Shop audio video set-ups

[Jude Ephesus]

In-line with @Ulu ’s skinny bike build, I was totally impressed with his vintage/classic stereo set up in his shop. -I’d love to see others!!!!!

(My wife liked your bike Halloween guy…. BUT only when he was done! I showed her the “bare bones” pics and she was repulsed! Lol)

Much like our bikes, I like and fix up a lot of old stuff.

About a year ago, My mom was moving to her retirement home and cleaning out / liquidating her house of years of accumulated stuff….

She had a vintage “stereo” she kept in a formal living room that I used to listen to as a boy: from records to magical high school football games where I dreamed of one day being a player.

Had to keep it, and make it work.

I thought it was a console stereo, but after tearing into it for resto -mod, I realized a very creative craftsman converted an old dresser to a homemade console stereo.

I’m guessing this was made by someone in the late 60’ to early 70’s.

 

[Jude Ephesus]

Here’s the tear down and build.

 

[Jude Ephesus]

-I added the woofers in the botttom of the dresser. The ”floor” had already been replaced with 3/4” plywood.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Every time I turn music on in the house, the kids run in screaming with their ears covered and turn it off. I should get a system for the garage

 

[Ulu]

When I was a kid I used to go around picking up discarded radios and televisions and such, so I had a large collection of bare speakers. I built a speaker cabinet from a large console television that I ran off my crappy little plastic mono phonograph.

I have built all kinds of speaker boxes and arrays over the years. I once built a set of 4 foot tall folded horn enclosures. They had some of the most beautiful midbass transient response I ever heard, but you could not apply any low bass. This was way before the era of the electronic subwoofer, which would have cured the problem.

I scrapped out my mom’s old Danish Modern Zenith vacuum tube console stereo about 30 years ago, just for the speakers. I built the cabinet into a hope chest. I wish I had kept the guts.

Somewhere I still have a box of hoarded vacuum tubes, wrapped individually in toilet paper. I don’t have any old equipment that runs on vacuum tubes anymore. Someday, maybe I’ll get a vacuum tube guitar amplifier.

 

[Jude Ephesus]

Every time I turn music on in the house, the kids run in screaming with their ears covered and turn it off. I should get a system for the garage

After jamming my “new” stereo a few weeks during my winter workouts, I was given authorization to buy some nice, used Bose headphones off of eBay!!!!!

 

[Jude Ephesus]

When I was a kid I used to go around picking up discarded radios and televisions and such, so I had a large collection of bare speakers. I built a speaker cabinet from a large console television that I ran off my crappy little plastic mono phonograph.

I have built all kinds of speaker boxes and arrays over the years. I once built a set of 4 foot tall folded horn enclosures. They had some of the most beautiful midbass transient response I ever heard, but you could not apply any low bass. This was way before the era of the electronic subwoofer, which would have cured the problem.

I scrapped out my mom’s old Danish Modern Zenith vacuum tube console stereo about 30 years ago, just for the speakers. I built the cabinet into a hope chest. I wish I had kept the guts.

Somewhere I still have a box of hoarded vacuum tubes, wrapped individually in toilet paper. I don’t have any old equipment that runs on vacuum tubes anymore. Someday, maybe I’ll get a vacuum tube guitar amplifier.

Awesome!!! I can piece together major components, but stuff you’re doing with tubes, resistors and pots…. Not so much!!!!!

 

[Captain Awesome]

After jamming my “new” stereo a few weeks during my winter workouts, I was given authorization to buy some nice, used Bose headphones off of eBay!!!!!

Same. After late evenings with the iPod dock a bit too high I've now transitioned to just using headphones as well

 

[Ulu]

@Jude Ephesus My stereo in the shed is a fairly decent quality stereo, for 1970, But it was built before the real start of the consumer stereo power wars. It’s rated 17 watts X4, which doesn’t sound like much, but the speakers were very efficient.

That was the point in time when stereo equipment ratings turned into a total circus, where you could not compare things easily, because the ratings were designed to mislead you.

This is not the shop, but a photograph inside my house. The main area is like a big L in plan.

If I actually want to hear real stereo at home, without wearing headphones, I usually go to the office or the shed.

I posted this photograph (Taken at Christmas last year) to give you an appreciation of the acoustic problems of listening to stereo in my house. My house has bedrooms and bathrooms distanced, by a long hall, from this: everything else.

Here I am sitting between the kitchen stove and the sink on the countertop looking out across the kitchen and dining room, at the TV room and the parlor. The tall brown cabinet blocks your view of the foyer, but it is all connected into one awkward acoustic space of 4 physical rooms.

It’s an acoustic nightmare.

Under the TV is a Pioneer 7.1 w/100 watts x7 discrete amps. Plus 300 watt Yamaha dual cone sub, so 1000 watts RMS** in a space that wants maybe 25 LOL. It is total overkill in this tiny area.

Ultimately, I have enough power to blow the roof off, but there is no way to hear proper stereo sound (or surround sound) unless you are seated in front of the television, looking right at it.

Anyhow, as sound systems go it was an exercise in futility. I prefer traditional stereo music and I don’t like surroundsound that much. It’s sort of a gimmick to me

** Not all of the boxes can take 100 W RMS. The main channel JBL L100s do easily, but none of the 7 surrounds can. If you noticed that makes it 9.1 instead of 7.1, that’s quite right. I have two center channel speakers as an array, and there is a mid “ghost channel” between the rear channel speakers.

 

[Jude Ephesus]

@Jude Ephesus My stereo in the shed is a fairly decent quality stereo, for 1970, But it was built before the real start of the consumer stereo power wars. It’s rated 17 watts X4, which doesn’t sound like much, but the speakers were very efficient.

That was the point in time when stereo equipment ratings turned into a total circus, where you could not compare things easily, because the ratings were designed to mislead you.

This is not the shop, but a photograph inside my house. The main area is like a big L in plan.
View attachment 215802
If I actually want to hear real stereo at home, without wearing headphones, I usually go to the office or the shed.

I posted this photograph (Taken at Christmas last year) to give you an appreciation of the acoustic problems of listening to stereo in my house. My house has bedrooms and bathrooms distanced, by a long hall, from this: everything else.

Here I am sitting between the kitchen stove and the sink on the countertop looking out across the kitchen and dining room, at the TV room and the parlor. The tall brown cabinet blocks your view of the foyer, but it is all connected into one awkward acoustic space of 4 physical rooms.

It’s an acoustic nightmare.

Under the TV is a Pioneer 7.1 w/100 watts x7 discrete amps. Plus 300 watt Yamaha dual cone sub, so 1000 watts RMS** in a space that wants maybe 25 LOL. It is total overkill in this tiny area.

Ultimately, I have enough power to blow the roof off, but there is no way to hear proper stereo sound (or surround sound) unless you are seated in front of the television, looking right at it.

Anyhow, as sound systems go it was an exercise in futility. I prefer traditional stereo music and I don’t like surroundsound that much. It’s sort of a gimmick to me

** Not all of the boxes can take 100 W RMS. The main channel JBL L100s do easily, but none of the 7 surrounds can. If you noticed that makes it 9.1 instead of 7.1, that’s quite right. I have two center channel speakers as an array, and there is a mid “ghost channel” between the rear channel speakers.

Love your place Ulu. If I had to choose between true stereo sound and an open house layout, I’m taking the open floor plan every time!!!

 

[Ulu]

Thanks Jude. I plowed most of my life's savings into this house and lot.

It’s not huge, but I wouldn’t want to be responsible for anything larger. It’s more than enough for us to keep clean.

 

[ingola]

Im an audio nut

These are just a few peices I have around the house my current listening set up is a luxman l10, Thorens Td 160 turntable and Elipson Colonne Design (handmade in France) theres also a pioneer sx1010 (the start of the receiver wars first to break 100 watts) there a fisher 500c in there (made in the US) Kenwood model 11, Sony. I have many more including several marantz systems, McIntosh, more Luxman, Several sansui. Speakers are a little out of control to including Klipsch, to many turntables. Most have been recapped, cleaned known bad transistors replaced. Been restoring for about 20 years.

 

[Ulu]

That sounds like a pretty serious collection!

I’ve never owned anything really upscale. My main monitors are JBL L100s from the 70s. That’s as good as it’s ever gotten. My turntable is a Realistic, my cartridge is a low end Audio Technica, I have a modern seven channel Pioneer. My older equipment makes it look like Tupperware.

What is this one? It looks very familiar to me.

 

[ingola]

That sounds like a pretty serious collection!

I’ve never owned anything really upscale. My main monitors are JBL L100s from the 70s. That’s as good as it’s ever gotten. My turntable is a Realistic, my cartridge is a low end Audio Technica, I have a modern seven channel Pioneer. My older equipment makes it look like Tupperware.

What is this one? It looks very familiar to me.
View attachment 225467

Optonica high end Sharp believe it or not. It's a tank. I don't collect much anymore prices are through the roof now that everything is collectable and records are cool again . Those l100s are no slouch fantastic speakers. I listen to a lot off punk rock so all the upscale stuff does is show me how badly it was recorded. I started collecting in highschool I was the poor kid so I would grab it out of the rich kids garbage most of the gear just needed cleaning.

 

[Pestcontrol02]

this is what I use..

 

[ingola]

this is what I use..
View attachment 225472

All you need

 

[Ulu]

this is what I use..
View attachment 225472

But wait… Is that a Wilton vise?

 

[Pestcontrol02]

But wait… Is that a Wilton vise?

No, it’s a cheap harbor freight 3”- I got it on clearance because it was missing a nut.
edit: missing a nut, not a bolt.

 

[Ulu]

Optonica high end Sharp believe it or not. It's a tank. . . . I was the poor kid so I would grab it out of the rich kids garbage most of the gear just needed cleaning.

It looks remarkably like a Realistic I own, with “a tube that keeps blowing”, (according to the lady who tossed it.)

Another tank designed about 1970, but it is all solid state.

Unfortunately I don’t know enough about solid state equipment. I come from the vacuum tube era and I found stuff off the street corners in Duluth to scavenge parts or repair for myself.

I remember having 3 portable TVs, and I had a cheap phonograph with several used speakers in a gutted walnut cabinet scrounged from a big 1960s Zenith TV.

(How many times did my mother ask me, “What are you going to do with that thing?”)

 

[Ulu]

No, it’s a cheap harbor freight 3”- I got it on clearance because it was missing a bolt.
View attachment 225477

I have a big 6” Wilton vice. Only it was made in Mexico, and it’s really just a cheap copy. At least I got it “for free”, by hauling some tools in my truck for a fellow.