed from. For an example of some of the considerations see this pdf from Electrovoice - in particular page 14 "Know the Job". If you want your system to sound good - while also not getting in the way - then you need to take these things into account. And there will probably be a bit of adjusting required after installation.
posted by rongorongo at 5:53 AM on October 8, 2013
posted by rongorongo at 5:53 AM on October 8, 2013
ryanrs makes an excellent point - a steel box 60' x 100' with 30' ceilings is an acoustical nightmare. But the standard solution for this is to actually have a bunch of little speakers spread more-or-less evenly around the room. No individual speaker actually gets loud enough for the sound waves emanating from it to reflect off anything much, and the reflections and reverberations are masked because you're always in more-or-less direct earshot of a speaker.
The other key to making this work is you actually want the speakers above peoples' heads, pointed downward-ish. This way the sound isn't blocked or reflected or absorbed by people or walls or furniture or whatever, and less of the sound is going up into the ceiling to be reflected back and turning things into a garbled mess. If you look at the picture galleries for Capri's gym here, in some of the pictures you'll see some little black boxes hanging from the beams of the roof, and I'm 99% sure these are speakers. Stores and restaurants often have ceiling mount speakers (like these), and if getting up to or attaching things to the ceiling is impractical, there are speakers like this that come with mounting brackets so you can attach them to the wall or other structural components of the building.
In other words, your focus is a bit off - you're thinking of your issue as getting one source of music to multiple distribution points, whereas in my opinion your primary issue is getting the sound output distributed evenly around the room without it being too loud in some places and inaudible or unintelligible in others. In general, home stereo stuff won't really cut it.
So while I don't have any experience with the Sonos products, I doubt that they or other wireless speakers are really the solution you're looking for. "Room-filling sound" is one thing when you're talking about someone's 40' x 50' x 8' living room with lots of nice soft furniture and rugs and drywall and bookshelves to absorb and diffuse the sound, and another thing entirely when you're talking about a giant steel box full of people clanking around on the free weights and treadmills & such.
And along the same lines I'd stay away from any "radio" solutions because I think the chances of interference are high.
the degree to which you want these to be individually adjustable by zone
rongorongo touches on a good point here, which is to say, are you sure your patrons want all the same music everywhere and at the same volume? When we do similar installations in bars & restaurants, it's virtually inevitable that they'll want something like one volume for the bar area, another for the seated dinner area, and another for the separate "party room", with the option of the party room having a different source of music, and controllable volume for all three areas. I could certainly think of a case where the people over in this corner in the spinning class want some bumpin' dance music, while the people in that corner on the free weights would prefer silence.
I totally get that you've got the understandable urge to make a new music system part of the new space, but you might actually want to wait and get some input from your customers about what they'd like to hear, where and when and how loud. If same music everywhere, same volume is acceptable, you could possibly DIY it (although your insurance company might well prefer that someone with experience and their own liability policy take responsibility for putting things up where they could theoretically fall and injure someone, and it might be worth calling a pro just to skip the mental stress of trying to figure out something technical that you've got little or no experience with). Anything more complicated that that I would really suggest calling the pros. But definitely call more than one, and get more than one quote. Price and experience can vary widely - even if you've gotta pay a "consultation fee" to each company to have them come take a look and give you a quote, you could still save hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and you can definitely get a sense of whether a company is responsible and experienced with this kind of installation, or whether they're just winging it.
For now, I'd suggest just setting up both your old systems, one on each side of the room, get the speakers up at least a little higher on cheap bookshelves or something, and find another old phone or cheap tablet or someone brings in their laptop or something where you can get the same Sirius station playing on both systems. Then give it a couple of months and see what you really need or want before plunking down any serious cash.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:15 AM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
The other key to making this work is you actually want the speakers above peoples' heads, pointed downward-ish. This way the sound isn't blocked or reflected or absorbed by people or walls or furniture or whatever, and less of the sound is going up into the ceiling to be reflected back and turning things into a garbled mess. If you look at the picture galleries for Capri's gym here, in some of the pictures you'll see some little black boxes hanging from the beams of the roof, and I'm 99% sure these are speakers. Stores and restaurants often have ceiling mount speakers (like these), and if getting up to or attaching things to the ceiling is impractical, there are speakers like this that come with mounting brackets so you can attach them to the wall or other structural components of the building.
In other words, your focus is a bit off - you're thinking of your issue as getting one source of music to multiple distribution points, whereas in my opinion your primary issue is getting the sound output distributed evenly around the room without it being too loud in some places and inaudible or unintelligible in others. In general, home stereo stuff won't really cut it.
So while I don't have any experience with the Sonos products, I doubt that they or other wireless speakers are really the solution you're looking for. "Room-filling sound" is one thing when you're talking about someone's 40' x 50' x 8' living room with lots of nice soft furniture and rugs and drywall and bookshelves to absorb and diffuse the sound, and another thing entirely when you're talking about a giant steel box full of people clanking around on the free weights and treadmills & such.
And along the same lines I'd stay away from any "radio" solutions because I think the chances of interference are high.
the degree to which you want these to be individually adjustable by zone
rongorongo touches on a good point here, which is to say, are you sure your patrons want all the same music everywhere and at the same volume? When we do similar installations in bars & restaurants, it's virtually inevitable that they'll want something like one volume for the bar area, another for the seated dinner area, and another for the separate "party room", with the option of the party room having a different source of music, and controllable volume for all three areas. I could certainly think of a case where the people over in this corner in the spinning class want some bumpin' dance music, while the people in that corner on the free weights would prefer silence.
I totally get that you've got the understandable urge to make a new music system part of the new space, but you might actually want to wait and get some input from your customers about what they'd like to hear, where and when and how loud. If same music everywhere, same volume is acceptable, you could possibly DIY it (although your insurance company might well prefer that someone with experience and their own liability policy take responsibility for putting things up where they could theoretically fall and injure someone, and it might be worth calling a pro just to skip the mental stress of trying to figure out something technical that you've got little or no experience with). Anything more complicated that that I would really suggest calling the pros. But definitely call more than one, and get more than one quote. Price and experience can vary widely - even if you've gotta pay a "consultation fee" to each company to have them come take a look and give you a quote, you could still save hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and you can definitely get a sense of whether a company is responsible and experienced with this kind of installation, or whether they're just winging it.
For now, I'd suggest just setting up both your old systems, one on each side of the room, get the speakers up at least a little higher on cheap bookshelves or something, and find another old phone or cheap tablet or someone brings in their laptop or something where you can get the same Sirius station playing on both systems. Then give it a couple of months and see what you really need or want before plunking down any serious cash.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:15 AM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: spitbull: Thanks for the heads up. I checked today and Sirius for business has me covered since this is only for background music.
I'm not sure what our budget is - my boss is notoriously vague on budgets until I give her an idea of what we'll be spending. I would like to continue to stream Sirius, but I think there's a possibility that we may need to upgrade to a computer to run it all. I'm relatively tech-savvy, but none of my coworkers are, so after I set it up it needs to be very simple.
I do agree with ryanrs's point that the music will bounce around the walls and sound terrible. That's a very real concern, and makes me worry about the DIY aspect.
Our main customers are kids (gymnastics gyms), so they are just going to listen to what we play and not get a choice. Soundguy99, I think I'm going to take your advice about waiting it out and calling a pro when we get to that point. In the end, it'll make our business look more professional and save me some headaches. :) If you can recommend anyone in Pittsburgh, I'm all ears!
Thank you all very much for your help!
posted by denimflavored at 8:08 PM on October 8, 2013
I'm not sure what our budget is - my boss is notoriously vague on budgets until I give her an idea of what we'll be spending. I would like to continue to stream Sirius, but I think there's a possibility that we may need to upgrade to a computer to run it all. I'm relatively tech-savvy, but none of my coworkers are, so after I set it up it needs to be very simple.
I do agree with ryanrs's point that the music will bounce around the walls and sound terrible. That's a very real concern, and makes me worry about the DIY aspect.
Our main customers are kids (gymnastics gyms), so they are just going to listen to what we play and not get a choice. Soundguy99, I think I'm going to take your advice about waiting it out and calling a pro when we get to that point. In the end, it'll make our business look more professional and save me some headaches. :) If you can recommend anyone in Pittsburgh, I'm all ears!
Thank you all very much for your help!
posted by denimflavored at 8:08 PM on October 8, 2013
« Older If your baby liked "Feliz Navidad," they may also... | Where to buy large-diameter latex surgical tubing... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Capri at 9:29 PM on October 7, 2013