Shop Radio/CD Players?

I have a pc based MP3 player in my shop/garage. It has lived through 4 years of dust, heat, humidity a fire and still works fine ... PCs are a lot tougher than people would have you believe.

I have a $5 garage sale Kenwood stereo, a $5 Sony CD Walkman, and some Wharfdale speakers from U-Bid. I also have a DeWalt jobsite radio I found on the side of the road. Used stereo equipment is EVERYWHERE at tag and garage sales.

Who cares? My stuff was incredibly cheap.

Blow it out, when you remember, with compressed air. Garage sales are your friend for this stuff.

PS. I LOVE my XM radio in the shop!

Barry

FWIW, I've had a Sony CD Walkman, plugged into an old receiver and AC adaptor in the shop for over 10 years. All you need to do is hit it with compressed air or vacuum it out on occasion.

Barry

I have an old broken down boom box with a dead cassette. My daughter gave me a CD player a couple of years age. I made a small cover (wood frame) that keeps the dust out of it. Works for me.

Grant

B a r r y wrote:

I use a $25 radio/tape/cd player from K/Wal Mart. Every year or so I blow it down with the air tip. Ed

Yup, that's exactly the way I'm gonna go (even Ogg Vorbis, believe it or don't). I just need to get Linux on one of my old, cruddy PCs and I'm set.

Thanks for all the advice -- it sounds like as long as I lean more toward a used $10 POS than a premium $20K sound system, I should be all right :-)

Darin

I have the cheapest CD boombox available at wally world in the shop ($24.99). I put it in my cabinet, which has mosquito screen doors. The really fine dust can get at it in small quantities, but a quick wipe with a cloth now and then cures that cosmetic problem. It's worked flawlessly for over a year.

I purposefully bought the cheapest because I figure dust is going to have the same effect on a $30 laser that it will on the $150 laser.

Since you probably don't have mesh doors on your cabinets, maybe you can use one of those mosquito tents that they advertise for food on picnic tables, or make a frame and cover it with a finer mesh.

Darin notes:

I think I paid 45 bucks for mine, probably at WalMart, 4-5 years ago. It's a POS in that the triple tray for CDs doesn't work and the extended play for the tapes doesn't work, but it sounds OK. Leave the 20K stuff for the kids with $800 cars.

Charlie Self "In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office." Ambrose Bierce

Cheap.

I have lots of CD players. Right this minute I only have _one_ that is still in working order (don't even mention Richer Sounds to me 8-( ), and that's the cheap piece-o-junk that hangs on the wall near the sawbench. It's full of dust, occasionally I stick the vacuum hose near it and get the worst. Plays CDs fine....

Where you put it will be important. Get one with a remote control, and then put the unit up high (top of a cabinet in my case) or other location where dust is minimal but ventilation is adequate. The speakers are pretty much impervious to dust, so put them where ever.

--

I agree with the others who've responded with the cheap garage sale receiver/boombox/whatever. Screw the CD player. My cheapie used one has a remote control which lets me put the receiver & speakers way up on a shelf out of the way.

Since I have ripped all my CD's and have the mp3's on one of the computers, I got one of these:

Down in the shop (or anywhere on the homestead for that matter) I simply tune in MY channel and life is good. No commercials, no DJ BS, & exactly the music I feel like listening to that day. I can't change the playlist from the shop, but that's NBD to me.

Art

I modified an old drawer box that I had laying around, by putting a wood frame, covered in speaker cloth, on the opening. Drilled a hole in the back and wired a cheap muffin fan right into the line cord. I've got a little sponge filter that came from an old lawn mower tune-up kit, that I just stuffed into the hole that the fan sits in front of.

My theory was that I would have filtered air coming in and positive pressure in the box containing the boomer.

Seems to work OK.

(watson - who was too bone idle to wire the muffin fan to the switch, and so puts up with having to plug the unit in every time he uses it.)

Regards, Tom.

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.) tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

I run MPXPLAY an DOS solution that takes keyboard commands so remote control is easy (use a bare keyboard card and relays or switches for the keys) You can run Winamp from a numeric pad tho (next, repeat, go back). Again that can be a bare keyboard card. My garage player runs from a 3W1 Seeburg 'wallbox" in the pool bar but I can still do "next" etc in the garage. There is a chip you can get to interface right from any remote that talks "Sony"

Just another thought on this. The powered speaker sets designed for use as computer accessories can sound reasonably decent. Their advantage (other than small size) is that they can be run off of a Discman type CD player that can be kept in a drawer to minimize exposure to dust. That's what I do and I'm fairly happy with it.

Cheers, Mike

I bought a Sony am/fm/cd player that is small, portable, and water resistant. Works great. Every now and then I vacuum out the CD player chamber. Even got a free t-shirt from Sony. Can't beat that with a piece of liver. mahalo, jo4hn

On Thu, 13 May 2004 10:21:31 -0500, "@44clarence.com>" brought forth from the murky depths:

I've decided to hum along with the dust collector with the earmuffs on during the cutting, "Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.", then shut the beasties off, take the muffs off and listen to the hand plane go "scritch, scritch, scritch" across the fresh wood.

Lovely music.

----------------------------------------------------------------- When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction. --Steven Wright ----------------------------