Nothing is better than walking into the gym after a long day, shutting the door and forgetting about the rest of the world. Whether your workout is half an hour or two hours, a workout can make all your troubles disappear. Having your favourite music playing to pump you up makes things even better. Your music changes your workout – whether it’s Metallica, Taylor Swift or Beethoven. To get the most motivation from your music, you need the right home gym speakers.
If you’re like a lot of people, you might just go for a random Bluetooth speaker on Amazon. Maybe you pick it based on the price. Perhaps the 5-star rating will get you. But there is more to picking out the ideal sound system for your home gym.
The right sound system isn’t just the one that is the loudest. It is the one that sounds good, doesn’t shake the house and is friendly on your wallet.
Below I walk you through a few things to consider when considering a home gym speaker system.
You may also want to check out my article on the first 4 things you should buy for your home gym.
The Basics of Sound
Before we get into how to pick a speaker or sound system for your home gym. There are a few basic components of sound that are critical to understand. Many of these terms we hear thrown around, but we might not really understand what they mean.
What Sounds Are
The first thing that we need to understand is that sound travels in waves. It’s pretty crazy to think about, but everything we hear is just based on pressure waves of different length and amplitude traveling through the air. When air particles are compressed fast enough we hear it as sound. (source)
When speakers move back and forth, they create pressure waves at different frequencies. This changes air pressure and creates sound waves that we hear as sound waves.
How Speakers Work
Speakers convert electrical energy into mechanical energy. To convert the electrical signal into mechanical energy requires an electromagnet. This is a voice coil that creates a magnetic field as electricity flows through it.
There is a permanent magnet that surrounds the voice coil. As electrical energy passes through the voice coil, its magnetic field is rapidly changed. This causes a pulsing of the permanent magnet.
The permanent magnet is connected to the cone. The cone is what we see pulsing in speakers. This cone is what most people consider the ‘speaker’.
The back and forth motion of the cone is what creates the changes in air pressure that leads to sound waves moving across the room. Our ears interpret these waves as sounds.
Amplifier
If you are a live music buff, you have probably heard all about amps. Their use, however, can often be misunderstood. As the name suggests, amplifiers are used to change a low-power electrical audio signal into a larger signal that is enough to create discernible sounds out of a speaker.
Typically, the electrical sound signal from the original source of sound is measured in microwatts. Microwatts are a small unit of energy (one one-millionth of a watt). Whereas, the sound output of a clock radio is a couple of watts. The output from a home gym system will be around 50-100 watts.
Although you can buy a stand-alone amplifier, you probably don’t need one for your garage gym sound system. Unless you want to go out and deck your home gym out with a home theatre surround sound system. However, most speakers on the market will have built-in amplifiers to make sure the sound is crisp, and the output is correct.
One thing to consider is that most amplifiers will distort sound once you get above ¾ of the stereo system’s max volume. This is why you might notice that speakers actually sound worse when you turn them up all the way! If you have to turn your speaker up to nearly max to hear your music, it is probably time for a new speaker. (source)
Intensity/Decibels
Decibel (dB) refers to how loud a sound is. It is a logarithmic way to describe a ratio.
If it has been a minute since you took a high school math class, let me review logarithms for you. It is essentially another way to look at exponents. When referring to decibels, we are looking at logarithm with a base of 10.
This means that of every number we are multiplying 10 by itself a certain number of times.
If we have 102, it is equal to 10*10 =100. Or 104 is 10*10*10*10=10,000
So, what does this mean when we are talking about sounds?
On the decibel scale, the quietest sound that we can hear is considered 0 dB. A sound that is 10 times louder than the quietest sound we can hear is measured at 10 dB. A sound 100 times louder than the quietest sound we can hear is 20 dB, and so on.
Using the decibel scale allows for a huge range of sounds to be represented easily. For instance, something 1 million times louder than the quietest sound we can hear is considered 120 dB. This makes it a lot easier to talk about than if we had to say something was 1 million ‘units’ loud.
Any sound above 85 dB can cause hearing loss. For instance, a lawnmower is about 90 dB. Basically, something is above 85 dB if you have to raise your voice above normal to be heard by someone else. Therefore, it is probably likely that your home gym set-up will be hovering around the 85+ dB level most of the time.
Just be aware that listening to 90 dB sounds for extended periods of time can cause permanent damage to your ears. (source)
- 0 dB: softest noise that can be heard
- 20 dB: ticking watch
- 60 dB: normal conversation
- 80-85 dB: city traffic when you are inside your car
- 95 dB: motorcycle
- 105-110: very loud radios/TVs
- 120 dB: ambulance sirens
- 140 dB: physical pain for the loudness (source)
Reverberation and Absorption
The surfaces in your room will affect the sound. Reverberation is how sound bounces off of things. Absorptive surfaces, on the other hand, don’t allow sound waves to bounce off them. And as the name suggests, absorptive surfaces absorb the sounds that hit them. (source)
A room can either be loud or quiet depending on furniture (equipment) in the room. In the case of a home gym, the room is most likely a loud room. It makes sense that a home gym is relatively loud if you think of all the metal and hard surfaces. Sound waves are going to bounce of metal plates, rubber flooring, and squat racks.
If you are wondering about why most gyms have rubber flooring, check out my article on home gym flooring here.
Speakers and Room Size
It is most likely that your home gym will be a fairly small space. Audio Gurus classify a small room as anything under 1500 ft3 and medium room as 1500-3000 ft3. (Keep in mind those measurements are feet cubed. So, this takes into account the height of the room too).
A single car garage, which often doubles as a home gym, is 16×24 feet in width and length. Garages usually have a height of about 7-8 feet. So, if we converted a single car garage into a garage gym it would have a total area of 2688 ft3. This would classify as a medium room, as per the Audio Gurus.
Based on this room size, you are probably going to be about 10-15 feet from your speaker at most times. For a small to medium-sized room, you should be looking for a 50-watt speaker or so.
Gym music will mostly be in the background when you are lifting, so a few wireless bookshelf speakers like the Sonos One Gen 2 (check it out on Amazon) would be a great option.
Basically, you are looking for speakers that produce room-filling audio, without shaking your house. Remember, you are in your gym to better yourself, not to introduce your neighbours to your favourite Metallica song.
Last Considerations for Your Home Gym Speakers
If you decide to forgo small shelf-type speakers like the Sonos ones I mentioned earlier, there is one rule of thumb when it comes to the height of floor speakers. It’s is well understood in the audiophile world (which I just learned is a thing) that floor speakers shouldn’t be more than 50% of the height of the ceiling. So, if you have 8 ft ceilings, your speakers shouldn’t be greater than 4 ft tall. Any taller than 50% of the ceiling height and the sounds will get distorted and can be overpowering.
Additionally, there is a concept called critical distance. Essentially, you want to make sure your speakers are in the right spot in the room. Preferably 10-12 feet away from you for most speakers and directed toward where you will be. The direction part can be tough in home gyms because we are always moving around. However, I would set mine up to be directed toward/centered on where I spend most of my time. Personally, I do most of my lifting out of my squat rack, so I would direct the speakers toward there.
Finally, bigger isn’t necessarily better. You don’t want to just get the biggest or loudest speaker you can find. Getting a speaker system that is appropriate for the size of your room is the key. You want there to be a good interplay between the volume of the speaker and space from the speaker to you, the listener. Having a speaker that is too powerful will overwhelm the room (which might actually be good for the odd 1 rep max).